Trials & Improvisations

Into a snug nutshell Paris-soir last week crammed a smug definition of Europe's war. It is a "conflict of two civilizations and of two mysticisms--that of gold or liberal capitalism, which is that of America, and that of the service of the State and of labor, which is that of Nazi Germany." Still paying lip service to gold and liberal capitalism, the men of Vichy indicated through their actions last week which "mysticism" Petain France endorsed. "Germany invites us to reconstruct Europe," wrote Rightist Deputy Fernand-Laurent in Le Jour. "I do not hesitate to say that to the extent that French interests, our independence and our dignity are safeguarded, the new France must accept this invitation." Neither independence nor dignity was so much in evidence as a disposition to curry favor with the conquerors by wreaking vengeance on the Frenchmen who had tried to prevent the conquest.

Trials. On Aug. 8 at Riom, a quaint, forgotten town in Auvergne with grass-grown streets and stately derelict mansions, a new Supreme Court of Justice created by a Petain decree will convene "to search for and judge ... all those . . . who have during an undefined time committed crimes or misdemeanors or betrayed duties in their charge by acts that led to the passage from the state of peace to a state of war . . . and by acts which thereafter aggravated the consequences of the situation thus created." The Court, composed of five prominent French jurists, an admiral and a general, has a shameful political job to perform. Revolutions and great defeats demand their scapegoats. Elected scapegoats, apparently in cold blood, were Generalissimo Maurice Gustave Gamelin, onetime Premiers Edouard Daladier, Paul Reynaud and Leon Blum, onetime Ministers Yvon Delbos, Georges Mandel, Cesar Campinchi, Guy La Chambre, Pierre Cot, and their direct & indirect collaborators. The men of Vichy apparently still had a little too much conscience to take the scapegoats' lives. The maximum sentence the Riom court may impose is life imprisonment. Although there is no appeal, Marshal Henri Philippe Petain, as Chief of State, has reserved for himself the right of pardon.

No easy task will be that of special Attorney General O. Cassagnau, who will direct the prosecution, because unless his aim is extremely accurate, the denunciations he will hurl at the defendants may spatter Petain's Defense Minister Generalissimo Maxime Weygand, who commanded the Army during those final disastrous weeks, or even Marshal Petain himself, who was Daladier's Ambassador to Spain, Reynaud's Vice Premier. There were indications last week that the trial, coinciding with the U. S. Presidential election, might also be used at Nazi insistence to smear Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his Ambassador William C. Bullitt through "revelations" of sweeping promises.

Meanwhile at Clermont-Ferrand a military tribunal tried, stripped of rank and sentenced to death General Charles de Gaulle, for desertion, flight, conspiring with a foreign power, inciting French soldiers to enter service with a foreign power, and engaging in propaganda against France. Safe in his dingy suite of offices on London's Victoria Embankment, where he is trying to rally free Frenchmen to the cause of liberation, General de Gaulle took his death sentence lightly, declared: "I shall have a settlement of accounts with the men of Vichy after the British victory. I consider this act to be void."

Improvisations. In Wiesbaden, where the Armistice Commissions met daily, the French continued to plead for the evacuation of Paris.

Without waiting for the Nazis to depart, France's new Minister of Finance, Marcel Yves Bouthillier, moved his ministry back to Paris and as an optimistic gesture ordered the reopening of the Bourse. "The finances of France must now be handled by improvisation," declared the scholarly, 39-year-old Minister, who has one of the best money minds in France. Neither a Fascist nor a politician, Bouthillier has spent the entire 14 years of his public life in the Finance Ministry, leaves it to attend the opera, to go to bed, or to indulge in his favorite sport--sailing.

At his Ministry in the Louvre Palace last week he found a strange contrast to the days when France was a banking power. Instead of financial kings, industrialists, foreign statesmen and Oriental potentates, his anterooms and the entrance to the Palace were crowded with anxious officials demanding back salary, retired civil servants wanting overdue pensions, and worried captains of industry begging for credit to get their factories going. "People expect miracles," remarked

Minister Bouthillier's young assistant, "but we are not miracle men; we are more like acrobats performing in an empty circus."

. One way France intended to finance defeat became apparent when the Petain Government ordered the confiscation of the wealth and private property of Banker Baron Edouard de Rothschild and millionaire Importer Louis Louis-Dreyfus, who held two of the five great fortunes of France. A decree permitted the Government to revoke the citizenship and seize the property of persons who fled from France unless they return and provide "good reasons" for their flight. That Baron and Baroness de Rothschild, who arrived in the U. S. by Clipper with $1,000,000 worth of jewels in a little bag, would return to France and the eager hands of Chief Heinrich Himmler's ransoming Gestapo was not expected. Other estates were also confiscated in the effort to grovel for Nazi favor, including those of Louis Rosengart, manufacturer of France's "baby Fords," and famed Journalists Genevieve Tabouis, Andre Geraud ("Pertinax"), Pierre Lazareff and Henri de Kerillis.

Painful Exigencies. Stirring around in the chaotic confusion that after six weeks of peace still prevailed throughout unoccupied France, Minister for Youth and Family Jean Ybarnegaray attempted last week to extricate French youth. Aping the Nazis, he organized "Youth Groups," his goal being to build strong Frenchmen by sport, work and "directed, clean living while still young ... to prepare youth morally and physically to meet the painful exigencies of existence."

Plundered Larder. On the verboten list last week were placed all the meringue, almond paste and cream cakes dear to the palates of Frenchmen. A drastic shortage of sugar, flour, cream and butter caused the percentage of sweetening in cakes to be reduced to 10% of the contents, and the sale of all pastry to be prohibited on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays. In restaurants a new decree provided that neither fish nor cheese could be served with a meat meal and that meat could not be included in meals served after 3 p.m. except on Sundays and holidays. As rationing cards for sugar, rice, soap, fats and oils were instituted, Minister of Agriculture Pierre Caziot warned the French nation that there would be severe rationing of butter, cheese and milk.

Why France, a self-sufficient nation, was hungry was indicated by a report from Lyon that since its arrival the Nazi Army of Occupation had seized 140 trainloads of provisions, paying for them with 1,000,000,000 francs worth of "bonds." To French hopes that at least some of the confiscated goods would be returned, the Nazi welfare authorities replied: "It is not the conqueror's business to relieve the world misery and distress caused by the fault of the vanquished."

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