French Peasant Girl
: Heroism.One evening early in 1858, Melanie Robert, daughter
of a small farmer, near Corbeil, was proceeding to Essonnes, when a man
armed with a stout stick suddenly presented himself, and summoned her to
give up her money. Pretending to be greatly alarmed, she hastily searched
her pocket, and collecting some small pieces of coin held them out to the
man, who without distrust approached to take them. But the moment he took
the money, Melanie made a sudden snatch at the stick, and wresting it from
his hand, dealt him so violent a blow with it across the head that she
felled him to the ground. She then gave him a sound thrashing, and, in
spite of his resistance, forced him to accompany her to the office of the
commissary of police, by whom he was committed for trial.
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Dunning
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