Death of a Countess

Historians always and novelists never forget that statesmen's worries are not exclusively those of the commonweal. Last week there came from France the story of a private tragedy which was nothing to the national tragedy but which touched French hearts.

Some years ago the plain daughter of a wealthy Marseille dock contractor caught an engineer Count, married him, moved to Paris and set up a salon for journalists and politicians. Helene de Fortes was short, homely, plain, dark, nervous, jealous and not very bright; but she apparently had something for which Frenchmen would trade every grace. Widowed two years ago, she set her jib for a bright financier named Paul Reynaud. Soon Reynaud, who till then had been a good family man, separated from his wife. Under the administration of Georges Bonnet (then Minister of Justice) the divorce laws were altered and the financier expected to be free within one year instead of three.

Last March 21, Paul Reynaud became Premier of France. Power fit him well, but was ungainly on the Countess de Fortes. She began to fancy herself as a power in the State, and while France's troubles grew graver, her meddling voice grew shriller. She got hysterical when Frenchmen whispered that France's fleur de Us was being crowded by a faded fleur du lit. At Tours and at Bordeaux, she was constantly in Government hair. Then Reynaud, France, and Countess de Portes's hopes for grandeur fell.

Motoring from Bordeaux to the Riviera on June 28, Paul Reynaud and Helene de Portes ran off the road. He injured his head. The Countess de Portes, having lost all for which she lived, lost her life.

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