DAUDET SURRENDERS AS CROWD WEEPS

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 71, 15 June 1927, Page 1

DAUDET SURRENDERS AS CROWD WEEPS

DRAMATIC PARIS SCENE PREFECT’S HUMAN LANGUAGE’ By Cable.—Press Association.—Copyright PARIS, Mondaj’. The famous author and Royalist, M. Leon Daudet, who refused to go to gaol for libelling the driver of the taxi-cab in which his son Philippe was found dead in 1925, surrendered to th< police to-day. M. Daudet brad shut himself in at the offices of his newspaper, “Action Francaise,” and there, surrounded by numerous followers, he had, since Friday, defied the police to arrest him. The manner of his surrender was dramatic. A procession cf motor-cars drove through the police cordon. M. Chiappe, the new Prefect of Police, stepped up to the building and shouted: “I want to speak to M. Daudet.” Thereupon the Royalist leader appeared on the balcony. He looked haggard and intensely fatigued. M. Chiappe said: "M. Daudet, I am speaking to you as man to n-a You must surrender; otherwise blood may be spilled and that will not bring back life to your boy." For a few moment*. oo;i. ®uioU faced each other, and hundreds of the onlookers burst into tears. M. Daudet replied: “Monsieur Prefect, you have used human language. I know the forces behind me do not wish to cause bloodshed or to cause a civil w r ar. I therefore surrender.” —A. and N.Z. —Sun.