FRANCE: One Good Yank

On dreadful Feb. 6, 1934. half a dozen Paris mobs, enraged by indications of Government complicity in the Stavisky scandals, were moved to rioting which was cut short by the order of Minister of the Interior Eugène Frot. When rifle fire ceased, 24 corpses lay in the streets of Paris (TIME, Feb. 19, 1934, et seq.). Last week, on the eve of the explosive anniversary, sly, black-bearded Eugène Frot, who was once doused with a bucket of slaughterhouse blood, made bold to appear as a practicing lawyer in the Paris Palais de Justice.

The 24 slain “martyrs’ ” friends, principally Royalists and Fascists, were waiting for him. As Frot mounted the stairs to the appeals court, surrounded by his friends, a Royalist shouted the one potent word, “Assassin!” It was the signal for pandemonium. Martyrs’ friends and assassin’s friends joyously joined battle, screaming, slugging, slapping and pulling. Frot’s friends shrieked “Liberty! Liberty!” Somebody got one good swing at Frot just before a slim, dark youth ducked under Frot’s guard, seized his wiry black beard and all but yanked it out by the roots. Republican Guardsmen rushed in, hustled Frot and beard-puller away. The beard-puller turned out to be Francois, 21-year-old son of rowdy Royalist Leon Daudet.

Three days later the actual anniversary of Feb. 6, 1934 came & went in a sanctified hush.