(2 of 5)
The blue streamlined French train, emblazoned with the royal coat of arms and British and French flags and drawn by a blue and gold locomotive, drew into Paris at a newly decorated station in the Bois de Boulogne, used only on visits of State. Their Majesties' arrival in Paris was signaled by releasing 10,000 white "Doves of Peace" from a huge, flower-decked cage. The 2.000,000 citizens of Paris who had turned out to sing and cheer realized in advance that they would scarcely glimpse Their Majesties, for every Frenchman knew that Minister of Interior Albert Sarraut was going to take excessive measures for their protection—and knew why. In 1934, the assassination of Jugoslav King Alexander at Marseille occurred after Minister of Interior Albert Sarraut had taken only ordinary precautions. He had to resign from the Cabinet in disgrace, and only thanks to the great elasticity of French politics did it happen that M. Sarraut was again last week Minister of Interior, responsible for the lives of visiting sovereigns. Jittery, he threw around the motor cars in which Their Majesties rode with the President and Mme Albert Lebrun a hollow square of close-riding, flashing-helmeted cavalry of the Garde Républicaine, added motorcycle outriders for good measure. There were 10,000 reserve officers in the houses along the route. Thus the State progress from the Bois de Boulogne to the Arc de Triomphe, down the Champs-Elysees, across the Place de la Concorde to the Palais d'Orsay, last week was a stately military parade, enlivened by wave on wave of cheering, and by Gaelic chaffing at the expense of "That scared rabbit Sarraut!" As the King's car reached the Place de la Concorde, there broke out from the Eiffel Tower an enormous Union Jack, said to be the largest flag ever made, promptly cartooned by Robert Edmond Sparling in the Washington Herald as "A Warning to Dictators."
"Vive le Roi!" The British Foreign Secretary, Viscount Halifax, who accompanied King George to handle negotiations for His Majesty's Government, began at once an earnest conversation with French Premier Edouard Daladier which appeared completely to engross the two statesmen as the car in which they rode followed the procession. The $7,500.000 jewels meanwhile were whisked quietly to the British Embassy, locked up in the safe. Individual pieces were brought separately by the Scotland Yard detectives to Their Majesties, who lodged on the Quai d'Orsay in the palace of the French Foreign Office. There, the large bed in which small Emperor Napoleon once slept was found just right for tall George VI, but Queen Elizabeth proved too tall to be comfortable in the bed of petite Marie Antoinette and this priceless antique was quickly replaced by something a trifle larger, less romantic.