Foreign News: Eye Opener

The corridors of the Palais de Justice were jammed in Paris last week as black-gowned lawyers and brass-buttoned messengers whispered to each other that that venerable warhorse of the Comédie Française, Mme Cécile Sorel, was to be a defendant in a damage suit.

Until her retirement in 1933 Mme Sorel, seventyish, had stalked through the comedies of Molière before three generations of Frenchmen. Last week she stood before the bar of justice charged with a 10,000-franc breach of contract by a Dr. Marguerite Asdery. Unblinking, Mme Sorel made her defense: a previous operation by Dr. Asdery to remove wrinkles from her eyelids had left her with “a fishlike stare,” made it impossible for her to close her eyes. Mme Sorel refused to go through with another operation to remove wrinkles from her neck while she could still swallow. Dismissed was Dr. Asdery’s suit.