Triumph of "Bouboule"

To the dismay of the French Press and public, to the vast relief of the Ministry of Justice, the nine-month duel of wits between Besson and "Bouboule" ended last week. Onetime Deputy Hippolyte Marcellin Philibert Besson, who took to doing card tricks in a Montmartre cafe, was arrested by plump Police Inspector

Delmont ("Bouboule" to the French Press because of his resemblance to a fat comic strip character popular throughout France). Besson was dragged to headquarters to start serving the ten-month jail sentence that seemed about to end forever his political career.

What have endeared M. Besson most to the voters of Le Puy in central France are his hair and his temper. On the Besson skull, hair grows only in two patches above and behind each ear. These strands have been trained to twine like ivy about his polished brow. M. Besson sports a gaudy muffler yards long in winter, and a blue straw hat in summer. His temper is such that he can never see a braided cap, be it on a policeman, railway conductor, doorman or bellboy, without trying to bash it.

Most of his campaign speeches have been made from the branches of trees or clinging to lamp posts. Thirteen times the voters of Le Puy have elected him either their Municipal Councilor or Mayor. The fourteenth time (1932) they sent him as their Deputy to Paris where he continued his habit of making long speeches at the drop of a hat.

M. Besson's troubles with the police started in 1932, when a lawyer brought suit for an unpaid bill of $200. Losing his case, Deputy Besson defiantly refused to pay, was sentenced to three months in jail. The job was to catch him. France allows her citizens a total of 31 days in jail before they can be disbarred from public office. At various times, M. Besson had served nearly three weeks behind bars for passing bad checks and attacking uniformed flunkies. Another ten days would ruin his political career.

For three years the chase went on. As long as Parliament was in session Deputy Besson staved off arrest by claiming parliamentary immunity. The minute the Chamber was dissolved he would escape to sanctuary in Belgium.

In July 1934 it looked as if the jig was up. His habit of kicking and biting policemen earned him another three months in jail, but M. Besson, still trusting in his parliamentary immunity, dismissed this scornfully.

Finally the Deputies of France grew tired of M. Besson. By a vote of 335 to 28, they booted him out of office as a psychopathic case. Fat Inspector "Bouboule" was assigned to capture him. While the vote was being counted Besson fled. To a police brigadier waiting to clap hands on him, Besson snarled, "Do not touch me, I have my Parliamentary immunity. The vote, my friend, has not yet been counted." Out the back door he slipped again, and "Bouboule" found himself ignominiously suspended from the police department for one month.

M. Besson turned to the problems of international finance. To end Depression he suggested an international currency known as "Europa francs," printed bundles of them, insisted on paying for all his purchases with them, a habit less popular with his constituents than his dramatic escapes from the police.

Arrested last week, Besson accepted fate stoically. But no sooner was he arraigned before the magistrate than friends produced as from a magician's hat a full pardon--signed by Albert Lebrun, President of France.

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