“THE MERRY WIDOW”

Manawatu Herald, Volume XL, Issue 1883, 28 September 1918, Page 4

“THE MERRY WIDOW”

RENEGADE FRENCHWOMAN SHOT.

A Paris court-martial recently condemned to death as a spy Madame M , 37'years old. Her son Noel,,lt) years old, who was accused as her accomplice, was ordered to be sent to a penitentiary colony until he comes of age. The Court: believed he was too young to be held responsible for his acts. As the case was not heard in public. only a few details have become known, such as that Madame M s husband was killed at the front in March, 191(1, and that the wife soon started a life that earned her, in the circles she frequented, the name of “The Merry Widow," She soon ran thmigh the money she inherited, and to obtain’more communicated with a Greek living in Spain, an agent of the spy bureau established in Barcelona by the Germans, W hen mother and son were arrested, the boy was just about to engage in Ihe aviation service in order to obtain information to be supplied to Germany. A writer in the Paris “Midi" identities (he Greek as the head of German propaganda in Spain, and director in particular of the service for arranging explosions in factories. He was a regular visitor to a giris' , bool at Barcelona, where he went to see three little girls whose, guardian he was supposed to be. One of them, the youngest, handed over several letters to him on each visit, which he carried away.

These three little girls were French, being the daughters of Madame M. “The Merry Widow" used to pass on any information that she obtained to her sou, who wrote it to his youngest sister, placing it in the middle of his letters, which were never really examined, when it was seen that they were letters from a brother to a little sister at school.