PARIS SIEGE

Southland Times, Issue 20204, 15 June 1927, Page 5

PARIS SIEGE

DRAMATIC ENDING. DAUDET SURRENDERS TO POLICE. HUMAN APPEAL OVERCOMES RESISTANCE. (Rec. 7 p.m.) Paris, June 13. The surrender of Daudet was most dramactic. A procession of motor cars drove through the police cordon. M. Chiappe the new Prefect of Police stepped up and shouted: “I want to speak to Daudet,” whereupon the Royalist leader appeared on the balcony haggard and intensely fatigued. M. Chiappe said, ‘Daudet, I am speaking to you as man to man. You must surrender as the blood you may spill will not bring back life to your boy.” For a few’ moments both faced each other. Hundreds of onlookers burst into tears. Daudet replied: “Monsieur le Prefect, you have used human language. I know that the forces behind me do not wish to cause bloodshed or cause civil war. I surrender.”—A. and N.Z. Amazing scenes were witnessed at the offices of the Royalist Leon Daudet’s newspaper Action Francaise. Daudet was due to surrender to undergo imprisonment for libelling the driver of a taxicab in which his son had been found shot. He refused to go, and said, “If the police want me they must fetch me.” Hundreds of Royalists were sworn in to prevent his arrest. They surrounded the six storey building and began constructing barbed wire and sandbag defences, while others, their pockets bulging with revolvers, carried mysterious boxes, supposed to contain machine guns into the premises. “I am fighting for the honour of my son,” said Daudet, addressing the crowd. “There are thousands of resolute men at my back prepared to face death.”