A CONNOISSEUR IN GUILLOTINES.

Tuapeka Times, Volume I, Issue 12, 2 May 1868, Page 4

A CONNOISSEUR IN GUILLOTINES.

The writer of " Echoes from the Continent " in the " Evening Standard" has the following:—" Ere I return to Paris, let me take breath at Vienna to echo to you the demise of a man who surely will be" soon seen at Madame Tussaud's, busy in the Chamber of Hoi cots. I allude to Louis Francois Gosier, who lias just died at Doebling, at the age of 87. From a sore throat? I hear you saying. The pun may be •witty, but, verily, it is out of place. Our Gosier . die,d from a guillotine furore. He was the son of a servant of the unfortnnate Louis XVI.,* and was born at Paris. The Revolution burst but when ha was only ten years oldj his father was beheaded, but his mother succeeded in reashing Germany with her son. Luckily enough, she also succeded in saving a part of her fortune, and sho was thus enabled to give a good education to her son. In a short time he was appointed private secretary to an eminent Austrian personage, and he published in French a ' History of the French Hevolution,' whichwas soon forgotten. His patrimony allowed him to live comfortably, so he purchased at Doebling a house, from which he never went out of since 1 88 1 . Only two friends of h is were received in his house, and through them his eccentricities were known. His house consisted of five rooms, He had devoted the largest one to the perfection of the guillotine; that room 'was full of beams, ropes, and head-choppers, Every time he improved the deadly instrument to his satisfaction he hade Irs A lends bring him cats and dogs, which he beheaded with his machine. During these trials he was so incited to kill, that once he threw himself on _.-«9gof his friends, with the intention to cut his head off j that friend escaped, thanks to his superior strength. He used to wallow in the blood of animals, and he looked more like a cannibal than a civilised man. He left his bed only during two hours daily, from three till five in the afternoon. These two hours he devoted to his experiments. As soon as five struck, he went to bed again. He ate, read, and wrote in bed. On Friday last, he was Been making some experiments with his guillotine, when he fell ill ; he rang the hell, but when his servant maid came in, ha was a corpse, He had been seized by a fit of apoplexy. He always used to say, cMy father would not have suffered at all had he been beheaded by my own guillotine ! ' What do you say of that retrospective fiUial affection ?'