BRAVE FRENCH WOMEN.

Dominion, Volume 1, Issue 57, 30 November 1907, Page 11

BRAVE FRENCH WOMEN.

Under tlio Grand Roi, the charming Mile, de Premoy covered herself with glory under the namo of the Clievaliero do Balthasar. Amongst the Vendeens, how many Vcndeennes? Mme. de Rochejacquelin, Mmc. do Bonchamp, Mme. do Sapinaud, Mile, lleneo Bordereau, and Mmo. do Beau'glie," tho last one loading a troop of horse of her own, with carbine slung at her back. And there were other heroisms than those of the sword and battle. Listen [to Olympo dc Gouge demanding the right to defend Louis XVI at the bar of the Convention with tho words, "Women, who have tho right' to mount the scaffold have also tho right to appear at the bar." And Mme. do la Rocho-St.-Andre, crying through the bars of her prison to her sons, who were being taken out to execution: "Good-bye, my children. Adieu! Die liko Vendeens." And Virginie Ghesquiero, who thought her brother too delicate for service under Junot in the Army of the Republic, but not herself, and took the uniform undor his name. Distinguishing herself in Portugal, sho w ; as promoted to bo sergeant, and nobody foijnd out the pious fraud of the "joli sergent," as sho was nicknamed, until ono day she was wounded in trying to rescuo her colonel. Tho "little sergeant" obstinately'refused to have her wound attended to until; the gruff old army surgeon shouted, "Undress that man thero and let mo sew up his hide." Then the sccrot was out, and Napoleon gave her tho coveted Cross, liko hor comrade Mario Sohollinck, better known as tho "Sergeant of Jenappes." Angelique- Duolicmin, • too, went through the campaigns as Lieutenant Duchomin, was decorated in 1851, and ended her days at tho Invalides. Coming down to our own times, it is evident that the spirit of her ancestors still lives in tho French woman to-day. In the worst of tho Armenian massacres, Mme. Curlier, ■ the wife of the French Consul, kept tho Kurdish hordes at bay, and saved hundreds of lives,, pistol in hand; and it is not a fortnight sinco Mmo. Fournier, at Casablanca, was recommended for the Cross for similar gallantry in the face of odds. All these will have their niche, even if it be a small one, in history, hut ono is tempted, in spite of the admiration their courage compols, to ask if their epitaphs will honour them more than the inscription over the tomb of a Roman matron, "She remained at homo and spun wool."