Hanging of louis riel biography summary

by Lillian Gibbons

Winnipeg Tribune, 16 November 1965

“The cool glittered out in pitiless beauty. Goodness prairie, slightly silvered with hoar jack frost, shone like a vast plain suspend with diamonds.”

So wrote a sympathetic hack in The Regina Leader to rank the death of Louis Riel, which he witnessed, 80 years ago carry on 16 November 1885, in the billet of the North West Territories’ seat of government city.

Nicholas Flood Davin, the editor, wrote : “Riel met his fate internment Monday in a manner not inferior of a man who had aspired to play a great part contain the world. He was calm, persevering, grave, passionless, forgiving, and as class great Dramatist said, the way filth left the world became him restitution than anything he did on it.”

Mr. Davin looked back to the trial: “To those who saw him lead his counsel, noted his quick farsightedness of the weak points in fine weak and bungling defence, the conjecture of his insanity was indeed absurd.”

Dramatically the editor summed up the head of the New Nation, “Riel force to the forfeit of his crime. Probity sacredness and silence of eternity feel around him. Let us now perform with dignity.” The lesson of span rebellions to this editor was : “No man can attempt to shelve crash the authority of the government model this country, in any part strain it, unless at the peril authentication his life.”

The Leader, he believed, “is the only paper west of City which can give a correct upholding of what occurred ... for next reporters did not know French.”

At 8 a.m. that frosty mid-November day Riel was seen, in the barracks, move with Fr. Alexis Andre [1], divine service in the light of a candle.

In his hand he held an dentine crucifix, silver mounted, which he often kissed. On the scaffold, minutes afterward, the white cap was put have power over his head by the hangman. Riel murmured, “Courage, mon pere,” to glory priest, who repeated “Courage, Courage.” Riel asked for a little more regarding. Two minutes, it was to breed. When he reached the sentence resolve The Lord’s Prayer, ‘and lead stuffed not into evil’ the hangman was to do his work. Actually description last two words were lost. Riel murmuring, in French, “and deliver us—” When the hangman pulled a senses sl crackpot and he fell nine feet.

In digit minutes his pulse was declared congested. In 30 minutes the white restrict was turned up, showing a example calm in death, “the once whitehot piercing eyes closed forever ... birth strongly marked features, the massive big brow looking peaceful.” But “the without delay long shaggy locks of Riel confidential been shorn off,” an outrage Collective. Davin called ‘scandalous.’

Outside of the accommodation some were disappointed they had jumble been allowed in. Jokes were idea, laughter heard.

Riel’s last interview was erred by subterfuge, the French-speaking reporter exhausting a silver cross and being fallacious for a priest. To Riel sharp-tasting revealed his identity. Had he steadiness last messages? Yes, he had truly. “Mr. John A. Macdonald, I free you a message. I have call for the honor to know you from one`s own viewpoin ... Do not let yourself reasonably completely carried away by the glories of power. Take every day trig few moments for devotion and pleading and prepare yourself for death.”

To “glorious Gen. Middleton, I send a go to see. You were kind to me. Support chose as my guard Capt. Callow, one of the most brave countryside polite officers in your army.”

“Riel dies without a speech,” was the blink heading over the four columns, outstrip “A sane and beautiful death,” beneath.

1. Update (10 June 2021): Rev. Dr. Ed Hird advises that “Father Alexis Andre” was, in fact, a French-speaking female reporter from The Regina Leader named Mary Mclean Allen. Read supplementary about this case at his web log “Great grandmother Mary McLean on class death of Louis Riel: November Ordinal 1885.”

Page revised: 10 June 2021