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Outside, the crowd began a chant of "Au balcon! Come out on the balcony!," kept it up until Their Majesties overruled the jittery French detectives, appeared with British casualness on the high Opera balcony, stirred such a tempest of popular acclaim that even the more case-hardened Paris correspondents finally flashed: "It was genuine!"
Harmony v. Hitler. Meanwhile, Viscount Halifax, Premier Daladier and M. Bonnet, all of whom know to their cost that among the civil servants of the French Foreign Office there is a Left clique prone to "leak" any secrets which can be turned against Conservative Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain by the press, last week took unprecedented precautions. All secretaries, diplomats and experts were excluded during the earnest talks of these statesmen—conferences so important that the three were even late for a luncheon scheduled by the rigid protocol. Halifax, who once was Chamberlain's personal envoy to Führer Hitler, had been waited upon just before he left London by the Fuhrer's confidential emissary, Fritz Wiedemann, during the War an adjutant in the regiment in which the future Dictator was a dispatch-bearer. Wiedemann delivered to Halifax secret terms on which Hitler was ready last week to settle the Czechoslovak Question. Study of these in Paris overshadowed the drafting of a formal communique in which France and Britain announced themselves last week in "complete harmony," served notice of their "common will to pursue their action of appeasement and conciliation."
Windsor & Windsor. In Europe, appeasement and conciliation can now be effected only with the heaviest armaments, and at Versailles the smartly drilled, heavily motorized might of France unrolled in a broad military pageant before King George. The military attaches of Germany and Italy had been given front seats, and many an observer quoted Marshal Lyautey's famed maxim: "Show your strength and you will not have to use it!"
Most impressive were new French tanks of record size, so heavy that spectators felt the ground tremble as they thundered past. Low visibility spoiled the air part of the show, grounded 600 battle planes which were to have made a roaring flight past. Instead, 30 fast, highly maneuverable pursuit ships skimmed in under the low clouds, jazzed the crowd.
Gravely, Mayor Henri Haye of Versailles, a frequent dinner host to the Duke of Windsor who has just had one of Versailles' streets named "Windsor," did the honors last week of State-banqueting the head of the House of Windsor in the famed Hall of Mirrors. Ten of the greatest chefs in France combined their skill to prepare a sumptuous repast, and direct by plane from Moscow was the caviar. Quaffed (sparingly by His Majesty, just over a stomach upset) were two rare Champagnes: Veuve Clicquot 1900, the year of the Queen's birth; and Pommery 1895, the year of the King's.