One grey morning last week, as the rain beat down on southern France, three old men set out on a journey. For over a year Edouard Daladier, Léon Blum and Maurice Gustave Gamelin had been held at Riom, charged with the guilt of France's destruction. Now, with their trial fixed for Jan. 15, they were sped by automobile south to Portalet Fortress. There, two days later, they were joined by two other statesmen of the French Republic: Georges Mandel and Paul Reynaud.
In Portalet Fortress, gouged into a narrow chasm-side of the deep Pyrenees, they would read, ponder documents, peer out...
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