FREED AFTER 20 YEARS

Opotiki News, Volume I, Issue 104, 2 November 1938, Page 4

FREED AFTER 20 YEARS

FRENCH WOMAN SPY ;5 ENTRY INTO CONVENT PARIS, Aug. o.—The heavy gates of tlie women's penitentiary at ltennes (Brittany) swung hack recently lor 40-year-oJd Marie Ducret, ex-spy condemned) to. life imprisonment tor having betrayed her country. Because of her exemplary behaviour during the 2u years she lipd spent behind the bars, the President of Prance had signed her release on parole. Unable and unwilling to face the world ,Marie Ducret left the prison for the .convent, where in the peace and seclusion of the cloister she hopes to find forgetfulness and atone for lier crime—that of having sent hundreds of her countrymen to their death. Beautiful Marie Ducret was saved from the firing squad of Vincennes—the usual penalty of the spy—by the armistice- Her trial took place late in OctoTier, 11)18, and she was condemned to death by the council of war. With the signing of the armistice came her pardon. From the time she entered the prison she was held up as an example. it was at the end of 1917 that Marie Ducret, then 20 years old, and a tall willowy brunette, offered her services to the head of the German espionage bureau in Switzerland. The efficient network of the German organisation had spread its tenaeles all over France and her Allies’ fronts, and the Germans were always ready to enrol young and beautiful women. The Germans had instituted schools for spies in the various Swiss cities— Borne, Zurich, Basle and Geneva—and to one of these Marie Ducret was sent. At the end of the live weeks’ study she was ready toi sell her country and her countrymen to the enemy. In March, 1918, she arrived in Paris, and immediately communicated with the German agent, camouflaged as a Swiss subject, in charge of operations in the French capital. She did not have long to wait, for at the end ol three days her orders came through t 0 proceed to the French front on the Somme, and she was handed a card accrediting her as a journalist.

v Young Officer. A few days later -Marie Dueret arrived at Mdutdidier, just behind the French lines. The authorities made no difficulties about giving her the necessary passes. After that it was child’s play to ensnare a young‘officer whom she came across on one ol her reconnoitring excursions. Fascinated by her beauty, the lieutenant became her lover and the idyll had; lasted two weeks when orders came tor him,to move on up the line. X'nwiiiing to part from his beautiful blonde sweet heart—-Mane had dyed her hair—lie suggested she go with him. Violating military discipline, .he installed her in a shell-wrecked cottage not two miles from headquarters. Almost- two months elapsed hetore late caught- up with them. Enemy Knew Plans.

According to an ex-intelligence Department officer who relates the story, he was called at that time to headquarters, to discover why decisions made ‘24 hours before seemed to he immediately known by the enemy. So Jar, several hundred men had lost their lives and it was evident that someone was betraying France. Suspicion fell on the voting lieutenant. Important papers, including statements of the day’s losses, future movements and so on were sent to Paris every night by automobile and he was one of the six officers who had charge of assembling them and h.main them to the special messenger. By following his movements it was easy to discover the lope nest and catch .Marie Dueret in the act of copying the secret docutnoms. 1 Copied Documents. Brought- before the .Headquarters Staff, stie confessed that for the past, month she had copied all the documents which .ic r lover Drought “home’’ to work on. These were tneii sent to the espionage bureau in Pans under pretext of letters to her family, by the same courier who took the documents to the .Ministry in Paris. After careful investigation, -Marie Dueret alone was charged with high treason and escaped the death penalty as related. The lieutenant was found guilty for indiscretion only. Having volunteered for a dangerous mission, he was killed just before the end of hostilities. The religious order which Marie

Ducret lias joined i.^ that of the Sisters of Biethame, a Frofesihrit organisation. ' The sisters-Lspc lid tlieir fives in good works and prayer, the nursing of the sick and caie-'oi children. *