by Susan Ronald
Vogel was a man after old Jay Gould’s heart. No wonder Florence had fallen for him. No wonder Frank liked him. While Hirth’s affidavit was no glowing endorsement of Vogel, it did let the FBI know that he always worked within the law. Still, Hoover sent the Vogel file to the attorney general’s office. A reply came back: “The Assistant Attorney General has now requested the bureau to conduct [an] additional investigation in Paris by contacting appropriate intelligence sources for any additional information reflecting on Vogel’s activities which may tend to verify the report that Vogel was a former agent of the Gestapo. Your particular attention is drawn to page twelve of special agent, Donald L. Daughters.….”4 The intelligence source reply affirmed that no further information could be obtained in Paris.
Hoover spread his net wider. Having “met Vogel on many occasions,” Commander William H. Munson, Vogel’s commander when attached to the U.S. Navy, swore that he was not “impressed with him as a person of great character, but as a person ready to improve his own position.” Commander Richard F. Thoeny, Air Documents Section, “stated that Vogel had been very secretive about his [wartime] activities” but did not consider him a security risk. Colonel H. M. McCoy believed that Vogel remained valuable to the United States for his contacts in Germany.5
Those who knew Vogel during the war, like General Georges and the princesse Sixte de Bourbon, had only high praise for Vogel and how he had saved them and their loved ones from deportation to Germany or worse. First Lieutenant Stewart French, who served with Vogel through the end of the war in the OSS in Munich, thought Vogel executed his duties with care and had strongly held views that were the opposite of fascism.6
Vogel used General William Donovan, former head of the OSS, as a reference. General Donovan did not recall Vogel, but said that his associate B. Meredith Langstaff of his law firm knew Vogel well and gave him a clean bill of health. Hoover was compelled to allow Vogel’s request for permanent residency in the United States to go ahead. He’d lost a battle, but there was a war yet to be waged.
* * *
Meanwhile, in France, the case against Florence and Banque Charles was building. On September 20, 1948, the French government put forward Florence’s DGER file to the Ministry of Justice to bring her and her accomplices in the Banque Charles case to trial. In interviews with Karl Schaeffer of the Reichsbank; the French Ambassador to Monaco Georges-Picot; the former Secretary of State Émile Roblot; Du Pasquier, as a close adviser and friend of Prince Louis II; and several others, it emerged that the Monégasque bank project had been in the offing since 1941. Florence Gould, the judge reported, was earning four percent interest on her 5 million francs invested.
All her co-investors vehemently denied that there was any blackmail involved in her investment in the bank, or any innuendo or threats against her or her husband. That she deposited a further 2 million francs in her own account, in addition to another 200,000 francs in her sister Isabelle’s name, when she was not obliged to do so, was a clear indication of her complicity in the flight of Nazi capital. The judge concluded: “Although it is unproven that she had committed a crime of intelligence with the enemy, it is certain that we have nothing to congratulate her for by her attitude.” Sadly, the investigation was called off because of lack of manpower, and a belief that the evidence was insufficient to bring in a verdict of guilty against the parties. With evident regret, the decision was made that no charges should be brought against Florence or her associates in the Banque Charles affair.7
* * *
And so the show went on. Throughout the next two years, Florence’s salon flourished, be it at avenue Malakoff with its new additions like Gallimard editor Jean de Noël, who would eventually replace Marcel Jouhandeau as her master of ceremonies; at Juan-les-Pins in summer, courting Elsa Maxwell or Henri Matisse; or at Maisons-Laffitte tripping down memory lane with Jean Cocteau in the town of his birth. Paul Léautaud continued his astute but biting comments as before, on the “idiocies” pronounced at Florence’s Thursdays, yet condemned himself for being weak and unable to keep away from her table. Florence, who publicly proclaimed that “When one has friends, it is to defend them, not to attack them,” similarly said within months, “Ah, Léautaud, he was truly horrid.… He put rice powder on his nose and rouge on his cheeks. When he was truly angry with me, he would call me a ‘comedienne’—but since his mother, whom he loved wholeheartedly was a comedienne, I angered him more by pretending it was a compliment.”8 What really mattered to Florence was the idea of friends, and that they would remain at her beck and call.
* * *
There were, to paraphrase Shakespeare, many entries and exits. Some of these were directly related to her collaboration and Florence’s increasingly acerbic words with her female courtiers. Marie Laurencin seemed to take great pleasure trading vile barbs with her hostess, though there was never any clear reason why. Marie-Louise Bousquet, while affiliated with Harper’s Bazaar since the 1930s, was at last made the Paris fashion editor in 1946, working closely with Carmel Snow in New York. In what must have felt like a slap to Florence, Marie-Louise resumed her own Thursdays, attracting those buzzing around the fashion world. Meanwhile, the gray mice returned to their former lives.…
Arletty was less blessed than Madame Gould. She faced what can only be termed a hearing, rather than a trial, for collaboration with the enemy. The charges were, however, more than collaboration horizontale with her handsome German lover, Colonel Hans Soering. Arletty was the intimate friend of both René de Chambrun and his wife, Josée (also up on charges),* and had met Soering one evening when she went to a concert with Josée. Soering set her up in style at the Hôtel Ritz, but alas for Arletty, he was also a close associate of Hermann Göring’s. Eventually the de Chambruns would be found “not guilty” of collaboration at a proper trial, but Arletty had no such luck.
Few people in France excited more argument both for and against the punishments meted out for collaboration. Arletty was well loved, and had given the French escapism during their darkest hours. While de Gaulle’s provisional government wanted to make an example of Arletty in a strictly political sense, they also wanted her hidden from view. The épureur—a judge in the purges—recognized that putting her in a Paris prison might incite her fans to riot. Not giving her a custodial sentence would send the wrong message. Her punishment for collaboration was to be placed under house arrest at some locality at least thirty-one miles from Paris.
By sheer luck, Jacques and Lelette Bellanger, who admired Arletty, offered their Château de la Houssaye to the court as Arletty’s place of imprisonment. When the judge discovered that Bellanger had been in the Resistance, he agreed to send Arletty there. What he could not know was that Arletty and Lel, as she called Lelette, would develop a very close relationship during her eighteen months’ house arrest, although just how close is a matter of conjecture. Unlike Florence, Arletty had well-documented lesbian affairs.9
* * *
It is easy to ponder what happened to Frank during this tumultuous time, and what his reaction to these investigations might have been, but there is no publicly available record. Apparently, just after the war, the family home at Juan-les-Pins, La Vigie, was rented out to Picasso temporarily. The master of modern art decided to thank his hosts for the house by painting murals on the villa’s walls. Frank disliked modern art, particularly Picasso’s work, and so had the murals painted over in disgust when he saw them. This also begs the question where Frank lived between 1944 and 1946.
Having obtained, thanks to Florence, Monégasque residency, was he in Monte Carlo? Or perhaps he was camping out with Anne Marie Vilbert de Sairigné in Nice? What is certain is that after 1946 he officially removed himself from his wife and her boisterous coterie by installing his household at his small villa in Juan called Le Soleil d’Or. Frank never commented publicly on Banque Charles after the war, nor on Vogel. All that is known for certain is that Magdeleine Homo remained his secretary, and more than likely, his untrained nurse and dog wa
lker—for Frank still adored his Pekingese dogs. His happiest moments were spent in his studio, dismantling and reassembling rare mechanical toys that his old friends sent him from around the world.10 As with many older or infirm people, Frank needed the peace and solitude his wife was unable, or unwilling, to offer.
What we do know, thanks to a bizarre twist in the tale, is that on February 25, 1947, de Sairigné cashed the check for $400,000 that Frank had written for her hiding him from the occupiers and their minions in 1943–44.11 The check was dated February 20, 1944, payable at the United States Trust Company of New York located at 45 Wall Street. Why she waited over three years to cash it is anyone’s guess, unless she had gone into hiding for her own activities as part of the resisting Maquis during the war. Nonetheless, in the interim, Frank had apparently stopped payment.12 De Sairigné’s lawyer, Martin J. Kelly, lost his client’s case in New York’s federal district court. It seems that back then there was no such thing as a stale check, and it was not on those grounds that Frank’s brilliant lawyer, the ubiquitous John T. Cahill, fought the case. Having brought the case in federal court, Kelly had to continue his appeal up through the federal, rather than state, court system.
Kelly argued that Gould had been out of danger certainly since the occupation of France had ended in September 1944, if not before, and yet waited until February 1947 to stop the check. No affidavit by Frank was submitted, nor affidavits for others on his behalf. Cahill wisely argued that the federal courts had no jurisdiction to find in favor of the plaintiff de Sairigné because she was a French citizen, suing an American citizen (albeit resident in France) in the U.S. federal court system. On this strong technical point of law, the New York State Appellate Division found in favor of Frank Gould.13 A writ of certiorari, or a writ by which a higher court can review a decision in a lower one, was served, and the case went to the Supreme Court of the United States.
De Sairigné’s case, case number 541, went before the Supreme Court in the October term 1949, and was filed in February 1950. Cahill and his team argued that forum non conveniens in the New York federal circuit court had been properly applied, just as in the appellate division. Technically, this involves a discretionary power allowing courts to dismiss a case where another court is much better suited to hear it.14 This dismissal does not prevent plaintiffs from refiling their cases in the more appropriate forum or higher court.
Cahill also argued that neither Frank Jay Gould nor his attorneys nor any other authorized agent had ever been served with a copy of the summons or complaint, and that as both Frank and de Sairigné resided in France that there was “no sound reason for bringing this action in this country rather than in France,” particularly as jurisdiction over Frank “under the laws of France” was not in question.15 It was an accurate and compelling argument, irrespective of the contract implied by the check on which Frank had stopped payment. The U.S. Supreme Court found in favor of the defendant, claiming no jurisdiction in the matter.
So why did de Sairigné go to all the expense and bother of suing in the United States in the first place, particularly as Florence was under investigation for most of that time for her collaborationist activities in the war? Perhaps de Sairigné felt that by making a “stink” in America, Frank would back down? If so, she didn’t know Frank. Or was it to avoid a confrontation with Florence? If it were the latter, it could be that Florence, not Frank, had in fact stopped payment on the check. If so, then it is suggestive that Florence threatened de Sairigné with exposure in court—and thereby in public—of Frank’s diminished mental state if she were compelled to defend stopping the $400,000 payment on his behalf in a French court. These possible explanations, as well as others, remain just a few speculations to dozens of unanswered questions.
* * *
By the early 1950s, the Goulds’ manager, known only as Mr. Gallauziaux, rebuilt their hotel empire, and financed two further properties. Gallauziaux was Frank’s man, and had singlehandedly saved the Goulds’ millions from Aryanization as early as 1941. Instead of repaying Frank’s loans to his companies in cash, Gallauziaux had the foresight to wipe out the holding company loans by converting them into three notes: 10 million francs falling due in 1943; and 50 million due at the end of 1944 and again at the end of 1945. Warzinski twigged only the first note falling due during 1944, but with Gallauziaux’s prevarication, and the German retreat, Warzinski was unable to collect for the Reich. As Gallauziaux told investigators during the Banque Charles investigations, there was no reason whatsoever for Madame Gould to put money on deposit with Aerobank or Banque Charles.16
Fortunately, Florence never knew what Gallauziaux stated in his deposition. Otherwise the competent Gallauziaux would have been fired. Besides, Frank had been dying, ever so slowly, for years. Florence concentrated on living a worldly life. The time had passed long ago for changes to her modus vivendi. She would wait out the end, confident of her financial position.
So while Gallauziaux toiled on their behalf, Florence was ever more involved in charities, “generous to a fault, as always.” Some of these were pet projects of the American consul to Nice, Quincey Roberts.17 Memories everywhere had become increasingly short. Everyone who didn’t come to trial or faced an épureur was suddenly a résistant, in a mood of forgetfulness that swept across all Europe. Florence’s claims of having joined the OSS in December 1943 were among the least offensive of the tall tales told. It was time to forget, to move on, and live life again.
* * *
At long last, French women could vote for the first time in the October 1946 elections. Surprisingly to some, de Gaulle was heading for a crippling defeat to the Communists, who won twenty-six percent of the vote. The Socialists and Moderates together claimed another thirty-nine percent, with de Gaulle’s MRP retaining twenty-five percent.
Two weeks later, de Gaulle sent his head of cabinet, Gaston Palewski, to the National Assembly with his letter remitting his powers to them. Yet the National Assembly voted nearly unanimously for de Gaulle to head the new coalition government alongside the Communist majority. Where de Gaulle was violently anti-British and anti-American, Palewski was a converted Anglophile, had spent time at Oxford University, spoke beautiful English, and headed de Gaulle’s private office while in exile in London. Interestingly, Palewski, who also had been Nancy Mitford’s lover since they first met at the Allies Club in London in 1942. He was also the inspiration for the character Fabrice, duc de Sauveterre, in Mitford’s novel The Pursuit of Love.
Despite Palewski’s cooler hand on the tiller, de Gaulle’s government lasted barely a month. De Gaulle’s legendary stone wall of pride could not brook any compromise, even at Palewski’s urging.18 Although the Communists were in power, Palewski remained committed to de Gaulle and became instrumental in the formation of the Gaullist Party, the RPF (Rassemblement du Peuple Français). More significantly for Florence, Palewski became a member of the National Assembly in 1951 for Paris, and from 1953 through 1955 he was the vice president.
Yet there were those in France, even in the 1950s, who felt that Florence’s conduct and collaboration during the war merited punishment. Despite the investigation into Banque Charles reaching a dead end in the courts, the DGER was determined to rid France of her presence. No amount of money nor charitable donations had swayed them in the intervening years. On October 1, 1954, the DGER put forward a document for counter-signature demanding Madame Frank Jay Gould be deported. Frank could remain, since he had done nothing during the entire war to indicate that he was collaborating with the enemy. Florence’s cherished life risked an abrupt end.
Only the Communists or a man of Palewski’s powers of persuasion could possibly halt such an action. Given that Palewski was having an affair with the Gould’s niece, Hélène-Violette Talleyrand-Périgord—Anna Gould’s daughter—and that she had given birth to Palewski’s son while still married to her first husband, it is not a leap of faith to think that he came to Florence’s rescue.19 After all, Palewski was a reckless and outrage
ous womanizer, and could hardly say no to any attractive woman.
Besides, Palewski had a fluid approach to collaborators. In September 1944, he came to the rescue of the extreme right-wing publisher Alfred Fabre-Luce in a delicate situation. The publisher’s wife just happened to be the sister of Prince Jean-Louis de Faucigny-Lucinge of SBM fame, and she telephoned her brother for help. Apparently, Fabre-Luce managed to escape a dawn raid on his home, but his butler and a houseguest were arrested. By the time Faucigny-Lucinge arrived at the apartment, the Duchesse de Brissac, wearing only a fur coat over her underwear, was being questioned by the police. She, like Arletty, was taken to the Conciergerie. Frantic, Faucigny-Lucinge telephoned the Duke de Brissac, but he refused to help, since his wife had evidently been caught in flagrante. Soon after, Faucigny-Lucinge thought of Palewski, who managed to rescue the daring duchess from Drancy after a mere four weeks’ incarceration.20
Even the best archives are incomplete, often for matters of state. So whether Palewski intervened directly or indirectly in Florence’s case is conjecture. Nevertheless, someone of his political standing and power would have needed to become actively involved to save Florence from deportation.
* * *
Six months after the document requesting Florence’s deportation was drafted and awaited the counter-signature that never came, Ludwig Vogel applied for security clearance to become a consultant to the U.S. Air Force. Hoover was again brought in to investigate. He forwarded the file to the assistant chief of the Counter-Intelligence Division and the inspector general. Florence’s name featured as a primary reason to deny Vogel his security clearance—ten years after the initial investigation against her.
The year 1954 was among the darkest of the McCarthy era, when Americans were chasing “reds under the beds,” as the saying went. While no one ever accused, or suggested, either Vogel or Florence of being a communist, America had been thrown into a maelstrom of fear by Senator Joe McCarthy’s speech on Abraham Lincoln’s birthday, February 12, 1954. He baldly accused the administrations of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Harry S. Truman of “twenty years of treason.”