Daudet Jailed

There is a kind of human happening, ridiculous and yet sublime, which occurs in France alone. Of this sort was the taking into custody last week by some 3,000 police, soldiers and firemen, of famed Royalist editor Leon Daudet who had barricaded himself in his office to resist arrest (TlME, June 13, 20), and was guarded by 980 stalwart young Royalists armed with canes. The hour was 7 a. m As the Prefect of the Paris police, M. Jean Chiappe, marshaled his forces, tout Paris knew that Premier Raymond Poincare and his Cabinet had been up most of the night trying to decide whether they would permit the forcible arrest of M. Daudet. After all, his crime was only "defamation." And whom had he defamed? Only those who said that his son, Philipe Daudet, had committed suicide. What was the harm? What if Editor Leon Daudet had printed defamatory statements in his news organ, L'Action Franc,aise, to the effect that "my Phillipe, my little Phillipe was assassinated by the police!" Should a loving father be jailed for defending the name of his dead son? Almost every newspaper in Paris answered "Non'" The President of the Republic was hourly besieged by telephone, telegraph, letter and pneumatique* to pardon M. Daudet. What to do? At last the Cabinet decided that Editor Daudet simply could not be allowed to succeed in resisting arrest. Therefore M. le Prefet Jean Chiappe was summoned, just before dawn, to the office of Minister of Interior Albert Sarraut and instructed to accomplish the arrest of Leon Daudet--without bloodshed. A task so formidable demanded, thought Prefect Chiappe, that he don formal garments. At 7 a. m. /- then, he took up a stance before the office of L'Action Franc,aise impeccably attired in a trim cutaway wearing a monocle, a tall sleek hat, carrying a cane. Behind Prefect Chiappe were ranged four fire engines, three extensible scaling ladders, a quadruple rank of Municipal Guards, police seemingly innumerable and two squadrons of the Guard Republican mounted on prancing horses. Very modestly M. le Prefet Jean Chiappe advanced and rapped with his gold signet ring on the door of L'Action franc,aise. "I want to see M. Daudet," he said to him who opened the portal--famed sculptor, World War hero and Royalist, M. Maxime Real del Sarte. Replied door-guardian Maxime Real del Sarte: "Wait but one moment. Our leader will speak with you publicly from the balcony." Amiable, M. Chiappe retired a few steps, waited until portly, but dynamic Leon Daudet bustled forth upon his balcony. Then, quoth "Romeo" Chiappe to "Juliette" Daudet, in a clear, loud voice: "M. Daudet! I speak to you as to a man and a Frenchman. You do not wish bloodshed and I think you know as well as I do that in the mood of your followers there will be bloodshed. Give yourself up. The blood which you may cause to flow will not bring back that of the boy for whom you mourn." During a moment's hush which followed these words, uttered with unquestionable feeling, the whole absurd affair seemed suddenly to take on a majesty, in echo of that final phrase "... the boy for whom you mourn. . . ." On the balcony, M. Daudet raised his hand with a gesture spacious and commanding. "M. le Prefet," he cried in a strong resonant voice, "though you are charged with performing an inhuman act you have spoken humane words. I do not wish that blood should be shed by my fault. I do not wish that civil war should break out in our country. "I surrender for the sake of France. I surrender for the memory of my boy, knowing full well that the men who are behind me could create bloodshed and trouble. I do not wish that others should feel the grief I have known. I surrender to the cry of Vive la France." From below M. le Prefet Jean Chiappe cried, "I thank you, M. Daudet! I salute you!" Soon, one by one, the 980 Royalist youths who had stood ready to defend Editor Daudet filed out, were allowed to go unarrested. M. Daudet himself rode away with Prefect Chiappe in a limousine. They went first to Editor Daudet's house, picked up his wife (who is also his cousin) then motored to the Prison Sante. There Mme. Daudet made arrangements to have her husband supplied with his favorite viands from a neighboring restaurant; and brought him, later in the day, a set of Greek and Latin classics with which he proposes to amuse himself during his five months' jail term. The incident seemed closed--triumphantly. It was not. Next day the venerable mother of M. Daudet sent an open letter to Premier Raymond Poincare which was published in L'Action franc,aise. The world could not but listen; for this frail old lady is the widow of Alphonse Daudet. Who does not know his works? Who has not read at least one of his Letters from My Mill? It was as though the great, the universally-beloved Alphonse Daudet, had risen from the grave to defend his son in the person of his widow whose very existence had been forgotten. She wrote to Premier Poincare: "Not long ago I was re-reading your letter which, in terms full of emotion and affection, you addressed to me after the death of my husband, and it seems incredible that you are the same person who has brought this tragedy upon us. My experience with life has taught me that injustice, sooner or later, works in compensation against its perpetrator and when this happens may Heaven spare those you love." It was as if the widow of Charles Dickens were pleading for his son. What could M. Poincare answer? Next day Mme. Alphonse Daudet opened a long, crisp envelope, read the Premier's reply: "Your letter, Madame, has profoundly moved me, but awakens in me no remorse. . . . Need I remind you that at the request of your son's friends I intervened at the time of Phillipe's death so that his body might be taken in secret to his home? . . . "From the first no one desired more ardently than I that the entire truth be known about this death. Recently I gave my support to a petition for a revision of evidence, contrary to the opinion of the commission hearing the case. Even when the sentence was pronounced I would have wished that it should not be executed, despite the abominable calumnies which your son has showered upon me in the past few years.

"But in view of your son's attacks, directed against the courts and his defiance of the Government, the Cabinet decided that the law must be applied. This decision was painful to my colleagues as well as to myself and they have taken every measure to make sure that your son be accorded every consideration possible."

*Paris is equipped with a system of pneumatic tubes for propelling messages from one part of the city to another--much as "change" is shot from cashier to customer in U.S. department stores. /-Under French law no man can be arrested on his own premises between sunset and sunrise. This once led to an amusing dispute between a policeman and the great Honore de Balzac. Each had an almanac, but the almanacs each gave a different hour for "dawn" that day. Balzac protested that he had been arrested ten minutes too early; but investigation showed the policeman to be right. Balzac went to jail, but, on emerging, sued his almanac maker, recovered heavy damages.