“VIVE LA FRANCE."

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume X, Issue 141, 29 May 1920, Page 5

“VIVE LA FRANCE."

HOW TRAITORS DIED. London. May 15. The execution of the “Gazette d?s Ardennes” traitors as carried out in the presence of the press. Toque. Limo.n, and Herbert were accompanied to the firing stake by priests, while nuns comforted Alice Aubert. Aubert was the last to arrive at the scene of the execution. Toque, w’ho was smoking a cigarette, laughingly complained of the " ‘unpunctuality of the women, keeping three men waiting to die!” Auliert. who had broken down in her cell, was more composed as the time of her death approached- She wore bobbed hair.

Toque's last cry of innocence unnerved the firing-party. The men died protesting their innocence and shouting “Vive la France!” The woman was shot with her hands clasped in prayer. Toque was not killed by the volley, and four revolver shots were necessary to give the coup de grace. * The grisly details were lavishly pictured in the Sunday press and shown in cinema. This lurid publicity is unfavourably commented on. [Ten I renchmen and a woman were sentenced in October, 1919, for their activities in connection with the “Gazette des Ardennes,” the pro-Ger-utan newspaper published in North France during the German occupation. Three men and a woman were sentenced to death and the remainder to from live to seven years penal servitude.]