FRANCE: Cafe au Lait

Seven brawny internes at the Cochin hospital in Paris held firmly on an operating table last week a formidable woman who until recently was fat. Mme Marthe Hanau, the lady stockbroker who once edited a tipster newsorgan, La Gazette du Franc et des Nations.

Mme Hanau went to jail after her subscribers had lost 120,000,000 francs ($4,800,000) in the securities she recommended and sold (TIME, Dec. 17, 1928). Three weeks ago she demanded, her black eyes flashing, to be let out of prison on bail. When this was refused she hunger-struck. In consternation some thousands of thrifty French peasants and shopkeepers who still hope to get something back on their Hanau stock, clamored that the death of Mme Hanau would make it impossible to untangle her finances, demanded that she be forcibly fed.

But it is against French law to feed forcibly a prisoner in jail. Therefore Mme Hanau was removed under guard to Cochin hospital, where the seven brawny internes had a struggle indeed. The tip of a funnel was placed in one of Mme Hanau’s nostrils. Some lukewarm cafe au lait was poured into her. After this ordeal the patient seemed to be so exhausted that she was merely locked in a hospital room and left alone without special guards.

Some 45 minutes later, tottering with weakness but still resolute, Mme Hanau entered the office of the warden of St. Lazare prison from which she had been removed. “I demand to be imprisoned here,” she cried, still formidable. She had escaped from the hospital by climbing down a rope of bedclothes. Nothing had prevented her from attempting to escape completely.