Eyrand Guillotined at Paris

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume XI, Issue 3781, 9 April 1891, Page 2

Eyrand Guillotined at Paris

Michael Eyraud, the murderer of Notary Gouffe, was guillotined at 7.20 on the morning of February Brd, in the city of Paris. The night was moat bitterly cold. To make the scene even more gloomy than usual a heavy, damp, cold fog hung over the city. The cafes near the Palace de la Rouquette were lull of carousers, male and female, singing in maadlin tones a disgusting song, having for, its refrain " 11 is Eyraud whom we must have ; it is his head whiob we must have." The scenes in some of the cafes oan be far better imagined than described, but they gave the stranger a good idea of a Paris mob when "blood is in the air." At 6.45 a.m. a party of officials, in company with the Governor of La Rouquette, entered the cell occupied by Eyraud.- They found him sitting crouched on his bed, and when they informed him that his petition for a pardon had been rejected, Eyraud very calmly replied : " Very well." Passing from the cell to the scaffold, Eyraud scanned everything right and left, and then fixed his eyes upon the guillotine. When he arrived at the foot of the guillotine, and withiu a few feet of the block, Eyraud eluded the executioners for a moment and loudly and angrily shouted to the assembled crowd : " Constans is a murderer 1 He is more ot a murderer than I am. Constans is " But before he oould complete th§ sentence the executioners seized the mvird«rer, and threw him upon the inclined plank of the guillotine, pressed the fatal knob, the flashing blade fell with a sharp, sliding sound, and the head of Goufife's assassin rolled into the basket below. The body of Eyraud was then lifted into a waggon, and driven off at full gallop to the cemetery, eßcortedby a detaohment of gendarmes. The Abbe Faure followed the body in a cab. and after reading the burial service over the remains at the cemetery they were turned over to tho dead man's relatives. Immediately

after the execution, the mob made a wild rush towards the guillotine, and were with great difficulty repulsed by the strong force of mounted Gardes Jttepublicaines which had been left in charge of the instrument of execution.