Foreign News: Warning to Dictators

“Paris today is giving Their Britannic Majesties the greatest reception ever tendered a living person anywhere!” cabled last week Chicago Daily News Veteran Edgar Ansel Mowrer. The democracies, following the lead of Hitler’s visit to Rome, were themselves putting on a whopping big show of friendship. At the last minute the $1,000,000 official decoration of Paris for the State visit was multiplied by householders, shopkeepers who hung out flags, bunting, streamers and pictures of Their Majesties. Good-natured French throngs surged on the sidewalks, twisting their tongues in preparation for singing God Save The King. They were aided by phonetic spellings in the words published by Paris papers.*

Weighty Newspundit Walter Lippmann, in Paris to hail Democracy’s new potency in Europe, resulting from recent Anglo-French rearmament and collaboration, cabled: “The period of Franco-British impotence under the menace of a knockout blow came to an end in April of this year. The end was marked by the creation of what is in all but name an alliance. This alliance was tested in the Czechoslovak crisis of May 21 and survived its first severe practical test.”

Koh-i-Nur. Crown jewels seldom travel, but King George and Queen Elizabeth, responding to the costly hospitality of their French hosts, brought along $7,500,000 in jewels from the Tower of London, including the 106-carat Koh-i-Nur diamond for Her Majesty to wear at the Paris Opera. Two Scotland Yardmen were deemed enough to guard the Crown jewels, plus 50 blue trunks and pieces of luggage, each lettered in gold, THE KING. Their Majesties left the channel port of Boulogne-sur-Mer by special train for Paris over a cleared track guarded by 50,000 French troops.

The blue streamlined French train, emblazoned with the royal coat of arms and British and French flags and drawn by a blue and gold locomotive, drew into Paris at a newly decorated station in the Bois de Boulogne, used only on visits of State. Their Majesties’ arrival in Paris was signaled by releasing 10,000 white “Doves of Peace” from a huge, flower-decked cage. The 2.000,000 citizens of Paris who had turned out to sing and cheer realized in advance that they would scarcely glimpse Their Majesties, for every Frenchman knew that Minister of Interior Albert Sarraut was going to take excessive measures for their protection—and knew why. In 1934, the assassination of Jugoslav King Alexander at Marseille occurred after Minister of Interior Albert Sarraut had taken only ordinary precautions. He had to resign from the Cabinet in disgrace, and only thanks to the great elasticity of French politics did it happen that M. Sarraut was again last week Minister of Interior, responsible for the lives of visiting sovereigns. Jittery, he threw around the motor cars in which Their Majesties rode with the President and Mme Albert Lebrun a hollow square of close-riding, flashing-helmeted cavalry of the Garde Républicaine, added motorcycle outriders for good measure. There were 10,000 reserve officers in the houses along the route. Thus the State progress from the Bois de Boulogne to the Arc de Triomphe, down the Champs-Elysees, across the Place de la Concorde to the Palais d’Orsay, last week was a stately military parade, enlivened by wave on wave of cheering, and by Gaelic chaffing at the expense of “That scared rabbit Sarraut!” As the King’s car reached the Place de la Concorde, there broke out from the Eiffel Tower an enormous Union Jack, said to be the largest flag ever made, promptly cartooned by Robert Edmond Sparling in the Washington Herald as “A Warning to Dictators.”

“Vive le Roi!” The British Foreign Secretary, Viscount Halifax, who accompanied King George to handle negotiations for His Majesty’s Government, began at once an earnest conversation with French Premier Edouard Daladier which appeared completely to engross the two statesmen as the car in which they rode followed the procession. The $7,500.000 jewels meanwhile were whisked quietly to the British Embassy, locked up in the safe. Individual pieces were brought separately by the Scotland Yard detectives to Their Majesties, who lodged on the Quai d’Orsay in the palace of the French Foreign Office. There, the large bed in which small Emperor Napoleon once slept was found just right for tall George VI, but Queen Elizabeth proved too tall to be comfortable in the bed of petite Marie Antoinette and this priceless antique was quickly replaced by something a trifle larger, less romantic.

First pleasant duty of Their Majesties was to drive over and call at the Elysée Palace of President Lebrun, who conferred on Queen Elizabeth the Grand Cordon of the Legion of Honor, already possessed by King George. His Majesty then invested the President with the Grand Cordon of the Order of the Bath. Under French law the wife of the President has no official status, and thus motherly Mme Lebrun was not in on the exchange of decorations, behaved as a simple French citizeness in dropping a curtsy to the Queen, although Citizeness Lebrun was squired everywhere last week on the arm of the King.

At the State dinner in the Elysée. King George and President Lebrun, while each spared Adolf Hitler’s feelings by remarking that the Anglo-French friendship is directed against no other power, affirmed in champagne toasts the strength of what His Majesty called the “bonds” uniting Britain and France. After dinner came a super-select reception for 1,000 influential French, followed by a playlet in which Sacha Guitry acted Louis XIV, “Le Grand Monarque,” and outside the Paris crowd kept up insistent shouts of “Vive le Roi!”

Monster & Gifts, Next morning the King, uniformed as a field marshal, wreathed the tomb of the Unknown Soldier with red poppies. Few minutes later, in the blue of Admiral of the Fleet, His Majesty went up the Seine on a royal barge with Her Majesty and the Lebruns to the Paris City Hall, passing en route a huge, festive Loch Ness Monster in papier mache more than a city block long. Gifts presented by the City of Paris were a set of Lalique table glass for the Queen, a solid gold cigaret case for the King. That afternoon at a garden party in the Rose Garden of the Bagatelle Chateau, the top-hatted King-Emperor responded by writing his personal check for 100,000 francs ($2,760)—a gift to the Paris poor. The widow of Marshal Joffre and the widow of Marshal Foch were received for a quiet chat by Their Majesties. They dined at the British Embassy—with swank Sir Eric Phipps, the Ambassador, “at the foot of the table” since the King, in a white tie, was at the head.

Afterward came the Grand Gala at the Paris Opera. The elite of France, struggling to worm their way through the jam-packed streets, were jostled, joshed and even hissed by people not important enough to rate tickets. Up the vast white marble stair, lined on each side by officers of the Garde Republicaine with gleaming swords and helmets, the King and Queen entered, preceded by two footmen carrying lighted candles in silver sticks. They were greeted by the President and Mme Lebrun, cheered by the whole audience as they took seats in the Presidential box to hear Salammbô, the opera based on Flaubert’s novel about Carthage. U. S. Ambassador William C. Bullitt was in the adjoining box. Most women in the audience wore white, knowing the Queen would be in what they considered “white mourning” for her mother, although white is her favorite color. Her Majesty’s satin gown by Norman Hartnell (who went from London to Paris to hover near his best customer) was set off by the dazzling white fire of the Koh-i-Nur.

Outside, the crowd began a chant of “Au balcon! Come out on the balcony!,” kept it up until Their Majesties overruled the jittery French detectives, appeared with British casualness on the high Opera balcony, stirred such a tempest of popular acclaim that even the more case-hardened Paris correspondents finally flashed: “It was genuine!”

Harmony v. Hitler. Meanwhile, Viscount Halifax, Premier Daladier and M. Bonnet, all of whom know to their cost that among the civil servants of the French Foreign Office there is a Left clique prone to “leak” any secrets which can be turned against Conservative Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain by the press, last week took unprecedented precautions. All secretaries, diplomats and experts were excluded during the earnest talks of these statesmen—conferences so important that the three were even late for a luncheon scheduled by the rigid protocol. Halifax, who once was Chamberlain’s personal envoy to Führer Hitler, had been waited upon just before he left London by the Fuhrer’s confidential emissary, Fritz Wiedemann, during the War an adjutant in the regiment in which the future Dictator was a dispatch-bearer. Wiedemann delivered to Halifax secret terms on which Hitler was ready last week to settle the Czechoslovak Question. Study of these in Paris overshadowed the drafting of a formal communique in which France and Britain announced themselves last week in “complete harmony,” served notice of their “common will to pursue their action of appeasement and conciliation.”

Windsor & Windsor. In Europe, appeasement and conciliation can now be effected only with the heaviest armaments, and at Versailles the smartly drilled, heavily motorized might of France unrolled in a broad military pageant before King George. The military attaches of Germany and Italy had been given front seats, and many an observer quoted Marshal Lyautey’s famed maxim: “Show your strength and you will not have to use it!”

Most impressive were new French tanks of record size, so heavy that spectators felt the ground tremble as they thundered past. Low visibility spoiled the air part of the show, grounded 600 battle planes which were to have made a roaring flight past. Instead, 30 fast, highly maneuverable pursuit ships skimmed in under the low clouds, jazzed the crowd.

Gravely, Mayor Henri Haye of Versailles, a frequent dinner host to the Duke of Windsor who has just had one of Versailles’ streets named “Windsor,” did the honors last week of State-banqueting the head of the House of Windsor in the famed Hall of Mirrors. Ten of the greatest chefs in France combined their skill to prepare a sumptuous repast, and direct by plane from Moscow was the caviar. Quaffed (sparingly by His Majesty, just over a stomach upset) were two rare Champagnes: Veuve Clicquot 1900, the year of the Queen’s birth; and Pommery 1895, the year of the King’s.

Back in Paris that evening, Queen Elizabeth decided it was about time she and King George insisted on appearing to the clamoring Paris populace at close range. In progress at the Palais d’Orsay was an evening’s entertainment by such world favorites as Maurice Chevalier and Yvonne Printemps, staged for the King and Queen and about 120 guests. The party could be seen through the brightly lighted windows of the Palace. Popular cheers and impatience increased, and Minister of Interior Albert Sarraut squirmed nervously on his chair, several times half rose as if to order the curtains drawn, to shut out vague Danger. After the last star turn, the Queen, then the King were seen expressing themselves earnestly to the President and Mme Lebrun, finally won their point and appeared on the low balcony amid pandemonium which made their last night in Paris a real triumph. Although M. Sarraut almost swooned with anxiety, nobody took a shot at George VI.

Best Guarantee. Next morning, on the station platform, the Lebruns said good-by to their guests in the name of France. Then the royal train, followed by the Presidential train, steamed off to what was called the “Australian soil” of the cemetery at Villers-Bretonneux, where 2,500 Australian soldiers lie buried. In dedicating a handsome new Australian Memorial, the King showed himself in better voice than at any time since he took the Throne, the nervous tone of his halting speech having almost vanished, and President Lebrun fervently responded, “It moves me to salute, Your Majesty, your affirmation that ‘The friendship of the two nations is the best guarantee of world peace’ retains today all its power and force!”

After the ceremony, as the King and Queen drove off to rejoin their train and be whisked to the Channel, then to England, a young Deputy of the French Chamber arose and recited in English to the gathering of French and Australian officials:

The tumult and the shouting dies; ” The captains and the kings depart: ” Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice, ” An humble and a contrite heart.”

*”Godd saive aour Grechieuss Kinng, Long laive aour nobeul Kinng, Godd saive ze Kinng.”