François Coty (1874–1934): Perfume and cosmetics manufacturer, secretive millionaire and endless source of wealth for the far right between the wars. He was the founder of the fascist party Solidarité Française and owner of the populist Ami du peuple and Figaro newspapers.
Croix-de-feu was also funded by the aristocrat Joseph-Jean-Mathieu-Jérôme, 4th Duca Pozzo di Borgo, who became vice president of the league. He was director of the Anti-Marxist Institute of Paris; pro-Hitler and Mussolini. François de la Roque (1885–1946): Wounded and decorated First World War veteran. Croix-de-feu was launched in 1928 and la Roque joined the following year, becoming its president in 1931. In 1936 he converted it into a political party, the Parti Social Français (PSF), renamed Progrès Social Français in 1940. It was authoritarian, anti-democratic, paramilitary, anti-communist and anti-Masonic. La Roque was resented by all other parties of the extreme right for his more conciliatory position towards the Republic, and his concentration on discipline rather than demagoguery. During the Occupation he was anti-German and anti-Nazi, but pro-Pétain, pro-Vichy and anti-Gaullist. His position was always ambiguous, which led to his arrest and deportation by the Germans in 1943, and, despite two years in captivity and wartime resistance services, his re-arrest at the Liberation. He died before trial.
Pierre-Charles Taittinger (1887–1965): Jeunesses Patriotes was founded initially under the patronage—and funding—of General de Castelnau of the FNC and other patriotic and Catholic movements, as a reaction to the Cartel des Gauches government of that year. See website of Taittinger, http://www.taittinger.com/prix/main/maingenese.htm.
Soucy, vol. 1,p. 211.
Soucy, vol. 1,p. 49, ref. La Liberté, 1 January 1926.
I have found it impossible to get the membership lists of these leagues, whose activities and archives, should they exist, are shrouded in mystery. Jackson (p. 72) says Croix-de-feu's membership was 300,000 in 1935; Soucy (vol. 2,p. 36) says nearly a million. Beloff gives the following figures for 1934:
Action Française: 60,000 adherents, of which 8,300 in Paris Solidarité Française: 180,000, of which 80,000 in Paris
Jeunesses Patriotes: 90,000, of which 6,400 in Paris
Croix-de-feu: 50,000, of which 18,000 in Paris (Soucy says 100,000, of which 21,000 in Paris).
In 1934 the four big leagues totalled 370,000 members. Later, Croix-de-feu became by far the largest. As to Darquier, there is considerable documentary proof of the dates given for his trajectory.
Eugène Schueller (1881–1957): Of Alsacian origin, Schueller studied chemistry, invented a new form of hair colouring, founded L'Oréal and, with Henri de Rothschild, Monsavon. A supporter of Eugène Deloncle and the Cagoule, he was co-founder with him of the MSR in 1940, and a close friend of Henri Charbonneau. After Deloncle's eviction from the MSR in 1942, Schueller kept a low profile. His record was investigated at the Liberation, but he was not brought to trial. He went on to protect, through his worldwide beauty empire, many French war criminals after the war, in Spain, the United States and South America.
Wealthy men like this might have been members of what were known at the time as the “two hundred families.” In fact this figure referred to the largest shareholders of the Banque de France. These “two hundred” had voting rights, and so were seen as the dictators of French financial policies. In the parlance of the time they came to stand for the powerful and exclusive financial elite of the country.
Werth, pp. 90ff.
Philippe Henriot (1889–1944): Politician, broadcaster, Catholic militant, anti-Semite, anti-communist, anti-résistant, anti-republican and, after the British attack on the French fleet at Mers-el-Kebir in 1940, anglophobe. He was pro-Pétain. He broadcast against the BBC and the Allies from 1942 to 1944, exhorting Frenchmen to volunteer for work in Germany. In 1943 he joined Darnand's Milice. He was Minister of Information and Propaganda from January 1944 until his assassination on 28 June 1944. His state funeral, held on 30 June at Notre Dame, was attended by cardinals, seven weeks before the Liberation of Paris and the mass at Notre Dame which celebrated it.
Jean Chiappe (1878–1940): In 1935, the year of Darquier's election, Chiappe became president of the Paris City Council, in 1936 a deputy. Pétain designated him High Commissioner for the Levant in 1940, but he was killed in an aeroplane, brought down, it is said, by a British plane. His brother Angelo Chiappe (1889–1945), a préfet and member of the Milice, was sentenced to death and executed in January 1945.
Action française, 6 February 1934, quoted by Werth, p. 144.
Those involved in the rioting included Coty's Solidarité Française, Taittinger's Jeunesses Patriotes, Maurras' Action Française and its Camelots, and some elements of the French left.
It seems that la Roque was paid by the government of the time not to take direct action. This accusation came from la Roque's former deputy Pozzo di Borgo, a typical dénouement in the relationships of these league leaders. André Tardieu (1876–1945), former premier, later gave evidence that he had often received la Roque in his apartment in Paris and given him money from secret funds.
Weber (p. 336) says Darquier marched with Jeunesses Patriotes from the town hall to join Action Française on the Concorde. If that is the case, then he was one of fifty men wounded at the Pont de Solférino. APP GA D9: Dossier Darquier, 25 April 1935: “Ligueur d'Action Française, il a été blessé le 6 février d'une balle dans la cuisse.” Others, including Louis himself, all say he was on the Concorde with Action Française.
All Louis' words are from: Louis to René, 1934, probably end of February.
Doumergue's government brought in an amendment to French naturalisation laws: recent citizens had to wait ten years before they were permitted to practise law or to hold public office. In 1935 this was extended to the medical profession, and led on to Vichy's laws.
All Louis words are from: Louis to René, 29 March 1934.
Louis to René, 3 June 1934.
Marshal Louis-Hubert Lyautey (1854–1934): Marshal of France, renowned military leader, and administrator of Morocco from 1912.
Louis to René, 3 June 1934.
Janot Darquier to René, undated 1934.
Louis to René, 8 August 1934.
chapter 8
Fame
INTERVIEWS AND CORRESPONDENCE: John Booth, Mary Coghlan, Jeanne Degrelle. Sources: Darquier family correspondence; AN 3W142: Rapport de la police municipale du 8ème arrondissement, 24 May 1936; AN 72 AJ 592: Fonds Vanikoff; AN AJ38 6305: Dossier Paule Fichot; AN F712963, 3 November 1934, 10 December 1934; AN F7 12964, 14 March 1936; AN F712965; APP GA D9, 27 August 1934, 25 April 1935, 13 June 1942; Archives Municipales de Paris, D3M2/3, Dossier Darquier: municipal election leaflet, 5 May 1935; Archives Municipales de Paris, PER 242; Archives Municipales de Strasbourg; BMO, 6 July 1935, 17 January, 4, 5 and 6 June 1936, etc.; BNF JO-77305;CAC 880509,art. 15, investigatory file (dossier d'instruction) of the Cagoule: telegram of 1 June 1936; INA 1939/40.Publications: Action française, 29 January, 2 February, 15 November and 6 December 1935, 19 February 1936; Albert, Histoire générale de la presse française, vol. 2; Anderson, Conservative Politics in France; Arnal, Ambivalent Alliance; Augé, Paris Années 30; Billig, Le Commissariat Général aux Questions Juives (1941–1944); Le Canard enchaîné, 8 July 1936; Charbonneau, Les Mémoires de Porthos; Combes, Le Conseil municipal; Crémieux-Brilhac, BBC Radio, 1 July 1942.; La Défense, 27 May 1934; Dubief, Le Déclin de la IIIème République, 1929–1938; Philippe Ganier-Raymond, interview with Louis Darquier, l'Express, 28 October– 4 November 1978; Godechot, Les Constitutions de la France depuis 1789; l'Humanité, 6 June 1936; l'Intransigeant, 6 March 1936; Jackson, France: The Dark Years 1940–1944; Jackson, The Popular Front; Joly, “Darquier de Pellepoix: ‘Champion’ des antisémites français”; Joly, Darquier de Pellepoix et l'antisémitisme français; Le Jour, 1 February 1935, 19 February 1936; Kaplan, The Collaborator; Kingston, Anti-Semitism in France During the 1930s; Laborie, Quercy Recherche, May–June 1979, nos 29–30; Lacouture, Lé
on Blum; Larkin, France Since the Popular Front; Libre parole, February 1934; Martin, A History of the Schools of Kidlington; Le Matin, 22 December 1942; Paris Soir, 5 and 10 March 1936; Paxton, French Peasant Fascism; Péan, Une Jeunesse française; Randa, Dictionnaire commenté de la collaboration française; Soucy, French Fascism: The First Wave 1924–1933; Soucy, French Fascism: The Second Wave 1933–1939; Sternhell, Neither Right nor Left; Taguieff (ed.), L'Antisémitisme de plume 1940–1944; Thornton-Smith, Echoes and Resonances of Action Française; La Tribune Juive, “Les amis parisiens de M. Hitler,” 27 March 1936; Venner, Histoire de la collaboration; Vitoux, Céline; BNF: Le Voltaire, 1936 and 1937, in particular 1, 8 and 22 February, 25 April and 20 June 1936, and 23 October 1937; Weber, Action Française; www.academie-francaise.fr/immortels; http://www.phdn.org/negation/rassinier/coston.html.
Léon Bailby (1867–1954): L'Intransigeant was the largest French evening newspaper until 1930. Nationalist and jingoistic, it was noted for its sport and literary coverage. When Louis Louis-Dreyfus bought into it in 1931, he said, “Bailby sold me a watch, but prevented me from finding out the time.” In 1932 they fell out and Bailby went off to start Le Jour.
Le Gringoire (1929–44): Conservative, anti-communist, nationalist, Catholic— the most successful weekly newspaper of the far right, selling about 200,000 copies a week. Its most famous polemicist was Henri Béraud (1885–1958), condemned to death in 1944 but pardoned by de Gaulle.
Candide (1924–44): Violent and polemical, this right-wing weekly was run by the Action Française historian Jacques Bainville, and then by Pierre Gaxotte. Its circulation was more than 500,000 copies in 1937.
Pierre Gaxotte (1895–1982): Maurrassian. After Jacques Bainville, he was the historian of AF, and was for a time Maurras' secretary. Elected to the Académie Française in 1953, there he was “received” by General Weygand and joined a large number of former AF intellectuals.
Je suis partout (“I am everywhere,” in other words, “I spy”): Right-wing, pro-fascist periodical, founded by Arthème Fayard in November 1930 and published by him until 1936. Very AF. Editors were Pierre Gaxotte and Robert Brasillach. Shut down in 1944.
Louis to René, 15 August 1934.
Ibid.
Association document in letter, Louis to René, September 1935. The programme continued:
To organise support of all kinds for the members of the Association.
To commemorate the tragic events of 6 February by appropriate ceremonies, to propagate the spirit of sacrifice and patriotism and to participate in all efforts made to re-establish public cleanliness and national honour. We will realise this programme with energy and perseverance, under the spiritual sign of bloody sacrifice, for the health and grandeur of France.
Pierre-étienne Flandin (1889–1958): Conservative politician and deputy, leader of the Alliance Démocratique; prime minister 1934–35, then for eight weeks Pétain's chief Minister in 1940. He was pro-Munich and an arch-appeaser of Germany. Escaped to Algeria, sentenced to five years' of dégradation nationale, immediately suspended, but, like all Pétain's former ministers, he remained prohibited from standing for political office.
Achille Liénart, Cardinal of Lille, Arnal, p. 158.
François Mitterrand (1916–96): President of France 1981–95. He worked for the Vichy state until 1943, when he joined the Resistance.
On the wall of Louis' Madrid apartment “there was a photograph of eight men marching down some street, dressed in raincoats and jackboots” (John Booth, former head of immigration at the Australian embassy in Madrid).
Louis to René, 8 August 1934.
Charles Trochu (1898–?): A descendant of the Napoleonic General Kléber, and a grandson of General Trochu, military governor of Paris during the siege of 1870–71. Born in Chile, he was wont to emphasise that “His family comes from old Breton stock. On his maternal side he belongs to one of the oldest families in the French Basque country…” Paris city councillor and its president from December 1941 to May 1943. At the centre of so much anti-republican activity for over twenty years, Trochu seems to have escaped punishment and to have disappeared from public life after the Liberation, except for a reference to his standing for Parliament in 1951.
Le Jour, 1 Feburary 1935, Action française, 29 January 1935 and 2 February 1935. See Joly, Darquier de Pellepoix,pp. 56–8.
The Miss Hobart crash was on 19 October 1934. Colin, also a dentist, was listed as killed with his wife.
Correspondence and letters of debt between Louis and René Darquier, 1 April 1935; 29 April 1935; 1 May 1935. Correspondence between René Darquier and
G. Habault of Banque Cotonnière, 30 April 1935; 1 May 1935; 4 May 1935.
Myrtle to René, 22 May 1936.
Although glossed over in his political leaflet, in the information later published by the city council his academic credentials were changed to: “Bachelor of Science, he obtained his PCN and his first certificat de licence at the Faculty of Toulouse.” This is false—he failed. He also lied about the year he enlisted in the army, making himself a heroic year younger, and told them he spent the year of 1927 in Australia managing an agricultural and breeding business.
In the first round, Louis won 1,520 votes of the 7,932 votes available. According to the Third Republic constitution, the Seine département had a vote to elect five senators.
Henri Massis (1886–1970): Authoritarian Catholic and colleague of Jacques Maritain, literary critic, philosopher and journalist, disciple and follower of Maurras. The website of the Académie Française (see www.academiefrancaise.fr) states that he did not write for Action française, but in fact Massis was responsible for the “Literary Chat” section of the paper. With Alfred de Tarde he wrote a study of French youth, Les jeunes gens d'aujourd'hui in 1913, under the name of Agathon, and with Jacques Bainville he founded La Revue universelle in 1920. Massis exerted considerable influence on younger intellectuals such as Thierry Maulnier. He was a supporter of Franco, Salazar, Mussolini and Pétain, for whom he drafted many speeches. He was also a member of the National Council of Vichy. Untouched after the Liberation, he was elected to the Académie Française in 1960.
Paule Meslier, then Fichot, began work for Louis Darquier on 7 February 1936 and worked for him till 2 September 1939, then joined him at the CGQ J.
There were fifty-six right-wing councillors, thirty-four from the left.
Lacouture, Léon Blum,p. 223.
Action française, 15 November 1935.
Action française, 6 December 1935; Joly, Darquier de Pellepoix,p. 61.
Dubief, Chapter 3: “La crise sociale.”
Joly, Darquier de Pellepoix, p. 69; Coston in Libre Parole, 3 June 1937.
Coston is quoted in Busi, “In the Lair of the Fascist Beast,” Midstream, vol. XIX, no. 2, February 1973,p. 22 (see www.phdn.org/negation/rassinier/coston.html).
Joly, Darquier de Pellepoix,p. 70; Ganier-Raymond, l'Express, 28 October 1978.
Le Jour, 19 February 1936—AN 72 AJ 592 Fonds Vaniakoff. Jean Filliol (1909–?): Led a notorious Parisian section of the Camelots and the Action Française attack on 6 February 1934, then became hit man of Eugène Deloncle's Cagoule. Amongst others, he assassinated the Rosselli brothers at Mussolini's request. Fled to Italy, then to Spain in 1937. Returned to France in 1939 and joined the MSR. He quarrelled with Deloncle, and spent fifteen months in prison camp at the order of Laval, but was freed by Darnand in 1944 so he could join the Milice. Fled with other Milice to Germany at the end of summer 1944. He was condemned to three death sentences in absentia in 1948. Like Darquier, he was by then in Spain, where he remained working for L'Oréal. Never brought to justice.
Thierry Maulnier (real name Jacques Talagrand, 1909–88): Writer, journalist, school friend of Robert Brasillach and member of Action Française. Nationalist and anti-Semitic editor in the 1930s, a leader, with Jean-Pierre Maxence, of the jeune droite; wrote for Action française and Je suis partout during the Occupation, and also edited two volumes of poetry with
Dominique Aury (the author, under the pseudonym of Pauline Réage, of The Story of O). Later blanked out this past; elected to the Académie Française in 1964. His activities in Darquier's company were ignored or forgotten in France during the Darquier affaire of 1978, when Maulnier was still very much alive.
Robert Castille (dates unknown): Leader of Les étudiants d'Action Française, secretary and fellow advocate of Xavier Vallat, in particular working with Vallat for the Cagoule. Defended Pierre Gérard in court in 1939. He worked as legal adviser in Vallat's CGQ J, and is said to have betrayed him by providing the SD with information about his private life, presumably because the SD at the time were investigating Castille as a supposed Freemason. Also closely connected with François Mitterrand's family friend Jean Bouvyer, a relationship maintained in the years after the war. Punishment for collaboration, if any, unknown. Jean-Pierre Maxence (real name Pierre Godmé, 1906–56): Diligent member of Solidarité Française. Anti-Semite, Action Française, then a dissident. With Thierry Maulnier, a leading Catholic intellectual of the right, and like him a contributor to the dash of “spiritual renewal” Louis Darquier often invoked in his fascist speeches. With Maulnier, Maxence published an anti-Semitic and fascist review, l'Insurgé, at the end of the 1930s. In 1940 he was in the same German prison camp as Darquier.
Bad Faith Page 60