The family planned to leave France in late 1912, but Juliette discovered she was pregnant for a third time, and Joseph decided to hasten their travel arrangements so the child could be born in Haiti. Joseph's mother purchased
first class passage for the family aboard the liner . The Laroches learned of the
French Line's policy stipulating that children were required to remain in the nursery and were not permitted to dine with their parents. Disapproving of this policy, they exchanged their tickets for a second-class passage aboard .
Titanic was too large for the harbor at
Cherbourg, France, so
White Star Line tenders transported the passengers boarding from Cherbourg out to the ship aboard . The family boarded as second-class passengers on April 10, 1912. Shortly after
Titanic struck the iceberg at 11:40 p.m. on April 14, Joseph woke his wife Juliette and told her that the ship had suffered an accident. He put all of their valuables in his pockets, and they carried their sleeping daughters to the ship's top deck. It is not known for sure which lifeboat Juliette and her daughters boarded, although Juliette remembered a countess being in her lifeboat. There was a countess,
Noël Leslie, Countess of Rothes, on board the ship who escaped in
lifeboat no. 8, so it is likely that Juliette, Simone and Louise all escaped aboard this lifeboat or perhaps lifeboat 14. Although Joseph died in the sinking of
Titanic, his body was never recovered. Later in the morning of April 15, Juliette and her daughters were rescued by . The two girls were hauled onto the deck in burlap bags. Onboard
Carpathia, Juliette found it very hard to get linens which she could use as diapers for her children. Since there were none to spare, Juliette improvised and at the end of each meal she would sit on napkins, conceal them and make diapers out of them after returning to the cabin.
Carpathia arrived in
New York City on April 18. Since there was no one to meet Juliette and her daughters, Juliette decided not to continue to Haiti. Instead, she returned to her family in
Villejuif, France. The family arrived the next month, and it was there that Juliette gave birth to her son whom she named Joseph, in honor of his father. ==Aftermath==