The Eternal Parachutist

In 1940, when France's armies were in full retreat, a gallant young officer tried almost singlehanded to stem the German advance. Time & again he flung his motorized squadron through the enemy lines. A machine-gun blast shattered his left arm, and he fought on. Soon afterward, a grenade ripped off the wounded hand. A night later, his arm amputated, the young officer shinnied down out of a military hospital window and escaped. Thus crippled, he parachuted into Nazi territory to carry on the fight underground. A grateful nation later rewarded Captain Antoine-Pierre-Etienne Chalvet Bauny de Recy with the Legion of Honor and a citation describing him as "an officer whose conduct will remain an example for future generations," and in time it elected him to the Chamber of Deputies.

Two years later, Captain de Recy was stripped of his parliamentary immunity and dragged off to jail, charged with conspiracy, forgery and the theft of $285,714 worth of government bonds. It took the best efforts of France's Serete three years to determine just how De Recy had got the bonds and what he had done with them. One local judge was sent whimpering to an insane asylum after working on the complicated case.

But by last month, the details were complete enough to fill an 800-page indictment in the criminal court at Versailles. It told a tragic story of boredom and bankruptcy, of bonds lying loose in a treasury vault at Arras, and of a hero who had found neither peace nor prosperity in victory. His substance wasted in extravagant living and rash business deals, De Recy's lust for adventure had led him into a conspiracy with four accomplices to steal the bonds. Soon afterward, the thieves had had a falling out. One of them was picked up trying to cash in the bonds, and the jig was up.

Last week, after hearing the defendant himself admit the truth of the story, the Versailles jury voted Captain de Recy guilty as charged. The sentence: ten years at hard labor; a fine of 50,000 francs ($14,000). "Nothing has prepared me for this," said the broken, tuberculous ex-hero, "neither my education, my children, my family life nor my military career. I fell into a milieu I didn't know." Murmured his lawyer: "The eternal parachutist."

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