AMAZING CAREER.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXIV, Issue 18844, 6 April 1931, Page 7

AMAZING CAREER.

HUGE SUMS HANDLED. NOTABILITIES INVOLVED. Marthe Hanau, a notorious adventuress, who was recently convicted of swindling, was born in Paris in 1886, the daughter of a draper. Even as a girl she was clever at business, with very persuasive ways. In 1906, when she and her mother were conducting a linen shop she met and married Lizare Bloch, son of a Lille industrialist, for whom he was acting as agent. Having failed, he became a commercial traveller and his wife started a scent shop. She created a perfume for midinettes and her business did so well that she began to manufacture scent and was able to live in the Avenue des Champs Elysees. Then came the Great War and her 1 husband went to Lyons where he was ; discharged from the army. The scent works continued to prosper. But Madame Hanau was laid aside for six | months as the result of a motor car ! accident and, when she recovered, she I sold her business. The buyer failed a month later. Her next move was to : exploit the war by selling what she | called the “soldiers tube,” supposed to I contain a mixture of rum and coffee, j This was considered a swindle and | she and her husband were fined several times. In 1919 she started a soap business which failed. Then Madame Hanau met the wealthy Madame Joseph, and her career as a financier began. Madame Joseph became her partner. In 1920 Madame Hanau obtained a divorce from her husband and resumed her maiden name, but they remained good friends and business partners. Financed by Madame Joseph, the woman started the Gazette du Franc, in 1925, making a great parade of its financial disinterestedness. Its avowed aim was to save the franc, to rehabilitate French credit and currency. Its actual purpose was to induce the public to buy the shares which were being sold by Madame Hanau’s “bucket shop.” But she was able by her protestations of patriotic motives to induce well-known men to write financial articles for the paper. Then she founded the Gazette des Nations, which proclaimed its intention of working for universal peace. Loading Statesmen Among Dupes. Leading statesmen all over the world gave Interviews for the good of

the cause, and under cover of their distinguished names more customers for the “bucket shop” were to be recruited, as Madame Hanau clearly indicated in a circular to her provincial agents. In February. 1928. the woman presided at a breakfast given to journalists by Pierre Audibert. formerly chef de cabinet of De Monzie, to foster international understanding by means of the press. She had then seven finance companies with a capital of £136.000, i 400 agents in the provinces and about j £4,000,000 invested with her. At one time her personal fortune was said to ; have been £64,000. A tremendous worker, she rose early, but even in office hours was a great consumer of champagne and cigarettes. Later in the day, she and Madame Joseph frei quented the bars and night restaur- ; ants of Montmartre, gambled at Deauville and were joint hostesses at lavish entertainments. Late in 1928 the crash came. According to one version, it was precipitated by Madame Hanau’s quarrel with Madame Joseph, who withdrew from the business. Another story was that the great banks took action to stop an issue by her of eight per cent, debentures to the value of £1.360,000. A prospect of 40 per cent, profit was held out and the issue was to be followed by another of the same amount. According to herself she was being blackmailed by G. Anquetil, of La Rumeur, and it was because she at last refused to pay any more that he brought about the collapse of the Gazette and her arrest. In February, 1930, he was given four years’ imprisonment for blackmailing her. The result of the crash was that Madame Hanau’s clients appeared to have lost many millions of francs and several of them committed suicide. Madame Hanau, however, denied that she was insolvent, declaring that her a'ssets, including her private fortune, were £1,640.000, while her liabilitie : were only £1,360,000. It was possible she said, for her to pay her creditor' 100 per cent., but only if the inquiry into the affair, which had lasted wei over a year, was promptly completed Otherwise they would get only 50 or 00 per cent.