PARIS NEWS LETTER
by SAM WHITE
THE CHINA MAIL, FRIDAY, MAY 19, 1960.
The Lavals get paid off-16 years late!
W
Paris.
#HILE General de Gaulle has been making statesmanlike speeches in the United States, he has made, in Paris, handsome financial restitution for what many consider to be one of his short-sighted acts after the Liberation in 1944.
He has decreed that the rela- did in the case of the late absolutely unavoidable. Love. tives of the Jale Pierre Laval Marshal Petain.
William Saroyan."
be paid £75,000 as compenen- tion for the seizure of a small Laval-owned provincial news- paper after the Liberation.
Like yo many Government
acts in France these days this one, too, has been almost eum- pletely smothered by official secrecy.
Important
it is, therefore, all the more Important that the facts in this strange affair should be clearly set out.
The paper, The Monitor, of Clermont-Ferrand, was
dozens of collaborationist news-
I telephone Mr Saroysa u Incidental intelligence: The ask what kind of response he principal assistant of the had to his touching appeal from French Prime Minister, M. this notoriously hard-hearted
city, Deyre, is M. Vaudeville.
THE
Invited
HE royal wedding had some ilight repercus- sions on the Paris scene.
To begin with the Chilean millionaire, Artura Lopez and his wife, were invited as friends of Mr Armstrong-Jones.
one of friend of Mr Armstrong-Jones, Not so, however, another Paris pepers seized by the French the beautiful, Viscountess de Government after the war.
Ribes.
A150, Princess Mergare! Now de Gaulle has intervened ordered two dresses from Dior directly to set aside the ardin for her trousseau. This hews ary processes of the law, with en onder that the Laval family's claims to compensation must be met inmediately and met on their terms.
The scale of compensation is almost breathtakingly generous. It is at least twice as much as this small town newspaper was ever worth, even in its heyday during the occupation when it was widely read in Vichy as Laval's mouthpiece.
Furthermore, if the Ministry
I report that he has been froded with offers, a great many of them disdaining money. One of these is a villa in Monte Carlo, the owners of which are adamant that money must play no part in the deal.
pasi-
Mr Saroyan is now in tion to give, shrewd advice to flat hunters in Paris: (A) Dis- cover an Armenian grandmother among your antecedents: (3) Become a writer.
Quotes of the week:
Actor Robert Lamourent; "Love. It's the effort a than makes to live with one woman." Playwright Jacques Deval: *Women never use their
was guarded by Dlor's with a intelligence-except when they jealous secrery worthy of the need to prop up their intallion.” Kremlin in its most secretive mood.
الله
In fact the Princess has been a steady Dior customer over the years. She is known there under the code name of Mile. Tower the Tower of London, Get it?
The two dresses for the trous seau were ordered under that name. Fittings for the dresses took place in Clarence House.
The Alles were M. Erederic.
A
Humility
VISITING British MP, who recently had the honour of being received by General de Gaulle, has
General's humility.
been deeply touched by the
On being introduced to de
make the dons & immediately Dior's hier saleswoman was as Gaulle the MP remarked that the payment who last time he met the General In one-lump sum, then it will allotted lu Dior's other royal was in Algiers during the war. have to do so in 15 instalments customers, such as the Countess "How very kind of you to re- and pay 50 per cent interest. of Paris and. the Princess de member," murmured de Gaulle.
It should be noted also that this is only the first of many claims for compensation "by the Laval family.
Rethy.
The Princess orders day clothes only from Dior's. Now that we are in the higher realms of official secrecy, I may as well go the whole hog and reveal closely guarded code name for Dior's. It is, for
no apparent Plumeau 11 means
All the other claims, an de Gaulle's direct orders, are to be fully and promptly met and the bulk of this money will go 10 Lavel's daughter, Jose, an reason, already wealthy woman married feather duster). to the well-known international lawyer, the Count Rene de Chambrin.
Rightly or wrongly the sums
pald over to her will be widely
regarded as conscience money.
Laval's trial was a farce. His execution, after he had at- tempted commit suicide,
to
An appeal
MHE
the
following advertise- ment has appeared in
Bankrupt
SVEDDING ORDERS
IN CASE OF RAIN HOUSEHOLD OWNRY WELL WEAR CLOAKS BRIGADE OF BURIOS WILL WEAR CAPES ROYAL NAVY & ROYAL MARINES WELL NOT CIGAK
ELLAS
HOT
WATER
BOTTLES
"It says: "Mind you don't catch cold! ➡ signed 'Royal Marines.""
COURAGE
COLOSHES
ROY
Landas. Express Service
It's not a word I use lightly today
by LEONARD MOSLEY
ARE you a brave man? Is your wife or your daughter a brave woman? It all depends what I mean by bravery, doesn't it? I don't count myself a particularly courageous individual, but I don't suppose pass by if I saw a child drowning in a river.
would
beyond, and say: "It isn't so bed. It could be worse."
The trouble is it not only could get worse, but it dki.
The tide of paralysis crept on. Today it has gone down his arms and is lapping at his fingers, só - that he can no longer draw and can only write a little.
would have to dive in-mainly, I think, because I would not be able to live with myself later if I let the child die. But REAL courage of woe let me come back to my how much have I got, and how much do you think you have?
Slowly, inexorably,
the
The pain is always wih him. But if this sounds like a tale
beginnings and say that it is not - because Frances Tüker is a
I mean the courage that is He forgot about his stringe But this time the attack did brave man. displayed not by one single act collapse. He was as fit and not paas... of bravery, like diving in a active as ever.
attack in war, or rushing into a fire, but the quality that enables you to go in and win against the most terrifying and continuing pain .and ́against hopeless odds.
DESPITE all my efforts river, or leading an
over the years, Jimmy famous Montparnasse night club, has finally gone ban- krupt...
Prince of
Right
down.
Happy
Then, in 1947, he came back scourge passed
through his No matter what has been to England, with promotion, a body, tying bis bones and happening to him, he will just title, and a string of decorations muscles into knots. This time the not let his misforume get him for gallantry. He and his wife doctors diagnosed what was hap- bought a house and 38 acres of pening to him, but this time it land on a head-land overlook- did not help, ing the sea at Mawnah Smith, in Cornwall.
So active
Its history falls into roughly two periods. The first is when the Duke of Windsor, then You will have guessed that
There they planned to grow Wales patronised it these questions are not hypothe-
He was a victim of rheumatoid before the war; the second, when tical I ask them because the fruit and dowers and vegetables arthritis of the most devastating 1 arrived in Paris after the war. other day I met the bravest man for the London market. They kind.
It always had the best jazz | I know.
knew it was going to be harder, band in Paris and a low ceiling
if less dangerous, work than which tended to hit one with the
Genera! Tuker had ever had to face be- Francis fore- even the labours of war.
a Paris newspaper:
"Armenian writer needs work and living apartment, perferably filled even some of his bit- on Seine with a good view and downbeat. terest enemies with horror. De lots of light, for three, six, nine At this point I am so over- Gaulle was as all-powerful then or 12 months in exchange for come with emotion that I must as he is now,
two or three original
manu- bring this letter to He resisted at the time all scripts of novels written in the end.
on abrupt appeals for clemency Just as he joint. Will even pay money it -{London Expresi Šervica).
His name is Tuker. Tuket. General Sir
Tuker.
Disaster
To begin with, it look away
himself
Physically, his body is in chains. But mentally he is still
FRANCIS TUKER
the most ective man who ever terprise. For miles around his came out of the British Army.
presence is felt, When he tours his farm nowa
days he has to be manhandled, Somebody in the local pub
criticising the price: In his wheelchair, into the lift was of farm-hauler and carted of tulips. "Better lower your
The general
might hear you." the use of his legs. So he bought around his fields. Amid a pile olce, Evan," said someone else. of cabbages, broccoli, and tulips pottered around the farm in like the anny commander of old. not, Francis Tumar looks happy, and he barks out his instructions And pain or not, paralysis or
wheelchair a
considerable artist) in the even- this time. ingy.
that, He could still oversee what The first time I met General
was going on. He could still do In the evenings he still works and I am sure he is happy. Tuker was 17 years ago, some-
the accounts, write reports, at books and accounts, though But they went out into the
He has learned: how to pre- where in North Africa during fields and started ploughing and concoct books and eich (he is a he has to use a Upe-recorder the last stages of the war against sowing,
form the bravest act of all →
Rommel. He had just bad
how to find the courage not only And he not only will not give to live with your troubles but to flanding row with Montgomery And that was when disaster And when the pain was at its in to his disaster. He has over overcome them. over his plan to assault the struck them; The mist came over worst, he could still convey him- come it. He has made himsel Germans entrenched behind the Tuker's eyes again. His back self to a quiet corner over the mobile brain of a small Mareth Line.
became paralysed.
looking his lond and the sea but enormously successful en-
Tuker didn't Mke Mont- gomery's plan of battle and hod told him so. Tuker was right We won the fight for Mareth, but we lost far more men than we needed to.
The next time I saw him was few months later. At the head of his famous troops, the 4th Indian Division, he had, just popped up. where the Germans least expected him, and cap- tured their commander, General von Arnim, and scores of thousands of enemy troops.
He was a fighting general. A forthright general. A resourceful
And just about the
physically fit and active general
I have ever seen.
A shock
It is the greatest bravery of
-London Azprata Service),
Another male stronghold
falls to
women
by MICHAEL PARKINSON
London
WOMEN just can't bear to be left out of anything. They infiltrate
into every nook and cranny of a man's world.
They even wear our clothes, shire which is resisting a, advancing Ude of women. Au But the most sinister happen- take-over, It is part of the one around it other clubs have sue So the other day I had a shocking since equal pay is that they per cent of the club which is cumbed. when I saw him. For General are taking over the working struggling to do so. In the Tuker was no longer the slim, men's clubs.
YANK
the desert sands.
"Gaifukellik critics would
force on him a nuclear policy ábollaking Britain's independence hera satell
MERY VOICE
ANOTHER MARCH
| wifh the Maschassir & verities
superbly confident fighting soldier I had last seen striding
He was in a wheelchair..
The 3,500 working
The billiards tables 'ere. moved out to make room for a alege. They demand honey-housey ab consequently make, conversation Impossible. They change the complexion of clubs until they lope their identity and their briginal masculine virility, Club lite becomes a "passive and not an active pleasure,
But it goes deeper than club Ife. I see a dangerous signi- ficance in this trend. It's the last
step to a replica of the American man I am doubly disappointed momocracy. And as a Yorkshire
that the North Country is offering
billiards roam the mainter tough, The take over has been only a little resistance. Can it Eggressive, smaller than his cue, clever, calculated. At a cub in a be that the North Countryman is men's it seems, says "Women rain, neighbouring pit village the assylan as he has always bald becoming de hen-pecked and like a fighting cock up and down clubs in this country used to be everything. There'll be 20,000 women organised a petition. The his Southern counterpart to be?
places where men could be men women at the Cup Final and club -chairman-⠀⠀ explting the ams the women were not allow what do they know about foot technique: "About 100 women
#igned it. It came before the. ball? Nowt." thing about It,
A notice hangs on the well. committee and all the members It pays "No swearing please." saw the missus had signed. It He looks at It and says "It What could they do?" there was women in this club But the stealthy revolution we'd have to obey that notice. taking place. The women are Ass it is we just ignore It."
One afternoon in 1944, just on the premises to do any before the battle of Cassino
began, he was having a can, ference with France's. General Juin when a mist passed
Over
his eyes. He got through the Conference amehow, but after wards passed out.
Resisting
So claver
Battle cry
It's a sobering thought for any 'man. The gromen, are farthing. Nothing. I suppose, and yet I up their moves, om on the side of some of the old members who walk out of Why do they do I? Is it That, tise club ⠀na 'goon De- a women they just cannot best to be left arrives. Té's not just a question out of anything?) thg Another Be minèt says, of being paided, în vue's prime.
The miner's wife said: "What's sance" for "the rouse is sauce, for. Wornen? Not one your life. Women have altered the course mister. I want somewhere I can of club life, for the worse. 7
*EC sofridled “Milis a' get away from US MISER- He-
InAltraling see one of the Test remaining bastions of mate supremacy, undermining one of the last symbols or man's 1 dependence, of his dominance
He was flown home to England with a strange, paralysing die ense that no one could define,
He fought the disease and the pain that went with it. Three of wife ark home,
months later he was back on his it is a conquest as surprising thinks that in clubs where They demand to be enter- feet, and a few weeks after that as if the Athenaeum; or the women have been allowed, the Cuined. They need blonde and was once more in the thing Relony clubs had suddenly bear has deteriorated. He can't blousy singers, young men who gentlenen "line leading ta, corps of British admitted women,"
end: Indian troops against the thi ideas dong the road to
Mandalay,
/think why, but it hangin' try to sound like Al Jolsqu, please
dead-beat- ohmadiahs; to ‹ blast. belong to a chib In Thế Mỹ chub du like in hopeful” their wil til
village in South York- Chfints trying to ward on the souls.
VEZLADIES,
'Berride)