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Marshal Petain's senile totalitarianism harked back fondly to the ancien regime. It was monarchical, clerical, aristocratic. The Marshal wanted to expunge the memory of the French Revolution. But while he felt that French totalitarianism depended largely on the success of Nazi totalitarianism, he did not want his neofeudal France to be a neo-vassal state of Germany's. He kept making this clear to Germany with his creaking stubbornness about the sanctity of the French Fleet and the African colonies.
Moreover, from the German viewpoint, he was overly tender about the feelings of Frenchmen. He would not shoot them, no matter what their crimes against totalitarian progress. He even pardoned (with life imprisonment) zealous young Paul Collette, who last summer pumped bullets into the chest of Pierre Laval.
And Frenchmen kept rebelling. Besides slowdown sabotage, it was estimated last fortnight that since the fall of France 74 steel foundries had been violently sabotaged, 18,000 trucks loaded with war materials destroyed, 30 ammunition dumps blown up and 184 trains derailed. Last week another German troop train was derailed, killing 44. Two grenades wrapped in newspapers were hurled into the Nazis' Paris headquarters. In a Rennes theater this week, when Jacques Doriot, rabid collaborationist and good Laval friend, got up to address a meeting, someone in the balcony threw a bomb which exploded harmlessly in the orchestra pit.
No More Nonsense. There is no feudal nostalgia about Pierre Laval's totalitarianism. It is of the most streamlined Nazi type — profoundly opportunistic and no nonsense about it. Whereas Laval may, and probably will, provoke twice as much resistance as Marshal Petain did, Laval will have the stomach to meet resistance with the firing squad, the guillotine or any weapon handy. Around him he has gathered a Cabinet of obedient bureaucrats
(the only member widely familiar in the U.S. is Fernand de Brinon, recently Vichy's agent in Paris). Laval himself is Chief of Government, holds the portfolios of Foreign Affairs, Interior and Information. Former Vice Premier Admiral Darlan has been given command of all Vichy's armed forces and made an Admiral of the Fleet for life.
Marshal Petain retains the innocuous title and role of Chief of State. Doubtless Pierre Laval would have no objection to the aged bulk of the Marshal walking, as Field Marshal von Hindenburg once walked, beside Adolf Hitler on the day of triumph.
That Shifty Glance, That Sneer
Pierre Laval, 58, whose swart skin may be traceable to Moorish ancestry, was born twelve miles from Vichy at Chaåteldon, where he now owns an old chateau (see cut, p. 29). His father was the innkeeper, butcher and one-man post office. As a boy, Pierre haggled with his father's customers, was known as a vicious bully.
In 1914 he escaped military service because of varicose veins. In 1917 he was elected to the Chamber as its youngest Socialist member. Shortly afterwards the
Clemenceau Government arrested him as a defeatist follower of onetime Premier Joseph Caillaux, but later promised him safety if he would snitch on other defeatists. Many were shot, imprisoned or deported. Laval went free.