Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1912-06-24

FRENCH cANTEEN WOMAN.
How Nine. Desrise Helped to Save
Paris During the Commune, as She
Believed.

The French government has just
granted the medal of 1876 to Nine De-
grise, who was canteen woman in that
year to the 46th battalion.
A correspondent of LIE journal found
her in a bare and melancholy room,
hard at work at her dead husbands
trade of making heavy boots for la
boring men.
1T was toward the end of the SIEGE
she said, that / became eanteen
woman. My husband volunteered for
the national guard I was % years
aold and had no children and at the
request of my husband the command 5
ing officer called me up, asked the
company whether they would accept
my services. They said yes and so,
on December 10, / joined the army.
I'VE were sent to the line of out
posts The weather was cold, but the
shopkeepers and laborers in the ma
tional guard endured the hardships of
that terrible winter most stoically. l
went from one bivouac to another
keeping the fires alight, serving out
hot coffee. improving the quality of
the soup, looking after the crippled
and encouraging all those brave fell
lows.
Il followed my battalion into the
fights of Bourget. Bobigny and Dram
cy Farm The dead were placed on
my cart and | wheeled them off to the
cemetery of st. Denis. One of them
was a coftee-honse keeper who got
married just before he enlisted. A
German shell fell into his coffee house
but did him no damage. But fate was
not to be denied.
"On December 81 the armistice came
just after handed over to the colonel
some 20 rifles | had picked up between
the two lines. My battalion returned
to Paris and the Commune broke out.
The communist government at the
Hotel de Vile charged us with the
duty of police work. We swore to be
loyal to the communist flag, the better
to betray it to the government of Ver-
sailles.
"On the night of May q we were ON
guard at the Passy barricade All our
arrangements had been made, and at
o'clock in the morning we opened the
gate TO the government troops from
Versailles. Then, turning back, we
quartered ourselves in the Madison
AcailIe A few months later the list
the regulars entered Paris.
ITO put the communist leaders on
the wrong scent. we were arrested like
everybody else and were sent to YER
sailles. From there | was sent with %
other women to the central prison at
Clermont, where in obedience TO gov
eminent orders | was employed as a
forewoman in the bootmaking shops.
After a little formal delay L was re-
leased, and returned to Paris, which
we had perhaps saved from still worse
disasters and humiliations than 1t ac-
tually underwent.
Nov | am an old widow, scarcely
able to keep the wolf from the door.
Perhaps l shall never again see my
home at Etrecouchy in the Pas-de
Calais. / am proud of this little piece
of ribbon on my working dress, and l
ask nothing more from life
With reference to the old woman's
proud boast that she had helped to
save Paris from yet greater disasters.
it was the opinion of many well-in-
formed people on the spot that if the
Versailles troops had not taken the
communists by surprise and captured
Paris by a coupe de main, the latter
would have blown DIP the city and
buried every one in the ruins.-Spring-
field Republican.