FRENCH AUTHOR BESIEGED IN PARIS OFFICE

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 69, 13 June 1927, Page 9

FRENCH AUTHOR BESIEGED IN PARIS OFFICE

ARMED GUARD ON WATCH DAUDET WILL NOT SURRENDER By Cable. — Pi'ess Association.—Copyright PARIS, Sunday. Amazing scenes have been witnessed in Paris since yesterday at the offices of the newspaper “Action Francaise,” owned by the well-known Royalist, M. Leon Daudet, author and journalist. M. Daudet was due to surrender and undergo a term of imprisonment for libelling the driver of the taxicab in which his son was 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 the arrest of the author. They surrounded the six-storey building in which his offices are situated, and constructed barbed-wire and sandbag defences. Others, their pockets bulging with revolvers, carried mysterious boxes supposed to have contained machineguns into the premises. “I am fighting for the honour of my dead son,” said M. Daudet, in addressing the crowd outside. “There are thousands of resolute men at my back who are prepared to face death.” The siege is still in progress, but the police are not attempting to take M. Daudet prisoner. This morning the author was still defying arrest. He issued a bulletin saying: “I passed a good night, and am now taking my cafe au lait.” The partisans of M. Daudet caused a riot last evening. Their ironical cheering of their opponents led to a free fight with sticks and bludgeons. Then police reinforcements arrived in lorries, and dispersed the rioters.

20 of whom were arrested. —A. and The figures indicate that the Gov-

In 1925 M. Daudet, the Royalist leader, and well-known litterateur, conducted a violent campaign against the Paris police in connection with the tragic death of his son Philippe, who was generally believed to have committed suicide, going so far as to charge them with having connived at the lad’s murder at the hands of anarchists. As the result of his allegations, the driver of the taxicab in which Philippe was found dead brought a successful libel action against him. during the protracted hearing of which a mass of evidence was given by the police and others, but after the verdict M. Daudet, in a passionate speech, declared that he would continue his campaign.