Mitrailleuse
A mitrailleuse (; from French "mitraille", "grapeshot") is a type of volley gun with multiple barrels of rifle calibre that can fire either multiple rounds at once or several rounds in rapid succession. The earliest true mitrailleuse was invented in 1851 by Belgian Army captain Fafschamps, 10 years before the advent of the Gatling gun. It was followed by the Belgian Montigny mitrailleuse in 1863. Then the French 25 barrel ""Canon à Balles"", better known as the Reffye "mitrailleuse", was adopted in great secrecy in 1866. It became the first rapid-firing weapon deployed as standard equipment by any army in a major conflict when it was used during the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71. A steel block containing twenty-five 13 mm (.51 calibre) centre-fire cartridges was locked against the breech before firing. With the rotation of a crank, the 25 rounds were discharged in rapid succession. The sustainable firing rate of the Reffye mitrailleuse was 100 rounds per minute. The maximum effective range of the Reffye "mitrailleuse" was about 2000 yards; a distance which placed their batteries beyond the reach of Prussian Dreyse needle rifle fire. Reffye mitrailleuses were deployed in six gun batteries and were manned by artillery personnel. They were not infantry support weapons, but rather a form of special artillery.
Madeleine Malraux
On 8 January 1943, she married , a journalist and half-brother of André Malraux. From their union was born on 11 June 1944, a son, Alain Malraux, who never knew his father. On 21 March 1944, Roland Malraux was arrested by the Gestapo in Brive-la-Gaillarde and deported to Neuengamme in Germany. He died during the bombardment of the ocean liner "Cap Arcona" by the RAF off Lübeck Bay on 3 May 1945.
It is during this same year 1943 that Madeleine Lioux met for the first time André Malraux at her parents' home and her then companion . The future minister of General de Gaulle will not know the same fate as his half-brothers. Indeed, shortly before his arrest, Roland had introduced André Malraux to the head of the Footmann network, another network of the SOE: . After he joigned the Resistance under the name of Colonel Berger, André Malraux was in turn arrested by the Germans at Gramat on 22 July 1944. Transferred to the of Toulouse, he was liberated by a "coup de force" from the Maquis on 19 August.