A Dangerous Woman

by Susan Ronald

  No one fit the profile better than Otto Abetz. In 1934, Abetz proposed to Henri Pichot, the president of the Veterans’ Services (UF)* that on the anniversary of the declaration of war twenty years earlier, German and French patriots should set bonfires on both sides of the Rhine border between the two countries, “the flames burning bright as a symbol of possible reconciliation.”5 While tempted, Pichot turned Abetz down, since he hadn’t enough time to discuss the proposal with his other representatives. Rebuffed but undaunted, Abetz submitted a report on his proposal to the Reichsjugendführung (RJF),† which impressed Baldur von Schirach, head of the Hitler Youth. Von Schirach passed it on to Rudolf Hess, who showed it to Ribbentrop. Abetz was snapped up as Germany’s mole in France by Ribbentrop, while he continued to work for the RJF and von Schirach.

  * * *

  Abetz’s first task was to win over the hearts and minds of the inhabitants of the Rhineland. With the plebiscite of the Saarland looming in January 1935, he created a propaganda campaign so that the people would not renounce Germany in favor of France. Many of the NSDAP’s adversaries had settled there, since they had been persecuted by the Nazis. Catholics, too, were heavily represented among the electorate. Famously, Abetz pretended to not be a Nazi, and called out to the voters to support Hitler, who was after all “a man of peace; if one day, my conviction crumbles on this point, then I will run through the streets shouting Red Alert!”6

  At the same time, Abetz returned regularly to Paris, where he dedicated most of his time to student exchanges. His articles appeared in Le Figaro newspaper, where he claimed that the youth of 1935 were suffering from poor relations between France and Germany and how “tomorrow France and Germany could be reconciled once and for all, and travel together forward as partners with confidence to tackle the true economic and social problems facing both countries. Everything else is a shriveled phantom.”7 In November of that year, Abetz became responsible for the CFA.

  While peace and normalized relations with France could only be good for business, Florence’s view of the CFA would have been based on who among her French friends had joined it. Her longtime admirer Pierre Benoit, introducer of the delicious Robert de Thomasson to Florence, was on its board, along with the father of her lawyer, René de Chambrun,* and, naturally, Melchior de Polignac. The right-wing writer and intellectual Pierre Drieu la Rochelle served alongside them, too.

  De Polignac was, in fact, far more important than his nickname “Champagne King” implied. A lifelong friend of the founder of the modern Olympics movement, Pierre de Coubertin, de Polignac, served on the Olympic Committee that selected Berlin for the 1936 Summer Olympics and Garmisch-Partenkirchen for the Winter Olympics. In fact, it was de Polignac who convinced the Olympic Committee that Germany was the only place to hold the 1936 games.8 Writing as the Marquis de Polignac, he waxed lyrical in his newspaper article for the right-wing Le Journal: “underpinned from the outset by the perfect understanding and dictatorial authority of Chancellor Hitler and by the faith of the Reich’s sports minister … every detail was put into action methodically and with intelligence.… The German people have no desire to wage a modern war.… Its supreme desire is to protect itself from the ravages of the Soviet Union.… Would it be imprudent of me to conclude that a great number of French citizens have a similar attitude as I do toward the Germans?”9 Florence’s reaction to the article and de Polignac’s admiration for Hitler were never publicized. Perhaps that was because business in Nice was, once again, going rather badly.

  * * *

  The Deuxième Bureau unexpectedly raised some queries about the old July 1934 request for the annual renewal of the gambling license for the winter season of 1934–35. The Goulds seemed confused. The request for the license came from Société du Palais de la Méditerranée when, in fact, this company no longer managed the casino or the hotel. Jacques Dalbouse, Chevalier of the Legion of Honor, and SBM’s representative for the Société Fermière du Palais de la Méditerranée, managed to set the record straight with the city of Nice, and obtained a letter of release from the mayor’s office, signed by Jean Médecin, the current mayor, theoretically setting their house in order.

  Médecin’s dispensation, however, was illegal, so the Deuxième Bureau investigative branch of the judicial police answerable to the minister of the interior wrote to Florence. It was strictly forbidden that “any casino where the licensee has become non-operational is not allowed to have its license renewed with or without notification.”10 The purpose of the legislation was to halt the flagrant disdain for casino laws. These laws were designed to stop potential criminal activity such as racketeering, tax evasion, and money laundering. Florence simply replied that SBM’s company, the Société Fermière, was no longer running the casino. Yet the Deuxième Bureau determined that there had been a flagrant contempt for the law, and slapped down Médecin and the city of Nice, ordering the closure of the Goulds’ casino.

  At the heart of the controversy were three separate companies. The first was Société Immobilière du Palais Vénitien, which owned the building and all of its furniture, fixtures, and equipment. The files of the Deuxième Bureau state that this company was organized in accordance with French law, but behind it was a cloaked foreign company called General Motor, and cloaked behind that company was the eventual owner, Frank Jay Gould. His ownership was “camouflaged behind the screen of ‘Holdings des Palais et Casinos’ with his front-man, and Delegated Administrator being L.J. ASLANGUL, personal and private secretary to Mr. GOULD.”11 Some years later, the Sixième Bureau reported that Florence was in control of the company at the time.12

  The second company concerned was Société du Palais de la Méditerranée, which was founded by the Société Immobilière, owned by Frank, and controlled by Florence. Its sole purpose was to operate the casino Palais de la Méditerranée. Its rights stemmed from a lease payable to the Société Immobilière du Palais Vénitien, or ultimately the Goulds. This second company had lain dormant for four years in 1935. Édouard Baudoin was its president and delegated administrator, presumably on behalf of both Frank and Florence.

  The third company was the Société Fermière du Palais de la Méditerranée, which had operated the casino on a lease from the Goulds’ Société Immobilière du Palais Vénitien since the time the hotel and casino were rebuilt after the fire. This third company was created and owned by SBM. Its official administrator was Mr. Dalbouse. This third company was the sole manager after the fire, and applied for the casino licenses through to the season of 1935–36. It was, therefore, the only company that could be granted a license to continue to operate the casino for the 1936–37 season.

  That said, a news article in the L’Éclaireur de Nice announced on September 18, 1936—some two and a half months after the deadline for any license applications or renewals—that Édouard Baudoin would again head the casino operations. On October 1, 1936, SBM, through Dalbouse and the Société Fermière du Palais de la Méditerranée, countered Baudoin’s claim in the press, averring that it would maintain the operations for 1936–37.

  The Goulds created this confusion by using SBM’s name for their own purposes to rebuild the casino and its business. Unsurprisingly, it was a difficult relationship, with the Goulds claiming that SBM was “walking on” customers to Monte Carlo, to the detriment of their Nice property. Perhaps SBM did, then again perhaps not. Florence decided in consultation with Frank, that after SBM successfully negotiated a three-year rolling renewal of the casino gaming license with the city of Nice, to boot them out without notice and replace SBM with their own company headed by Baudoin.

  The Deuxième Bureau concluded that SBM’s Société Fermière’s contractual relations were severed by the Goulds, and that the Goulds acted in bad faith with the authorities. Since neither of the companies controlled by the Goulds applied for a license, and the Gould companies severed management ties with SBM through Société Fermière, none of the companies were deemed fit to operate the casino at the Palais de la Médite
rranée. Furthermore, since the Goulds also held the management of the Municipal Casino in Nice, it was ruled that this, too, must come under review due to the Goulds’ utter disregard for the law.13 Frank was furious. Florence was the active partner in the administration of the business since he was in continued ill health. She was responsible for the illegality, and it was up to her to fix it.

  A Gould appeal was lodged against the Deuxième Bureau’s decision to foreclose on the casino, without addressing the allegations of possible racketeering or flagrant disrespect for the law. Instead, the Goulds blamed the city of Nice for its “misdirection” of the companies concerned, and ignorance of the ancient law of 1879 governing casinos. Florence argued that similar “illegalities” had occurred with other casinos in Nice, but that these casinos were not targeted. The appeal’s success or failure rested solely on ignorance of the law and the defense that “everyone else was doing it, so why can’t we?” Ignorance, as we all know, is no defense. Neither is pointing at someone else’s success in flaunting the law.

  The report blamed the Goulds, and not SBM, for the fire, since only the Goulds benefited from the blaze—something that was not entirely true, since SBM gained control of the Goulds’ Nice casino and hotel. The Goulds were facing a humiliating defeat, and irreparable rupture with Nice’s politicians. Seemingly, no amount of money strewn about locally could help.

  Further police investigations proved that the Goulds, cloaked by Édouard Baudoin, were in cahoots with a Uruguayan former mathematics professor, Amleto Battisti, to fix the Tout Va bank at the casino, in a clear charge of racketeering. Battisti owned shares in Al Capone’s favorite hotel in Havana, the Sevilla-Biltmore, becoming its sole owner in 1939, and intuitively understood the Goulds’ requirements.

  It hardly took a single sway of Florence’s hips or a sensual, whispered conversation to persuade Battisti to step in. The loud jangle of casino chips bulging in her deep pajama pockets was the main attraction for him. Business in his home base of Havana, Cuba, had become rather difficult since the roar of American gunships and “diplomacy” rattled Cuban politics in 1933. By 1937, there were gunfights in the streets of Havana, making a business flirtation with the French Riviera, and Europe, a meaningful interlude.14 Florence was undoubtedly aware that Battisti, while Uruguayan, was of Italian descent and was connected to the Mafia already. Battisti would later become known as the banker to the American gangster Meyer Lansky and through Battisti’s bank, Banco de Créditos y Inversiones, would launder Lansky’s casino profits in Cuba.15 All that mattered to Florence was that Battisti could restore their fortunes.

  The Deuxième Bureau’s report falls just short of implicating the Goulds in an international money-laundering scheme, but their affiliation with Battisti tarnished their reputation by associating them with the “numbers king of Havana.” Most damning was the belief that Battisti was brought in by Florence to recover the casino’s operating losses of the first and second seasons; and when that failed, the fire was, in the opinion of the investigators, the only option the Goulds saw to extract themselves from the situation unscathed.16 Battisti’s personal reasons for moving in on their Riviera hotel are implied rather than made explicit.

  Nonetheless, since it was Baudoin, as the Goulds’ straw man, who arranged matters with Battisti, the criminal investigators needed to get hard evidence against the Goulds personally for their case to stick. What made matters more complicated for the Deuxième Bureau was the sudden disappearance of Amleto Battisti from the scene. While he was already closely linked to North American gangsters and the Cuban Mafia, too, including Santo Trafficante and Lucky Luciano and their “numbers rackets,” Battisti’s involvement in heroin trafficking remained unknown to French investigators.17 In the aftermath of Battisti’s disappearance, a Gould-inspired rumor flew around the world of high-stakes gamblers that he could no longer offer his 35-million-franc guarantee to the Palais de la Méditerranée. Given Battisti’s connections to the international underworld, the rumor was untrue, and aimed instead at diverting attention away from an intended Mafia move onto the Riviera.18

  Even so, it would be wrong to think that SBM was exonerated from any misconduct. The report concluded that SBM was replacing Battisti at the bank for Tout Va with the Greek professional gambler and baccarat king Zographos. The final damning words in the Deuxième Bureau’s report against the Goulds were that “all of these irregularities were designed to hoodwink the Authorities: the Ministries of the Interior, Finance and Municipalities.”19

  As the owner of record, Frank was obliged to travel to Paris personally to dispute the ruling to the Septième Bureau, in whose power foreclosure of casinos resided. Both Goulds argued their case passionately, with Frank no doubt relying on Florence to charm their interrogators. Perhaps the Goulds contemplated, too, that a substantial gift of money to police charities to smooth their ruffled feathers might help. Nothing, however, seemingly worked. At the end of the day, Florence and Frank were advised that the only means of keeping their casino open—albeit with a sizable fine—was to declare peace once more with Société Fermière and its parent company SBM, which had applied for the licenses as the operator of the casino legally and in anticipation of continuing as its manager.

  That, of course, did not address the burning issue of the foreclosure of the Municipal Casino, or the stain that the Goulds’ ownership and accusations that “cheating the system” represented.20 It was a determined Florence who went on a serious charm offensive to beguile Jean Médecin, Nice’s mayor. She would not fail. She would contribute generously to Médecin’s campaign for reelection, and both would win, no matter the cost.21 If it required persuasion of a more personal nature, then so be it. After all, Médecin was attractive and powerful. Soon enough, all talk of racketeering was banished.

  * * *

  Florence’s Paris friends had their share of problems, too. Some twelve years earlier, Coco Chanel had virtually given away the rights to her perfume business while watching the ponies gallop at Longchamp racetrack. She had asked to meet Pierre Wertheimer there, owner of Bourjois perfumes, whom Chanel approached to produce and distribute her fragrance No. 5. When Wertheimer replied “why not,” she never stopped to think that he might try to swing a bad deal on her. Unlike Florence, Chanel was bored to death by paperwork.22

  By 1936, Chanel’s lawyer, René de Chambrun, was in litigation for a fistful of years to regain the rights to Chanel No. 5, without success. Chanel’s relationship with Bendor was over, too. Bendor needed an heir, and hardly required Winston Churchill’s reminder that Chanel would never be accepted at court after the “Abdication Crisis.” That said, Bendor remained on friendly terms with the couturier. Florence’s old friend Étienne de Beaumont stepped in and helped Chanel design a new range of costume jewelry based on many of the real jewels that Bendor had bought for her. It became an overnight financial success.

  Then, just as Chanel was riding high again in August 1935, her new man-of-the-moment, the handsome Basque illustrator and designer Paul Iribe, died of a heart attack before her very eyes while playing tennis at her Riviera home, La Pausa. Colette had called Iribe a “very interesting demon.” Chanel was devastated, but was thankful that Iribe’s defense of her quest to retake Chanel No. 5 was reinvigorated. He’d drawn Chanel as a martyred Marianne, grasped at by evil-looking men with obvious Jewish features, and published it in Le Témoin, awakening her supporters to the “enemies within” called “Samuel” or “Levy” and their “Judeo-Masonic Mafia.”23

  * * *

  While the Goulds struggled with the Sûreté and local politicians, the political and financial crisis created by the Stavisky Scandal—said to be on a par with the Dreyfus Affair and the Panama Canal scandal*—could still be felt. A godsend to anti-Semites, given Stavisky’s Jewish origins, it also laid bare the decadent inner workings of the Third Republic’s high society, in which Florence was a spinning cog, and corruption in its police force. At the trial of Stavisky “accomplices,” Arletty, eyes
fixed on the final pleas of her lawyers, smartly dressed in her dark Chanel hat and suit with an elegant broadtail collar, stood alongside Stavisky’s other cohorts in crime, charged with the swindle. When the verdicts were delivered on January 16, 1936, once again the floodwaters of the Seine threatened the city of Paris. Arletty waited in the courtroom, anxious to get home to her children. Nine people were convicted and eleven others acquitted. Arletty was among those set free. Apparently, her only crime was that she bore Stavisky’s name.

  Days later, Arletty slinked away with her children aboard the ocean liner Île de France bound for New York.24 It is tantalizing to think that Florence may have been one of those who helped her escape the wrath of the French public, but Arletty was back in Paris by that October, broke as ever.

  PART THREE

  DARKNESS FALLS