(5 of 6)
Young Darlan's school record at the Paris Lycee St. Louis was only average and his teachers there were astonished when he began to shine in his second year at the Ecole Navale (France's Annapolis). A connection has often been suggested between his luster and the fact that his sister had just married Capitaine de Vaisseau Keraudren, then Aide-de-Camp to the President of the Republic. At school Darlan's wild arm-waving while he talked earned him the nickname "The Bass Drummer," upon which he often capitalized by standing on a chair to exhibit the idiosyncrasy. At the Ecole Navale he successfully cultivated the sons of admirals and other personages.
After being commissioned he made a short China Sea debut, but much of his early naval life was spent in teaching posts ashore, almost all of his later career in Navy politics in Paris. He became a gunnery expert—often called the best in the French Navy today—and was a fervid big-navy exponent, doing much to promote the construction of France's four 35,000-ton battleships, which were laid down just too late for World War II.
But the Darlan career has been chiefly a triumph of political luck and wangling. During World War I he obtained the command of 25 mobile naval guns ashore, fighting at the Somme and Verdun. He later explained that he had wanted the job because as a Navy officer under Army officers he would get more attention, attract more patronage.
In 1925 his real ascendancy began when he became Assistant Chef de Cabinet under his Godfather Leygues at the Ministry of Marine. Under Godfather Leygues there were never delays in Darlan's promotions. At 48 he became the youngest rear admiral in 50 years of French naval history. Godfather Leygues gave him the Order of Commander of the Legion of Honor, and in 1933 left the Admiral most of the big Leygues fortune. When Darlan became Chief of Staff he recommended himself for the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honor. Since the fall of France Marshal Pétain has given him the title of Admiral of the Fleet, not used since 1870. Darlan tried to have himself called Admiral of France, which would have ranked him with Marshal of France Pétain.
Everybody's Friend. The Admiral has constantly and glibly shifted his politics to suit his career, always obliging the man in charge—whether Blum or Chautemps or Daladier—just as today he obliges Adolf Hitler. Whenever Governments changed, Darlan usually called in the newspapermen and asked them to forecast him as the next Minister of Marine. He is a great eater and drinker, and on the night France collapsed he luxuriated so heartily and publicly at Bordeaux's Chapon Fin that the next day a number of his brother officers, with an ethical fastidiousness almost Japanese, resigned their commissions out of shame.