Posted on 01/10/2024 10:45:35 AM PST by CheshireTheCat
On this date in 1917 — with the parting cry, “Je demande pardon à la France! Vive la France!” — 18-year-old Grenoble seamstress Marguerite Francillard was shot at Paris’s St. Lazare prison as a German spy.
Her lover, a German agent posing as a traveling silk salesman, had induced the naive young woman to act as his courier and in this capacity she shuttled his messages treasonably between Paris and Geneva. Eventually, German intelligence sacrificed her: a nothing loss for an empire at war.
The cell Marguerite Francillard inhabited while awaiting execution was subsequently occupied by a more famous (albeit similarly marginal) German asset, Mata Hari.
Thank you for posting these. There’s always some interesting history to glean from these accounts of poor saps getting it by gun or garrote or gallows or guillotine :-)
Indeed! I learned a new word: treasonably.
Let’s try it in a sentence.
How well is Joe Biden doing as President of the U.S.?
Treasonably well!
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.