Inglês - PROF. Ms. JAMIL JUNIOR

THE FRENCH CHILDREN

A French man called Louis Hoffman was travelling on the Titanic with his two young sons, Michel and Edmond, aged four and two. He told the other passengers that his wife was dead. But this wasn’t true.

The true story was that his name was Michel Navratil. He had just separated from his wife Marcelle. He had decided to run away with his children. He was going to take them to New York to start a new life there.

When the Titanic was sinking, Michel dressed the two little boys and put them into the last lifeboat. He stayed on the ship when it sank and he drowned. The two boys were rescued by the Carpathia.

When the two little boys arrived in New York on the Carpathia, they were the only children who didn’t have a mother or father. Newspapers all around the world put their photograph on the front page. Their mother, Marcelle, in France saw the newspaper and recognized her children. She immediately travelled to New York to get them.

Her older child, Michel, had a message for her from her ex-husband. On the deck of the sinking ship he had told his son, “when you see your mother, tell her that I loved her and that I still love her.”

                                                                                          (English File – OXFORD)