Triumphal Return

Quietly and frugally near Brussels live a distinguished Van-Dyke-bearded gentleman, his singularly lovely wife, and a son in the best French tradition of sleek, slightly pale, aristocratic youth. Thousands of Frenchmen call them La Famille Royale and honor as Le Roi de France the gentleman whom the world calls only the Due de Guise. The son, Prince Henri Robert Ferdinand Marie Louis Philippe, is hailed as Le Dauphin de France, or Crown Prince. One day last week as the North Star express from Brussels thundered into Paris, there occurred such a demonstration that pop-eyed strangers might have supposed the Royal Family were returning in triumph to resume their reign.

Thousands of Royalists stood massed in the great square before the Gare du Nord, some prosperous, more poor, nearly all bearing bouquets of flowers. Stalwart youths of Les Camelots du Roi, or Royalist League, formed a guard of honor, drawn up in double file, eyes front, facing a lane which extended from the railway platform to a waiting taxicab--a very special cab. With sheepish smiles and shrugs policemen representing the majesty of the French Republic kept at a respectful distance. They would have been mobbed if they had interfered. "Vive la France!" roared the crowd. "La France royale et immortelle! Vive le Roi! Vive le Dauphin!" and then with a mighty shout, as a little man rushed from the station, "VIVE DAUDET! VIVE DAUDET!"

The little man was so overcome with joy that tears coursed steadily down his cheeks, sobs choked him. He was unable to respond to frenzied exhortations for a speech. The pandemonium lasted 15 minutes. Almost smothered by his well-wishers, Editor Leon Daudet clung to the famous taxi, the very cab in which last year he was spirited away from the Prison de la Sante to Brussels with French secret service men upon his track (TIME, July 4, 1927, et seq.).

At last the frantically honking chauffeur was able to get the ancient taxi started and it wheezed slowly off amid a white shower of flowers. Soon it clattered to a stop at the modest residence of Mme. Alphonse Daudet, widow of the great novelist whose Letters from My Mill have delighted millions. On the doorstep mother clasped son --the son who keeps up an indomitable fight for monarchy as editor of the newspaper L' Action Franc,aise. To the paper's masthead is nailed a stirring line pledging the paper to support the Due de Guise, heritier des quarante Rois qui en mille ans firent la France! (heir of the 40 Kings who in 1,000 years created France!)*

From his mother's hearth Editor Daudet rushed to the grave of his son Philippe-- famed as a martyr royalist. Picture postcards of this youth are constantly distributed by L'Action, each boldly imprinted: "Philippe Daudet, born Jan. 7th, 1909, assassinated Nov. 24th, 1923, by the police of the French Republic!"

The police reported that they found Martyr Daudet all bloody in a taxicab. They contended that he was a suicide. Editor Daudet replied with such torrential abuse of the police and the taxi driver that a libel action was finally brought and Royalist Daudet went to jail, only to escape. M. Daudet was pardoned last week by genial President Gaston ("Gastounet") Doumergue of France, who is said to have remarked: "Daudet has suffered enough. Besides we must not make him a martyr." By a fundamental law of the Third Republic, however, the Royal Family are destined to perpetual banishment. Said tearful Editor Daudet, with passionate purpose as he rose from kneeling at the grave of his son: "I swear to resume and wage our sacred struggle with greater violence than ever before!"

It is authoritatively estimated that the private fortune of the Royal Family is close to 100,000,000 francs ($25,000,000). Although he despairs of achieving a restoration, that businesslike royalist the Marquis de Lur-Saluces, owner of the peerless vineyards which produce Chateau Yquem, has said that "at least 10,000,000 of our peasants would eagerly support a proclamation of the Duc de Guise as King of France."

*L'Action Francaise recently published the following super-Royalist advertisement: "The master nougateers Mazeran & Salomon offer you a selection of their Royal Nougats in a tasteful box for $1.10 a lb."

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