Dishonor but Not Death

The old man was awakened at 4 a.m. He sleepily rose from his prison cot, donned his seven-star uniform, shuffled into the hushed courtroom. Nonagenarian Marshal Henri Philippe Petain sat nervously at first, then fell into a half-doze.

For 20 minutes Presiding Judge Pierre Mongibeaux intoned judgment. The verdict: guilty of intelligence with the enemy. Sentence: national dishonor and death. Recommendation: in view of the condemned's age, the death sentence should not be carried out.

The old man woke up, looked around unsteadily, picked up his gold-braided cap, shuffled off. Seven hours later, shorn of his Marshal's uniform, he deplaned at bleak Portalet Fortress in the Pyrenees.

France Divided. In Paris debate raged. Screamed the Communist Humanite: Petain must die--"Pity would be a token of weakness." But others shook their heads over a trial for high treason which had become a trial of high politics. Said Author Georges Bernanos (Plea for Liberty) in Combat: "France is disgusted. . . ." Warned Lille's influential Voix du Nord: "The country remains divided, as it was after the Dreyfus case. . . ."

Two days after the old man's condemnation, the Ministry of Justice announced: "General de Gaulle . . . has commuted the death sentence ... to perpetual imprisonment." From Portalet Petain would be transferred to Sainte Marguerite Island off the Riviera. There he would have sun and warmth. His wife, freed of all charges, would join him. But he could not have his seven stars back, nor his honor.

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