EXECUTIONS IN PARIS.

Globe, Volume II, Issue 178, 4 January 1875, Page 3

EXECUTIONS IN PARIS.

The double execution of Moreau and Boudas had been so often announced as imminent, and the crowd had been so often disappointed, that there were fewer people present on the Place de la Roquette, on Tuesday morning than might have been expected. A detachment of 150 men of the Garde de Paris arrived on the Place at three o’clock in the morning. Soon after a cart with the framework of the guillotine and M. Roch, the executioner, accompanied by two assistants, appeared. The Gardes de Paris formed three sides of a square round the fatal instrument, the crowd being thus prevented from approaching, and the figures of M. Roch and his assistants could only be dimly seen fitting about in their ghost-like white blouses. As piece by piece they erected the guillotine, not a word was to be heard. When all things were completed, M. Roch was seen to make a careful inspection of the guillotine by the light of a hand lantern. This done, he caused the knife to fall two or three times in order to assure himself that everything was in good working order. Then the executioner, accompanied by M. Claude, the head of the detective department, and Abbe Crozes, the chaplain of the prison, proceeded to Moreau’s, the wifepoisoner’s cell, to inform the doomed man that his last hour had come. Moreau was sleeping calmly when the fatal cortege entered his cell. He received the terrible announcement very quietly, and when asked by the Commissary of Police whether he had any statement to make, he merely replied that he was innocent. He was left alone with the priest for five or six minutes, and then the horrible operation known as the “toilette” begun. This consists in cutting away the hair from the back of the prisoner’s head and neck, as well as part of his upper garments, in order that the knife may have free play. During this operation Moreau did not utter a single word. Only when his legs was being shackled he remarked, “Surely this is useless.” At a quarter to six the prison gates opened, and Moreau appeared •in presence of the crowd. He seemed to walk very steadily, with head erect and with unfaltering steps. His extraordinary paleness was much remarked. When he reached the guillotine, he looked arouud at the crowd, and exclaimed, “Messieurs, I die innocent!” These words were distinctly heard all over the Place de la Roquette. The next moment M. Roch seized Moreau, pushed him forward on to the plank, the knife fell, and all was over. The moment Moreau’s head and body had fallen into the basket of sawdust prepared for them M. Roch’s assistants set to work to wash the guillotine of the blood with which it was stained, in order that the next sufferer might not see an execution had already taken place. Whilst Moreau was being led to death Boudas was being prepared for execution. When his cell was entered by M. Claude he was found to be wide awake, talking eagerly with the warders, as he had been awoke by the noise in Moreau’s cell, and was in a state of the utmost- anxiety, still hoping apparently to be reprieved. On being told that he was to die, he replied. “Here I am ; I am ready ! ” He then protested his innocence, and declared that his execution was a crime against justice. He walked quietly, though hardly so steadily as Moreau, but without support,-to the guillotine. There he kissed the accompanying priest, and handed himself over to the executioner without uttering a word. Whether M. Roch’s nerves had been affected by the previous execution is not known, but he certainly was by no means adroit in placing the unfortunate Boudas on the fatal plank, as he had to readjust him during a space of several seconds, which seemed horribly long to the bystanders. At last the knife fell, and the second criminal’s head dropped into the basket. There was only ten minutes’ interval between the two executions. Boudas had robbed and murdered one Eaath, a broker of the Rue Audran, Paris.