"THE MERRY WIDOW".

Dominion, Volume 11, Issue 290, 27 August 1918, Page 6

"THE MERRY WIDOW".

RENEGADE FRENCHWOMAN SHOT.

A Paris court-martini recently condemned to death as a spy Madnme M , thirty-seven years old. Her son, Noel, sixloen year? old. who was accused of being her accomplice, wns ordered to bo sent to a penitentiary colony until he comes of n?e. Thr Court believed liewas too young to be held responsible for his acts.

As the ease was not heard in publiconly a few del-nils have become known, mieli as that Madame M.'s hupb.ind \va« killed at the front in March. 1916, and that the wife soon started a life ihat n-ricd her. i" t,,f% "'tlps "I" , freouentpd, the name of "The Merry Widow." She. soon ran through the money f=he inherited, nnd. to obtain morn, communicated with a Greek living in Pnnin. an aeent of the spy burenu c«;tablish<"l in. Barcelona by the Germans. When mother and snn were arrested. lh« boy was just, about to engage in the aviation, service jn order to obtain informal ion to be supplied to Germany. A. writer in the Paris "Midi" identifies tlio Oeok as the head of German nropaganda in Spain, and director in particular of the service for arranging explosions in factories. lie was a regular visitor to a girls' school at Barcelona, where he wont to see throe Mile girls whose guardian he was supposed to be. One of flipm. He yourgrsf, iwl about eleven, handed over to him. on each visit, spvpral letlers whidi ho onrriod away. These three little girls were French, being the daughters of Madame M. The "M.errv Widow" used to pass on any information that she obtained (o her /in, who wroTe it to bis younser sister, • placing it in the, middle of his letters, which 'were n"ver really examined, when it was seen that they were letters from a brother tn a liltl" sisiev at school.