Marthe Richard

Prostitution

With Nancy, it became apprentie culottière at fourteen years then was registered in 1905 like Prostituée. Denounced by a soldier to have transmitted to him the Syphilis, it was forced to leave to exert with Paris, street Godot-of-Mauroy where it met in 1907, and married Henri Richer, industrial rich person, agent with the Halles.

Record of plane

In 1912, her husband offered a plane to him and it pilot was patented in 1913. She pretended, in the press of the time, to beat the female record of the way Crotoy - Zurich. In fact, it accompanied Poulet and they reached only the Burgundy from where, dismounting their plane, they convoyed it by train to the countryside inhabitant of Zurich where they made it go up. The record was approved.

Spy

In 1914, it took part in the foundation of the Patriotic Union of Aviatrices Françaises and found widowed war in 1916. It became, thanks to her lover (young Russian anarchist pertaining to the second office), spy under the orders of the Capitaine Ladoux. To approach the German naval attache with Madrid, Von Krohn, it was made its mistress. While returning to France, she discovered her striped name of the service and imprisoned the Ladoux captain.

In 1926, it married Thomas Crompton, finance manager of the Fondation Rockefeller, patron of the restoration of the Petit Trianon, which died suddenly in 1928 with Geneva. She then led large train to Bougival.

In 1930, the Ladoux captain, released and restored at the post of commander, published his fictionalized Mémoires . Volume on Richer entitled “Marthe Richard spy with the service of France” was not, him, that invention. This one, claiming half of the enormous piled up royalties, accepted the council to write its own memories… confabulated. It published, under the pseudonym of Richard thus, a best-seller: “My life of spy to the service of France” (left with the cinema in 1937) and abruptly became a heroin. Under the media pressure, his/her lover Edouard Herriot, chief of the government of the time, obtained the January 17th 1933 the legion of honor to widowed Mrs. Crompton in the category foreign affairs .

Second world war

Whereas during the Second world war, everyone admires its courage, it was not worried by the occupant Nazi. It approached certain members of the Gestapo of which the gangster François Spirito.

Elected Resistance

In 1945, heroin of the two wars , it was elected adviser in the 4th district of Paris on the list of Unified Resistance (near to MRP). Shown trading of favors (it claimed 300 000 F against the release of one condemned convinced of traffic with the Germans), his past heroic saved it. Although mentioned on official documents, its important facts of resistance also met much skepticism with too many disconcerting contradictions.

The closing of the closed houses

The MRP wanting to legislate against the prostitution, it tried to sell its influence to the municipal council near the procurers, who refused. Then it deposited the December 13rd 1945 before the municipal council a project for the closing of the closed houses. Its proposal was voted and the prefect Charles Luizet decided to close the houses of the Seine in the 3 months. Encouraged, Marthe Richard, although alive with a procurer, began a press campaign for the vote of a law generalizing these measurements.

The April 9th 1946, the deputy Marcel Roclore presented the Commission Report of the family, the population and the public health, and concludes with the need from closing. The deputy Pierre Dominjon deposited a private bill in this direction.

Voted the April 13rd 1946, the national file of the prostitution was destroyed and surroundings 1 400 establishments were closed, including 180 in Paris: Chabanais (2nd district, known since 1820), the Sphinx, the Street of the Mills, One Two Two but also the disasters houses of demolition like Fourcy and Charbo… Many tenants of closed houses were reconverted as owners of hotels used by prostitutes. The prostitution is then a free activity; only its organization and its exploitation are prohibited - the Proxénétisme - and its visible demonstrations.

Scandal of nationality

In 1948, the scandal of its nationality burst with the chancellery: Mrs. Crompton was English by marriage (its rehabilitation was refused in 1937), her election was thus illegal as well as the votes in which it had taken part. The business was choked.

But the director of the Crapouillot Jean Galtier-Boissière denounced the smoky services with the nation of Marthe Richard. Then the inspector of the National security Jacques Delarue, “specialist” in the false heroes of war, inquired during two years before showing it organization of criminals, of flight of jewels and concealment in June 1954. Its relations saved it.

Thereafter, it founded an erotic price of literature: price “taboo”, published books of which Appel of the sexes in which it reconsiders its positions a little. It is also the author of memories adapted successfully to the cinema (Edwige Feuillère held the role to with it).

She made conferences on her life of spy and died in 92 years in 1982.

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