On Paris' historic Ile St. Louis in a sumptuous old house crammed with exquisite bibelots and first editions lives millionaire Socialist Leader Leon Blum. Although intellectually cultivated, refined and suave, M. Blum affects a shaggy and haphazard air. He delights to rush among the Paris rabble and deliver mixed Socialist-Communist harangues. He annoys
Rightists to such a point that a Nationalist newspaper once greeted him editorially with "Blum! Blum! Blum! Your name is like the sound of bullets entering a traitor's breast. Blum! Blum! Blum!" Last week the peculiar detestation Leon Blum is capable of arousing nearly cost him his life and sent France careening around a sharp, dangerous political curve. In a car driven by Socialist Deputy Georges Monnet and with Mme Monnet at his side, Socialist Blum edged too close to a Royalist funeral procession. The militant mourners were young, cane-swinging stalwarts of the Action Franchise, supporters of the restoration as King of France of Monseigneur le Due de Guise, an exile in Belgium. The funeral was that of eminent French historian and publicist Jacques Bainville, a Royalist with a scoffing pen so sharp that he had been excommunicated by the Catholic Church, his corpse barred from burial in consecrated ground. The snout of Socialist Monnet's car incensed the mourning Royalists, three of whom, an insurance agent, a chauffeur and an architect, recognized Socialist Blum. The insurance agent shook his fist, the chauffeur spat on the glass window from which peered Leon Blum, and the architect set a glass-smashing example with his cane to other Royalists, who soon broke the car's lamps and windshield.* Someone tore off the rear license plate and dashed it through a window at M. Blum, the splintered glass cutting his neck to the jugular vein. Dragging the Socialist Leader out bleeding and gasping, the young Royalists seemed about to do their worst when four Paris policemen shouldered through the throng to restore order. They carried Leon Blum to the nearby headquarters of the Catholic Women's League, where improvised bandages were wrapped around his neck.