A MODERN JOAN OF ARC.

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIV, Issue 173, 20 January 1912, Page 1 (Supplement)

A MODERN JOAN OF ARC.

AN ADVENTUROUS FRENCHWOMAN. In the little white ward of the little white hospital in the little white town of St. Nicholas du Port (France) a white-haired old woman of 92 has just died. Her name was Antoinette, Lix, and she wis a lieutenant of the FrancsTireurs—the famous sharpshooters of France, who did such damage to the Prussian and Bavarian troops during the wan of 1870, and very nearly turned the scale on more than'one occasion. Antoinette was one of five brothers. There is no need to smile (writes John N. Raphael, Paris correspondent of the Daily Express). That is the way in which she always used to tell her story when she was asked for it in the little white room in the hospital of St. Nicholas du Port. She was born at Colmar, in Alsace, and her mother died just as she saw the light. BROUGHT UP AS A BOY. The first thing that she remembered were the words of her father and her uncle, soldiers both, as they stood looking at her: "Pity the child is not a boy." She was brought up as one. With her four brothers Antoinette learned to play the same games, to dress, to think, to work, and to do everything as though she were a boy. -Her brothers never made the slightest difference between their treatment of each other and of her, and as she grew a little older her father made a point of taking her about with him, just as he took her brothers, of talking to her just as he talked to them, even of taking her with him to the cafe in the evening, where Antoinette smoked her cigar and drank her beer as other' "boys" of 17 smoke their cigars and drink their beer in Alsace. And she became a splendid horsewoman, an expert with the foils and with the rapier, an unerring shot, and learned to speak three languages besides French, which was the language then of Alsace. Her knowledge of languages—she had learned and become proficient in English, German and Polish—got her, in 1862, the berth of "tutor" in a Polish family. She was to teach three girls there to become "little men" like herself. ( - . THE POLISH WAR OF INDEPENDENCE. But early next yeai-—in -1863f-the for surrection broke out, and Antoinette Lix dressed herself in a man's clothes again, and rushed to fight for Poland.,, ;She fought, and fought so well that shefwas made lieutenant of the Lancers, bul the day after she-had been,given the accolade bf her commanding officer, a Lancer of the. enemy, ran her through. §hojil : ,,, der, and she spent the rest of the short campaign in hospital, a prisoner. She managed to escape, and went to live at Guebwiller.* The next heard of her'was. in a small town in the, north of France, where there was was cholera. Antoinette fought the epidemic- with the same - dash, the same magnificent self-abnega-tion, that she had fought the Russians, and when the fight was over she was mentioned in the despatches. The doctors signed a letter to the French Home Office, in which they recommended Antoinette for a reward, "which that brave woman would certainly be too proud to ask for herself," and Antoinette Lix was given the position of postmistress at Lamarclie, a Si|iall' town in the Vosges.She was there 'just ten months. •>' "TONY 1 " JOINS THE FRANCSTIREURS. Then the war with German burst like a bombshell, and Antoinette Lix wrote to the Minister of Commerce: "Let me go, Monsieur le Ministere," she wrote; "let me-go for'six'-wte'eks." "I Wt'tfrM six weeks will be enough for me to pay my debt to France or die for her." Antoinette got six weeks' leave, and enlisted in a company of Francs-Tireurs at Lamarche. "Tony" Lix soon became the idol' of her company. The bearded veterans, from rough old Captain Lapicque downwards, loved the .fearless youngster who was always first when there was danger going, and whose beardless face and squeaky voice "were so much like a Woman's." 'lt was in a fight with German outposts at Ra'on L'Etape that Antoinette Lix won the gold stripe, and became a lieutenant in the French Army after winning officer's rank in the army of Poland. It was a nasty little skirmish, in which bullets flew like a scattered swarm of wasps. It came after five nights of hardship, when rations had been scanty and a bunch of bracken in the woods the only bed obtainable. "Tony" Lix, as the men called her, had been the life and soul of the company, and when the Francs-Tireurs and German outposts found each other it was she who proposed a race, with a box of cigars as a prize,. and attacked the Germans with a shout of laughter. Captain Lapicque was wounded in the leg that morning. "Tony" Lix apologised for disrespect to her superior officer and dragged him out of danger. A few days later came the battle of Bourgonce, in which the French found the beginning of the end. "Tony" Lix fought like a demon. Every now and then she would stop fighting to give first aid to the wounded and get the slightly wounded out of danger. Then she ran back and fought again. But the battle of Bourgonce had spelled defeat and for some weeks Lieutenant "Tony" and her little company, worn out, and' without one unwounded man among them, were marched and counter-marched, and at last regained Lamarche. Lieutenant "Tony" had been wounded by a bit of shell,,'but she refused to go to the hospital. They gave' her a gold medal, but she sold it for the fund which was raised to pay the indemnity to Germany. A friend bought the medal in. and returned it to Antoinette Lix. She sold it a second time. "TONY" FELL ON EVIL DAYS. In 187*5 her wounds made it impossible for her to do her work as postmistress, and friends obtained for her a Government tobacco shop, which assured her an income. In 1808 Antoinette Lix fell ill again. She soon became too ill to work at all, and she was taken to the little hospital of St. Nicholas du Port. Noboily knew her there, and the good sisters who looked after her believed t/hat the poor woman was wandering in her mind when she told stories of Lieutenant "Tony." But one of the nuns, Sister Dalphine, is an Alsatian, and she understood. She listened to Antoinette Lix's stories of war and martial prowess. She understood her longing to wear uniform again, and every Sunday Sister Delphine locked the door of the little white ward in the little white hospital in the little white town of St. Nicholas du Port, and the white-haired patient was dressed by the hahds of the Sisters of Mercy in the uniform of Lieutenant "Tony" Lix, of the Francs-Tireurs. And when Antoinette Lix died, Sister Delphine stood by her bedside holding her sword hilt, so that the withered hand might have the feel of it once more before consciousness left the woman who had fought so well for France.