Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 57, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 9 March 1915 — POISON LOVED ONES [ARTICLE]

POISON LOVED ONES

Heroic French Girls' Tragedy Thrills All France. Kill Their Husbands When They Find Latter, Who Were German Born, t Planned to Poison Garrison With Arsenic. Paris. —How two little French girls poisoned the busbands they loved, to save the life of an entire garrison has just been made known in Paris, and it has created a tremendous sensation. Rose and Marie Dupont, two eight-een-year-old twins were born at Ville* nipt, a small village on the Lorraine frontier. In 1912 they married two students of chemistry, named Ulrich and Wilhelm, who loved them so much that they became French citizens and bought a drug store in the town. Both unions were most happy until July 29 of last year, when the husbands received a letter from across the frontier. < Immediately both became very nervous and asked the two girls to go to their grandmother’s home in Longwy until the situation cleared. Both went to Longwy, but found that their grandmother was not there. They returned very late the next day to Villerupt. When they arrived at the drug store they found it closed. Going through the back garden they peered through the closed shutters and saw their husbands, to their great amazement, talking in quite a friendly manner to two uhlans in full uniform. They could not believe their eyes at first, but they were horrified later at the conversation they heard. A deep plot had been arranged by Ulrich and Wilhelm. They had stored a big dose of strychnine and during the night it was planned to drop it tn the wine casks reserved for the French garrison. • ? "Are you sure the dose is strong enough!” asked one of the uhlans. “Why” answered Ulrich, "it. is strong enough to kill all the garrison and its reserves.” With a low cry Rose shuddered and almost fainted., Both realized they had been fooled, and tliat instead of being loved they were the wives of the worst of scoundrels and even worse than that —traitors. “We . must act,” said Marie, “to prevent this most awful crime, even if we must commit one ourselves?’ Half an hour later they rang the front door belt They appeared very Joyous and explained their elation by saying they had heard the war had been averted. They said they were so glad that they wanted to open some wine in honor of peace and the friendly uhlan soldiers.

Marie went out and brought back a champagne bottle. She poured the liquor and they drank it. Next morning they ran out of the house. They were widows, for they themselves had used the poison. They went straight to the chief de gendarmes and told him of their sorry plight “We have, killed our husbands,” they cried. “Do what is right with us.” But the official simply wept with them and kissed them, for it was found that the plot had been deeply laid and that the sacrifice of the girls, which has no precedent in history, had saved thousands of French troops from certain death. Marie and Rose have been critically ill and for two months were hovering between life and death, and it was feared they would lose their reason, but they have recovered, and are now Red Cross nurses. In caring for the wounded they are trying to forget their terrible lifedrama.