FRANCE: The Dead Eaglet

In 1832, after a short, pathetic life of exile among the conquerors of his nation, the son of Napoleon Bonaparte by Marie Louise of Austria died of tuberculosis in Vienna. Edmond Rostand wrote a moving play about L’Aiglon, as he was called, and great actresses played the part, but nobody ever thought the bones of the young Duke of Reichstadt important enough to be moved to Paris until Adolf Hitler conceived of the gesture as a “symbol of good will and hope for eternal peace.”

Last week Nazi workmen removed the remains of L’Aiglon from the dingy cellar of Vienna’s Capuchin Church, placed the plain lead casket aboard a Paris-bound express. Adolf Hitler and Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop left Berlin for a secret destination. Pierre Laval, Vice Premier of France, left Paris for Vichy. He arrived there late one afternoon.

That evening old Marshal Henri Philippe Pétain held a Cabinet meeting to consider the arrangements Pierre Laval had made. Laval appeared tired and anxious. Everything had been prepared, he explained. Hitler and Ribbentrop would be present at the ceremony in Les Invalides. Marshal Petain, as Chief of State, would also attend, as of course would he, Laval, as Foreign Minister. There would be a French guard of honor, as well as a German one. The ceremony would seal the rapprochement between France and Germany.

The old Marshal balked, demanded to know by what authority his Vice Premier had arranged for him to leave unoccupied France. Laval replied that his portfolio of Foreign Affairs gave him authority to deal with Germany, insisted that Petain make the trip. Minister of the Interior Marcel B. Peyrouton, who recently created a Groupe de Protection for the Marshal after the pattern of Hitler’s Elite Guard, asked for a specific guarantee of Pétain’s liberty after he arrived in occupied France.

Laval lost his temper. He upbraided the Marshal for his stubbornness and Peyrouton for his suspicion. He demanded that in the future his powers be precisely defined, that he be given executive authority, with Pétain as a figurehead. Then he stalked from the meeting.

Other members of the Cabinet remained. After a while they, too, departed. Members of Peyrouton’s GP, wearing leather helmets and arm bands, appeared in the streets of Vichy. One hundred soldiers of the French Army surrounded the Hotel du Pare, where Laval was staying. Then three officers of the Surete Nationale entered the hotel. When they emerged, Pierre Laval was with them. He was placed in Marcel Peyrouton’s own automobile and driven nobody would say where.

Pétain sent a telegram to Adolf Hitler, who interrupted his trip. Then communications between Vichy and the outside world were severed for 24 hours.

When they were resumed, a wild story burned the wires. The affaire de L’Aiglon had been a plot to seize or assassinate Marshal Pétain while he was in occupied France, whereupon Pierre Laval would have assumed the Office of Chief of State, set up a Fascist regime under the wing of Nazi Germany, and declared war on Great Britain. Whether or not this story had any substance of truth, Pierre Laval immediately became a pariah to the Government of France. Marshal Pétain broadcast a curt, messianic message to his people:

“I have taken a decision which I consider conforms to the interest of the country. Pierre Laval is no longer part of the Government. Pierre Etienne Flandin receives the portfolio of Foreign Affairs. Constitutional Act No. 4, which designated my successor, is annulled. It is for high reasons of interior policy that I resolved to take this action. It has no effect upon our relations with Germany. I remain at the helm. The national revolution continues.”

When the Cabinet was reformed, not only Pierre Laval, but also Minister of Public Instruction Georges Ripert was absent. Laval’s powers over press, radio and cinema went by decree to Under Secretary Paul Baudouin. Minister of the Interior Marcel Peyrouton, who is also Chief of Police, emerged as the strong man of the weak men of France. Premier Pétain announced his intention of creating a Consultative Assembly to be composed of delegates from the provinces.

In a message to Adolf Hitler, the Government declared that hulking, slow-moving, English-speaking Pierre Etienne Flandin would be “more apt” than his predecessor at “collaboration.” The new Foreign Minister, also a veteran politician, has always been pro-German. It was he who as Premier in 1934 prevented French action when the Nazis marched into the Rhineland, and he consistently advocated a free hand for Hitler in Eastern Europe, provided he left France alone. Following Munich, he telegraphed the Führer his congratulations on his bloodless victory.

Whether Pierre Etienne Flandin was acceptable to Adolf Hitler remained for the latter’s Agent-Ambassador Otto Abetz to say. Accompanied by a formidable Nazi delegation, Abetz hurried to Vichy while spokesmen in Berlin recalled that Germany and France were “still at war,” and grimly intimated that upon his report would depend whether “the present state of affairs shall continue.”

The casket containing the Eaglet arrived in Paris and was placed in Les Invalides. But neither Hitler nor Pétain was present. Some French newspapers neglected even to record the fact.