MARSHAL MACMAHON'S WIFE.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 207, 23 March 1877, Page 7

MARSHAL MACMAHON'S WIFE.

On the 19th November, 1838, a disastrous fire broke out in one of the convents of the old town of Limoges, on the banks of the Vienne in France. As is the case with most of the French convents a large hoarding school for children was attached to the establishment at Limoges. The instant the fire was discovered, the most urgent measures were adopted for the safety of the inmates and children of the convent, and nearly all the inhabitants of the town gathered in consternation before the blazing building. It was thought that all were safe, when suddenly it was remembered that a little child, who was lying ill in a distant room, had been unthought of in the appalling confusion of the hour. The fire was raging with ungovernable fury, and the doomed edifice seemed wrapped in the devastating flames. There was a piteous cry from the nuns for the poor child who had been left behind, but it looked the very summit of madness to dare her rescue. When despair was setting down on the vast throng, a young woman stepped from out the front of it, and with calm but courageous voice exclaimed that she would try to save the child. Despite the efforts of the firemen to stop her, she plunged into the midst of the cracklingflames, and disappeared from the sight of the bewildered gaze of the spectators. Seconds seemed hours in that awful moment, and as they passed there was a fearful stillness in the crowd. Tue brave girl was absent for a couple of minutes, and as she failed to reappear, it was feared that she had perished a victim to her heroic charity. At length her figure was seen passing- again from amidst the flames, and she carried with her the little child in her arm-. She was welcomed with a frantic burst of joy by all who stood around, and with thousands upon thousands of blessings for the unexampled deed she had done. A few days after King Louis Philippe sent her a gold medal for her noble and successful effort, and her hand was asked in marriage by a young captain of the French army, who had witnessed the act at the convent at Limoges. Tne offer was accepted, and the captain and the heroine a,re alive and well to-day. The captain is now the Marshal-President of tho French Republic, and the brave-hearted young girl of the incident of lyth November, IS3S, is his amiable, devoted, and beneficent wife. — ' Dublin Freeman,' November 23.