Fourth of July
Thursday, July 4, late afternoon. Dexter stood to the side of the large reception room on the ground floor of the American embassy, the late summer sun shining through the windows from the west. He held a glass of champagne in front of him as he surveyed the crowd. It had been a long afternoon, circulating through the hundreds of Americans that had passed through the public reception. Later in the evening, there would be an invitation-only reception at the ambassador’s residence on Avenue d’Iena. Fortunately, he was excused from the evening formalities; afternoon duty with the great American public was deemed sufficient sacrifice.
Two middle-aged American ladies in lovely summer dresses and large spreading hats came towards him. Dexter knew them both well; he was a frequent guest at their cocktail and dinner parties. Great occasions to keep tabs on the thinking at Guaranty Trust and other citadels of American wealth in France.
Dexter beamed and said, “Daisy, Virginia, how nice of you to visit me on duty.”
Daisy, a finely figured brunette, gaily replied, “We thought you would be here. Skipping the reception at the residence tonight?”
Dexter responded, “I am quite junior. I am at my duty station.”
Virginia, a bottle blond, interjected, “Don’t tell me the ambassadress has left the embassy’s most charming bachelor off the list?”
Dexter bantered, “Unlike you ladies, I am a million or two short of what it takes to come within social notice of the ambassadress.”
The two women rolled their eyes.
Dexter continued, “I thought you two would be at the ambassador’s tonight.”
Daisy replied, “We will. We are out and about this afternoon. We want to wish our favorite diplomat a happy Fourth of July.”
Virginia added, “No other man fills that empty chair at a dinner party quite like you, Dexter. No one.”
Dexter bowed at the compliment. “The charms of the hostesses are everything.”
The two women laughed; Virginia looked askance to her friend while keeping her eyes fixed on Dexter and said, “It’s hard to get Dexter over to the Right Bank in the evening lately. Think he’s got something over on the Left Bank. Something French?” She turned to Daisy and winked.
Just then, looking past the shoulder of Daisy, Dexter saw Madame Bardoux and Madame Lambert slowly walk towards him, both women dressed in black skirts, white blouses, and black jackets. They had come from work.
Virginia followed his eyes and said with pleasant surprise, “Yes, I was right. Here they come.”
Dexter hastily explained, “Ladies from the ministries. Part of our liaison duties.”
Daisy asked, “Liaison?” She smiled. Then added provocatively, “When do I get a liaison with you?”
Dexter arched his eyebrows and said, “The ambassadress would hardly approve.”
Daisy gave a little girl pout.
She was always quite cute when they went through this routine, Dexter thought. He laughed to himself; he had been told that the husbands, over drinks at the Maxim’s, had a side bet over which wife would bag Dexter first.
In a flash of recognition, Virginia said, “I know the one on the right. That is Madame Bardoux of the foreign ministry. The first woman of rank in that hidebound old building.”
Dexter answered, “Right you are.”
Daisy, peering intently at the two French women walking towards them, asked inquiringly, “The other?”
Dexter replied, “I believe the ministry of labor.”
Daisy responded in disbelief, “You believe?” Then she laughed. “I saw your eyes, Dexter.”
Dexter smiled.
Dexter held out his left arm in welcome to Madame Bardoux and Madame Lambert and said, “Let me introduce you to my friends, Daisy and Virginia.” The two American women beamed and held out their hands in welcome. Introductions were made all around.
Then Daisy spoke, “We must be going.” Turning to the two French women, she added, “So nice to meet you.” Then turning back to Dexter, she said, “You must bring your friends to our next dinner party.” She turned to the two French women. “Everyone would be most interested in meeting you. Undoubtedly a fresh breeze.”
Virginia nodded in agreement. “Yes, please do.”
Madame Bardoux and Madame Lambert smiled in appreciation.
The two American women beamed one more big smile and turned and headed for the street outside where Daisy’s car and driver were waiting.
Dexter turned to Madame Bardoux and Madame Lambert, “I am so pleased that you could come today.” He nodded at the direction of the departing American ladies. “That is the more pleasant aspect of today’s duties.”
Madame Lambert, a touch of merriment in her eyes, smiled, “Yes.” The handsome American with the charm, so rare actually, would have many admirers not interested in diplomacy, she thought. She smiled at Dexter.
Dexter looked at Madame Lambert’s eyes with pleasure. He said, “I thought we could walk up rue Boissy d’Anglas. There’s a small café serving the most delicious strawberries with the thickest cream…” and his voice trailed off.
Madame Bardoux brightened. “Splendid.”
Madame Lambert added, genuinely pleased, “How charming.”
Walking through the early evening bustle of the crowded sidewalk, Dexter and the two French women came to a small sidewalk café. Dexter pointed out a table to one side, and the three worked their way through the crowded tables. At the table, Dexter held each woman’s chair in turn; each lady in turn sitting and turning an upturned face to Dexter with a polite thank you. The politeness gave Dexter a warm glow.
A waiter came over and Dexter gave the order for strawberries and cream, then turned to the two ladies. “A lemonade, perhaps?”
Madame Bardoux and Madame Lambert shook their heads in vigorous agreement.
Madame Lambert turned serious. “We enjoyed seeing the Writers Convention with you very much. Do you think solidarity between the Paris intellectuals and the Soviet Union will have a significant effect?”
Dexter replied easily, “Informally, we at the embassy believe that Paris is like the hub of a spoked wheel. There are a lot of different lines of action occurring.”
Madame Lambert nodded thoughtfully in agreement.
Dexter started in, “Most likely, the question of a Russian alliance will go on the back burner. We think the question of Italy’s planned aggression against Ethiopia will be the major foreign policy issue this year and into next.”
Madame Bardoux asked, “Where do you think the British will go on the Italian question?”
Dexter looked directly at Madame Bardoux. “British Foreign Secretary Sir Samuel Hoare, our sources tell us, told the British cabinet two weeks ago that Italy ‘places us in a most inconvenient dilemma.’”
Madame Bardoux nodded in agreement.
Madame Lambert asked pointedly, “What are the horns of this dilemma?”
Dexter replied, “Go along with Italy’s conquest of Ethiopia, and destroy the basis for the League of Nations, or stand up to Italy and drive Mussolini into Hitler’s arms.”
Madame Lambert countered, “Last summer, Mussolini sent a hundred thousand Italian troops to the Brenner Pass to keep Hitler out of Austria. He is the only European leader to stand up to Hitler’s expansionism.”
Dexter sighed. “Yes, but does that mean he gets to take Ethiopia, a League of Nations member state, as his payoff? That’s pretty cynical.”
Madame Bardoux interjected, “Premier Laval has made keeping Italy in alliance with France and Britain central to his policy of containing Germany. Ethiopia is a small matter next to German militarism.”
Madame Lambert said very evenly and gravely, “Premier Laval keeps clearly in mind that Germany is the threat to France, not Italy, not Ethiopia.”
Dexter sagged a little bit; Madame Lambert obviously knew how to parse an argument for its strong points exceedingly well, he thought. He replied, “Ethiopia is the unfortunate example that tests the grand
hope of an effective League of Nations.”
Madame Lambert’s expression changed to mild disdain.
Dexter began to make a lawyerly argument, “Two weeks ago in Britain the nationwide results of the Peace Ballot were announced. This was an unofficial referendum of the British people on the League of Nations. More people voted in this unofficial election than in the last parliamentary election—eleven-and-a-half million.”
Madame Lambert asked, “And how did the island people, living in their splendid isolation, vote?”
Dexter sighed again and made a sorrowful look, “They voted overwhelming in support of the League of Nations. They want to support strong international economic sanctions to stop aggression.”
Madame Lambert softened her expression but drove home her next point, “Will that keep Germany from remilitarizing the Rhineland?”
Dexter looked at her thoughtfully. “Probably not.”
Dexter put down his lemonade and leaned forward towards Madame Lambert and made his point, “But Prime Minister Stanley Baldwin proclaimed that the League of Nations would be ‘the sheet anchor of British policy.’”
Madame Bardoux broke in, “But it was not quite a year ago that Stanley Baldwin said that Britain’s border was on the Rhine River. That seems to have gone by the boards, a firm commitment has now become, what many in France now believe, an empty platitude.”
Dexter countered, “My point is that Britain is engaged on the continent in a way that it hasn’t before. France should be a strong partner with Britain in making the League of Nations the strongest possible bulwark against aggression. France needs to look first and foremost to the British for alliance.”
Madame Bardoux looked evenly at Dexter and said, “We, too, have sources in the British cabinet. Last January the cabinet secretly determined that the Rhineland was not a vital interest for the British.”
Madame Lambert now leaned over the table towards Dexter, “Many in Paris believe the Rhineland is France’s principal vital interest in containing Hitlerism. Easy access into Germany from the west through the Rhineland is what makes France a valued ally to the Poles and the Czechs in the east. It is the enticement that attracts even the Russians.”
Dexter nodded in understanding agreement.
Madame Bardoux summed up, “So Premier Laval, sitting as foreign minister, sees keeping Italy in the Stresa Front as central to securing France’s overriding vital interest in keeping the Rhineland demilitarized.”
Dexter summed up, “It will be a dangerous tightrope to walk.”
Madame Lambert made a broad smile. “There, see, we agree on something.”
Dexter looked momentarily relieved and smiled. Madame Lambert noticed the relief and smiled inwardly.
The waiter, white teeth flashing, walked up with a large serving tray, which he sat down on a stand next to the table. First he sat down a dish in the middle of the table with a heaping pile of strawberries set upon a bed of green leaves.
Madame Lambert looked at Dexter and smiled. “These are not strawberries. They are wild strawberries—fraises des bois—much more succulent than garden strawberries.”
Dexter smiled and bowed his head. “I stand corrected.”
Madame Lambert smiled at him, a look of merriment in her eyes.
The waiter then set down a large crock of ice-cold cream, thick to the point of solidity. Then he placed a large plate on the table, covered it with sugar, and then proceeded to roll the strawberries in the sugar. Then with a large spoon he ladled the thick cream on top of the strawberries. With a mixing spoon and fork, the waiter kneaded the strawberries in the cream until the strawberries were bits of red in a thick sea of cream. He spooned out helpings to the dessert plates.
Madame Lambert looked at Madame Bardoux with smug delight and then nodded with grave expression and dancing brightness in her eyes at Dexter and pronounced, “Simply a wonderful choice.”
Dexter picked up his spoon, waggled it at the two ladies, who then pushed their spoons into the creamy delight while Dexter followed in turn, a look of minor diplomatic triumph across his face.
Madame Bardoux then turned to Dexter. “To change the subject, last night Édouard Herriot made peace within the Radical Socialist party. He and five other Radicals will remain in the Laval cabinet to give it stability. Herriott remains as president of the party until October, when he hands it over to Édouard Daladier—the leader of the young and energetic wing of the party.”
Dexter added, “Yes, Daladier wants to put some punch into the Radicals; the young and restless have been moving over to Blum and the Socialists.”
Madame Lambert made the innocent observation, “Herriot got a promise that the Radicals would march behind the Tricolor in the upcoming Bastille demonstration and not get too close to their red-flag Communist brethren.”
Madame Bardoux laughed. “But all three parties will be marching in a great show of unity for the Popular Front.”
Dexter added, “It is rumored to be the biggest crowd in Paris since the war.”
Madame Bardoux nodded in agreement and said to Dexter, “Yes, Marcelle and I will be going to watch,” and she nodded at Madame Lambert. “Why don’t you join us, Dexter?”
Dexter replied with pleased sincerity, “I would be delighted.”
The three finished their dessert and Madame Lambert announced by way of conclusion, “I must depart. I still have some long days in front of me.”
Paris 1935: Destiny's Crossroads Page 9