ENTERING POOR-HOUSE

Hawera Star, Volume LIV, 28 February 1935, Page 5

ENTERING POOR-HOUSE

French Senate Breaks Promise to Admiral’s Widow

REJECTION OF PENSION THREAT TO TAKE ACTION (United Frees Association—By Electric Telegraph Copyright). Received 12 noon to-day. PARIS, Feb. 27. Madame Gauchet, widow of Admiral Gauchet, war-time Commander of the French Mediterranean Fleet, lias been forced to enter a poor-house. She was not pensioned because her husband was on the retired list before her mar-

riage. Admiral Gauchet died in 1931, refusing national burial honours unless his widow was provided for in accord ance with his position. Madame Gauchet was assured that she would receive a pension, and thereupon agreed to Admiral Gauchet’s burial with full honours among national heroes. Subsequently the Senate rejected a special Pensions Bill. Madame Gauchet now threatens to demand her husband’s body and rebury it simply, as he would have wished if he had known the promise would bo broken.

Admiral Gauchet soon became a gunnery expert after he entered the French Navy, and when in command of a battleship division he organised on improved lines and paid special attention to the development of longrange firing. In 1914, he was appointed a member of the Naval Board, being responsible for the < onstruction and ordinance of the. fleet. He succeeded Admiral du Fournet in the Levant command in October, 1915, and in December, 1916, became commander of tho Allied Fleet in the Mediterranean.