French Royalist Party Most Solidly Organized, Ernest Hemingway
French Royalist Party Most Solidly Organized
Have a Fascisti Called the Camelots du Roi—Have Received Tremendous Impetus in Some Mysterious Way—Leon Daudet the Leader.
POINCARE CALLS HIS OPPONENT A GREDIN
The following is the second of a series of nine articles on the Franco-German situation. The next article will appear in The Star on Saturday.
By ERNEST M. HEMINGWAY. Special Correspondence of The Star.
Evidence of French Royalist Activity
The letterpress reproduced above shows the title line of l’Action Francaise, organ of the French Royalist party, and a subscription list in some paper. On the LEFT Léon Daudet editor of the paper, and leader of the Royalists. On the RIGHT is Duc d’Orleans the Royalist candidate for King.
Paris. April 6.—Raymond Poincare is a changed man. Until a few months ago the little white-bearded Lorraine lawyer in his patent leather shoes and his grey gloves dominated the French chamber of deputies with his methodical accountant’s mind and his spitfire temper. Now he sits quietly and forlornly while fat, white-faced Leon Daudet shakes his finger at him and says “France will do this. France will do that.”
Leon Daudet, son of old Alphonse Daudet, the novelist, is the leader of the royalist party. He is also editor of l’Action Francaise, the royalist paper, and author of L’Entremetteuse or The Procuress, a novel whose plot could not even be outlined in any newspaper printed in English.
The royalist party is perhaps the most solidly organized in France to-day. That is a surprising statement to those who think of France as a republic with no thought of ever being anything else. The royalist headquarters are in Nimes in the south of France and Provence is almost solidly royalist. The royalists have the solid support of the Catholic church. It being an easily understood fact that the church of Rome thrives better under European monarchies than under the French republic.
Philippe, the Duc of Orleans, is the royalist’s candidate for king. Philippe lives in England, is a big, good looking man and rides very well to hounds. He is not allowed by law to enter France.
A Royalist Fascisti.
There is a royalist fascisti called the Camelots du Roi. They carry black loaded canes with salmon colored handles and at twilight you can see them in Montmartre swaggering along the streets with their canes, a little way ahead and behind a newsboy who is crying l’Action Francaise in the radical quarter of the old Butte. Newsboys who carry l’Action Francaise into radical districts without the protecting guard of Camelots are badly beaten up by the communists and socialists.
In the past year the royalists have received a tremendous impetus in some mysterious way. It has come on so rapidly and suddenly that from being more or less of a joke they are now spoken of as one of the very strongest parties. In fact Daudet is marked for assassination by the extreme radicals and men are not assassinated until they are considered dangerous. An attempt on his life was made by an anarchist a month or so ago. The girl assassin killed his assistant, Marius Plateau, by mistake.
General Mangin the famous commander of attack troops, nick-named “The Butcher,” is a royalist. He was the only great French general who was not made a marshal. He can always be seen in the chamber of deputies when Leon Daudet is to speak. It is the only time he comes.
Want No Reparations.
Now the royalist party wants no reparations from Germany. Nothing would frighten them more than if Germany should be able to pay in full to-morrow. For that would mean that Germany was becoming strong. What they want is a weak Germany, dismembered if possible, a return to the military glories and conquests of France, the return of the Catholic church, and the return of the king. But being patriotic as all Frenchmen they first want to obtain security by weakening Germany permanently. Their plan to accomplish this is to have the reparations kept at such a figure that will be unpayable and then seize German territory to be held “only until the reparations are paid.”
The very sinister mystery is how they obtained the hold over M. Poincaré to force him to fall in with their plan and refuse to even discuss the German industrialists’ proposal to take over the payment of reparations if they were reduced to a reasonable figure. The German industrialists have money, have been making money ever since the armistice, have profited by the fall of the mark to sell in pounds and dollars and pay their workers in useless marks, and have most of those pounds and dollars salted away. But they did not have enough money to pay the reparations as they were listed, no five European nations could, and they wanted to make some sort of a final settlement with the French.
Now, we must get back to little white-whiskered Raymond Poincare, who has the smallest hands and feet of any man I have ever seen, sitting in the chair at the chamber of deputies while the fat, white-faced Leon Daudet, who wrote the obscene novel and leads the royalists and is marked for assassination, shakes his finger at him and says “France will do this. France will do that.”
To understand what is going on we must remember that French politics are unlike any other. It is a very intimate politics, a politics of scandal. Remember the duels of Clemenceau, the Calmette killing, the figure of the last president of the French republic standing in a fountain at the Bois and saying: “O, don’t let them get me. Don’t let them get me.”
The Prisoner of Daudet.
A few days ago M. Andre Berthon stood up in the chamber of deputies and said: “Poincare, you are the prisoner of Leon Daudet. I demand to know by what blackmail he holds you. I do not understand why the government of M. Poincare submits to the dictatorship of Leon Daudet, the royalist.”
“Tout d’un piece,” all in one piece, as the Matin described it, Poincare jumped up and said: “You are an abominable gredin, monsieur.” Now you cannot call a man anything worse than a gredin, although it means nothing particularly bad in English. The chamber rocked with shouts and cat calls. It looked like the free fight in the cigaret factory when Geraldine Farrar first begun to play Carmen. Finally it quieted down sufficiently for M. Poincare, trembling and grey with rage, to say: “The man who stands in the Tribune dares to say that there exist against me or mine abominable dossiers which I fear to have made public. I deny it.”
M. Berthon said very sweetly: “I have not mentioned any dossiers.” Dossiers is literally bundles of papers. It is the technical name for the French system of keeping all the documents on the case in a big manilla folder. To have a dossier against you is to have all the official papers proving a charge held by some one with the power to use them.
The Apology Accepted.
In the end M. Berthon was asked to apologize. “I apologize for any outrageous words I may have used.” He did so very sweetly. It took this form: “I only say M. le President, that M. Leon Daudet exercises a sort of pressure on your politics.”
This apology was accepted. Poincare goaded out of his depression to deny the existence of papers that had not been mentioned is back in his forlornness. You cannot make charges in France unless you hold the papers in your hands and those that do hold dossiers know how to use them.
Last July in a confidential conversation with a number of British and American newspaper correspondents Poincare, discussing the Ruhr situation, said: “Occupation would be futile and absurd. Obviously Germany can only pay now in goods and labor.” He was a more cheerful Poincare in those days.
Meantime the French government has spent 160 million francs (official) on the occupation and Ruhr coal is costing France $200 a ton.
In the next article Mr. Hemingway will deal with the French press, telling how the papers are paid to print only what the government wants.
The End
