The Admiral's Trips

The Admiral's chauffeur began to get panicky. He had been lost for nearly an hour on obscure byroads north of Paris.

What made it serious was that Admiral Darlan was on his way to a conference which might affect the whole future of France--a meeting with Adolf Hitler. A corry way to spend Christmas, but an urgent cause; it was awful to be lost.

At last he got bearings on Beauvais, and found the village. He waited while the Admiral went in to talk with the Conqueror. When Jean Darlan came out he was neither particularly elated nor particularly depressed. The chauffeur knew only what was common talk: the Admiral had presented (in writing, not verbally, as Pierre Laval had negotiated) a new plan of Marshal Petain for "limited cooperation,'' whatever that might be.

The chauffeur drove Admiral Darlan down past Paris and Orleans, past Nevers and the country of the milk-white cows, across the demarcation line at Moulins and up the stony Allier to Vichy. A few days later he learned that he would have to drive the Admiral to Paris and its secret environs probably many more times. The Admiral had been named official negotiator with the Germans. But strangely ten days, twelve days, a fortnight passed; and the Admiral was not called to the occupied zone. The Germans were slow about their answer.

The chauffeur, like his simple friends and relatives, like all the common people, wanted badly to know what was happening in and to France. But he could only live the words of his boss, the Admiral, and his boss's boss, the Marshal: wait and trust. "Take courage," the Marshal had said, "and close your ranks about me." Nevertheless, it was hard for the chauffeur and his friends not to put bricks of fact together with the uncertain mortar of rumor, and so build a comforting structure for the future. Last week they heard plenty of talk.

They heard, most persistently and reliably, that the Marshal was willing to cooperate with the Germans within reason, but that certain demands he would not accept. He would entertain no talk of transit across Unoccupied France for German troops, use of French naval bases by German vessels, least of all French military participation against Britain.

They heard of certain bargaining points which the Marshal, through the Admiral, would use. France still had two armies on the continent: 100,000 in unoccupied France, which could at least be a nuisance; 2,000,000 prisoners in occupied France and Germany, whose cost of living the French were bearing. France still had a Navy, which was headed by Admiral Darlan--no lover of Britain since Oran and Dakar, but no lover of Germany either and certainly not of Italy; a man who loves only France and who could devise uses for his Fleet which would not be convenient to the Axis. France still had an economy. Last week Finance Minister Yves Bouthillier presented a budget for the first four months of 1941, approximately 40,000,000 francs ($880,000) of which 6,000,000 ($142,000) was for military expenses. The Government had recently taken over all British contracts with industries in unoccupied France, bank deposits were 20% higher than before the break-through in May, and the first postwar French film was recently released.

France still had the lively interest of the U. S., as testified by the arrival in Vichy this week of Ambassador William D. Leahy, significantly an Admiral like Jean Darlan. France also had an Empire.

Last week Vichy gave French Indo-China dominion status, casting that far-off unit on its own to deal with Japan and Thailand, and put Syria under direct command of General Maxime Weygand, welding it to the African domains over which General Weygand is supreme commander.

Above all, France still had Henri Philippe Petain. One of the rumors the chauffeur and his friends heard last week was that if demands grew excessive, the Marshal would resign or go to Africa. Considering the Marshal's great popularity and great power, this would seriously embarrass the occupying authority. France's Government was a patriarchy; its Chamber, Patriarch Petain announced fortnight ago, would be a purely consultative body of 160 appointed members (there used to be 618 Deputies, 314 Senators).

Last week the Marshal moved to make his position even more essential. Paul Baudouin, who was Petain's Foreign Minister until Pierre Laval took his place in October, who since then had been Secretary of State, resigned entirely. There had been six major reshufflings of the Cabinet since Petain's Provisional Government in June. Only three men had survived all the shifts: Admiral Darlan, Finance Minister Bouthillier, and the Marshal's brilliant, shrewd adviser, Minister of Justice Raphael Alibert.

Even humble characters like Darlan's chauffeur thought there would be still more shakeups. A major one seemed in the cards last week: formation of an inner Cabinet consisting of the Marshal, Admiral Darlan, Foreign Minister Pierre Etienne Flandin, and General Charles Huntziger, who was entrusted with the original armistice negotiations. It pleased the chauffeur to hear that under the Marshal, his boss would be primus inter pares --first among equals. At week's end the Admiral presided over a Cabinet meeting, and though the boss did not say so, the chauffeur guessed that there might soon be a long drive to see Hitler.

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