Democratic Sentinel, Volume 15, Number 48, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 18 December 1891 — A HEROINE SELLING MATCHES. [ARTICLE]

A HEROINE SELLING MATCHES.

France Should He Ashimcd to Seo This Woman Want. A heroine lias boon discovered in Paris, says a correspondent She is MIL'. Louise de Beaulieu, who a few days ago was a«thor.zed to sell matches in the streets on the ground that she had been deprived of her arm by a gunshot received in 1870. Her license also states that she was decorated with the military medal and eight medals for saving life by her Intrepidity and heroism, f have been to see her in the dingy street near tho Central Markets, in which she has lived lor several years. She has been earning a living by calling up market people in the sma'l hours of the morning, b ung paid a small fee by each. (ne is at once aware that she must have een better days. Though weather-beaten aud tearing the tra es of twenty years of hardship, she is not a “mannish” woman. She says she is 50, and looks her ago, and is decidedly though coarsely dressed Louise do Beaulieu was a lady who had independent means. YVhen the war broke out, twenty years ago, she joined a regiment as a vivandiere. She was in eight battles, picked up under tire many soldiers, and came near being shot at St. Denis by the French as a spy. Her aristocratic air struck ome soldiers, who took her prisoner and kept her in a hole in the ramparts till she could be tried. The trial was by a drumhead court martial, which sentenced her to be shot On being taken to be executed she refused to let her eyes be bandaged, and asked as a la-t privilege to b» allowed to give tho word to fire. An officer, admiring her pluck, saveA her. She was in the fights at Nantorre, Lebourget, Bry-sur-Marne and Vflliers, and always kept in the van. She attended, at one of these places, to twenty-five wounded men, and lost her right arm at Champigny, while she was carrying a soldier to an ambulance. This did not disable her from work. Her record is one of the most splendid that man or woman could wish for. Though so badly wounded, she was up and about and helpful at Groslay, Drancy and in the sortie of Buzenval. One of her feats was saving a child from ti.e sixth floor of a house which took fire in the Rue Saint llonore." She spent £BOO in the terrible winter of the war in procuring comforts for the wounded whom she nursed in ambulances.