THE FALLEN DICTATOR

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LI, Issue 89, 3 April 1908, Page 4

THE FALLEN DICTATOR

Paris, February !l. "-My only wish is to lie forgotten." Those: words, spoken at midnight hint night in liis hotel bedroom at liordeaux by Senhor Joao Franco, arc tli-e essence of a long and painful interview with the man who but a week ago was feared as being the iron hand which lipid Portugal in its grip. Franco is a broken him to-day. lie says that his (light was not duo to fear, but he looks older by ten years to-day than he did ten days ago. lie wanders as li 0 speaks to you, and every step outside his room door brings his hand to his long, drooping moustache with the nervousness of a man who now fears assassination. One of the police said to him yesterday that lie was not at all lik c his portraits, and remarked that perhaps they were taken some years ago. "No," answered i<o- ■ nlior Franco, " i am only lifty-three; I looked like that a week' ago." The first thing one notices about him is his colour. He is almost livid. His dark eyes have sunk in their sockets. Ids cheeks are hollow, and his mouth trembles with nervousness as he talks, interrupting himself every now and then to linger his long moustache and gnaw it. His voice is dull and lifeless. It i~ dillicull to hear him, lie speaks so low, and. in a word, he is th,. very op-po-itc of the strong man he was. ' "t am very unhappy," he says, and then his eyes wander'about I lie room, and he sobs out, "Could anybody know, could anybody anticipate such an awful filing' 1 had done iny duty to my King. Jly conscience does not blame me. Nothing had been done without due thought and due consideration. Sometimes I think that 1 am living in a nightmare. It is horrible. ] can make no statement, and 1 can explain nothing. What is written, as the Arabs say, cannot be explained. The future of I'ortugal? I know nothing about it. 1 know nothing about anything just "Ow. I have been afraid'during the last few days that 1 am going mad. \)n not believe in any letters you may •see printed as coming from me. One Mas published this morning in a news paper. 1 did not write it. 1 have said nothing, I have written nothing. 1 have nothing to write or to say. All I waul is to be forgotten.''