Marthe Richard

Marthe Richard, née Betenfeld (15 August 1889, Blâmont – 9 February 1982) was a prostitute and spy. She later became a politician and worked towards the closing of brothels in France in 1946.

In Nancy, she became an apprentice to a tailor at fourteen, but later was registered as a prostitute in 1905. After a soldier accused her of giving him syphilis, she was forced to leave for Paris, where she met and later wed Henry Richer in 1907. He was a rich industrialist who worked at Les Halles.

In 1912, her husband bought himself a plane and she flew it for the first time in 1913. She claimed in the press at the time to have broken the female record for the Le Crotoy–Zurich trip. She actually only flew the plane to Burgundy, whence it was shipped by train to the Zurich countryside, and flew it into Zurich. However, the new record was approved. In 1914, she participated in the founding of L'Union patriotique des aviatrices françaises ("Patriotic Union of French Women Aviators").

Her husband died in World War I in 1916. She became a spy under Captain Georges Ladoux thanks to her lover, a young Russian anarchist. As part of her duties, she became the mistress of von Krohn, the Naval Attaché of the German Navy in Madrid. On their return to France, she discovered that Captain Ladoux was a double agent and he was placed under arrest.

She married Thomas Crompton in 1926. He was the financial director for the Rockefeller Foundation and patron of the restoration of the Petit Trianon. When he died unexpectedly in 1928 in Genève, she moved to Bougival and lived very well.

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