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Mendès walked briskly to the rostrum, opened a pink cardboard folder containing his speech, and began to speak quietly. "M. René Mayer has spoken of our errors and of their catastrophic results, of our heavy responsibilities. He has shared them and he still shares them, for he has supported with all his votes what we have done. If tomorrow the Assembly condemns us and blames us, it will also condemn and blame M. Mayer who has discovered six months late that the government has betrayed the country, liquidated French Africa and is unworthy of the confidence of the Frenchmen in North Africa."
For an hour and five minutes Mendès gave sturdy defense of his North African policy, enduring a score of interruptions, half applause, half boos and catcalls.
In a few biting phrases Mendès reproached the M.R.P. for seeking vengeance for vengeance's sake: "There are only two possible policies in North Africa: that of cooperation and reforms or a policy of repression and force. The government has chosen the first. A fraction of the opposition is favorable to the second. Not all the opposition. The M.R.P. will vote against because it wants to overthrow the government. So politics, odious politics, has once more altered the course of a grand debate on the fate of the nation."
Shortly before midnight he put the question of confidence.
Into the Green Urns. A period of 24 hours must elapse between the posing and the taking of a vote of confidence. In this period the M.R.P. caucus decided massively against Mendès. The Radical Socialists held a long, painful meeting in which Mendès and Mayer clashed. The party's Grand Old Man, Edouard Herriot (who had himself quarreled bitterly with Mendès over German rearmament), sent a message from Lyon asking the party to stick by Mendès.
At 2 a.m. the Premier mounted the rostrum. His hour was at hand. Precise and calm as ever, he placed notes in front of him, took a sip of milk, and immediately launched into a frontal attack on the M.R.P., which had charged him with "filling the prisons" in North Africa. Though Mendès' rebuttal firmly placed the responsibility on the previous (M.R.P.) government, his speech was grim confirmation of French colonial misrule. Said he: "In Morocco we found prisoners who had not even been convicted; among these prisoners, I scarcely dare report to the Assembly, was an eight-year-old child, who had been in prison for more than a year. In view of this, can anyone dare speak to this government of full prisons?" After a brisk, not altogether unfriendly series of exchanges with Deputies, he concluded: "The debate this evening is not on changing Premiers, but on making a choice in North Africa. I repeat this: the choice is among the gravest which the Assembly has had to make for many years. Perhaps the fate of France is at stake."
Ushers brought in the green urns, in which party leaders deposit either white cards (for the government) or blue cards (against). At 4:50 a.m., Assembly President Pierre Schneiter announced the official count: votes for the government, 273; against. 319—five more than a full majority. Said Schneiter: "Confidence has been refused to the Cabinet." But Mendès was not quite finished.