WAR HEROINE'S DEATH.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLVI, Issue 14237, 7 December 1909, Page 7

WAR HEROINE'S DEATH.

There has just died at Clarens, in France, a heroine of the war of 1870, whose bravery had been rewarded with the military medal and the Cross of the Legion of Honour. The daughter of a naval surgeon, Mdlle. Juliette Dodu was, with her mother, looking after the telegraph office at Pithiviers when the Germans made their appearance. She promptly wired the news of their arrival to the Government at Tours, after which she at once removed and stowed away the telegraph apparatus. The Germans cut all the wires, .with the exception of one which they happened to overlook, and this enabled our heroine to correspond regularly with Orleans. During the temporary absence of the Germans Mdlle. Juliette Dodu fitted up another line, but when they returned they found no apparatus at the post office, as she had again removed it, so they put in their own as well as an operator. As, however, Mdlle Dodu and her mother allowed to occupy a room there, she continued to possess herself of a coil of wire, which she hid under her mattress, thus delaying the restoration of the line. She was at last denounced and arrested, and it is said that she would probably have been shot outright if Prince Frederic Charles had not heard of her case, and, touched by her intrepid patriotism, intervened in her behalf.