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By Root 2603 0

almost a year. He met Dulles in Berne on 15 July 1944 on behalf of Herriot. Enfière, whose American intelligence code name was Lamballe, told Dulles, ‘Kindly make it clear that regardless whether Herriot is alive or dead, I carry with me the backing of his supporters for the reinstitution of a democratic and parliamentary republic.’ Dulles reported that, while Enfière supported de Gaulle, he and his colleagues ‘desire to have genuine republicans surrounding de Gaulle’. Enfière informed Laval on 6 August that President Roosevelt would not oppose a provisional Herriot government. Roosevelt, who would never recognize Laval, had misgivings about Charles de Gaulle and had been looking in vain for alternative French leaders. With a deniable hint of Allied endorsement, Laval went ahead in the hope that a peaceful transition from Pétain to de Gaulle would imply de Gaulle’s recognition of Vichy. De Gaulle, however, had never recognized Vichy or the abrogation in July 1940 of the 1875 Constitution. Laval intended to present the Allies and de Gaulle with a fait accompli that they could hardly reject without disavowing France’s last elected parliament. He had not reckoned, though, with Paris collaborationists Marcel Déat and Fernand de Brinon, who informed the SS chief in Paris, General Karl Oberg, of the machinations. Oberg’s chief, Heinrich Himmler, opposed transferring power to anyone and intended to keep the Vichy puppet government intact–even in exile.

On the morning of 13 August, Laval deposited the Herriots at the Prefecture of the Seine in a wing of Paris’s Hôtel de Ville. Members of parliament began arriving at the Hôtel Matignon to endorse Laval’s scheme. Laval also sought and received the approval of the eighty mayors of the Paris region, the local prefects and chiefs of police. Preparations to convene the National Assembly with the members who had not joined de Gaulle or were unable to reach Paris went smoothly until the night of 16 August. That evening, the last German civilians were departing with all the wine, radio sets, rugs, haute couture dresses and even bidets that they could carry home in their convoys. Laval was having dinner with Jeanne, Josée and René at the Matignon, when he received a call from the Hôtel de Ville. The Gestapo had just arrested Herriot. Laval went straight there to protest that confining Herriot ‘constituted the gravest offence against me’. He called Ambassador Abetz to come to the Hôtel de Ville. When told Himmler himself had ordered Herriot’s arrest, Abetz was at a loss to justify the confusion in Germany’s command structure since the 20 July attempt on Hitler’s life. He and the Foreign Ministry, like the army, had lost influence to the SS, SD and Gestapo. Herriot and his wife remained at the Hôtel de Ville.

On the morning of 17 August, Abetz took the Herriots to the German Embassy and then, at twelve thirty, to the Hôtel Matignon for lunch with the Lavals and René de Chambrun. Before the guests ate, Laval recorded, ‘A notice of arrest was served on me.’ René de Chambrun recalled Abetz’s first words to Laval: ‘President Herriot and you are prisoners in the Matignon. President Herriot will be transferred, after lunch, to the Prefecture of the Seine. You will leave with the government in the evening, in the direction of the east.’ Lunch went ahead in the grand dining room. Liveried servants poured vintage wines from the prime minister’s cellars for Abetz, the Herriots, the Lavals and René and Josée de Chambrun. Josée remembered:

It was a marvelous summer day in that handsome old Hôtel Matignon, with its windows wide open on one of the most beautiful gardens in the world … The lunch was good. Everyone tried to cover up the anxiousness of the situation with pretended lightness. Abetz began by asking if it was true that, in Lyons, Herriot’s city, there was a statue dedicated to a ‘good German’? Madame Herriot then told us of the statue of a rich German merchant of the sixteenth century who had showered the city with good works.

Unwilling to endure more false cordiality, Herriot objected to