Rage of Paris

In France, where literature can be a hot front-page issue, the biggest story of the week--and the year's liveliest press brawl --raged around the blonde head of an eight-year-old poetess. Was little Minou Drouet a genius or a fraud?

When Publisher Rene Julliard saw the first verses in Minou's childish scrawl, he thought he had found a literary prodigy even greater than his last discovery. Teenager Franchise Sagan. whose short, sexy Bonjour Tristesse is an international bestseller. He brought Minou from Brittany, along with 49-year-old Spinster Claude Drouet. who had adopted the child at age of two. Then he brought out a slim limited edition containing ten poems and ten poesy-struck lett&rs. Sample: I picked in the sky

One by one

The softest stars

They slipped like tears

On the cold cheeks of the night

And when there were enough

To flower the pillow

Where you roll your head

I tied my bouquet

With a slick ribbon

Of anguished blue.

France's conservative Le Figaro (circ. 490,000) burst into front-page bouquets: "Ravishing poems, sparkling with spontaneous sensations, new tingling images." Rhapsodized Professor Pasteur Vallery-Radot, of the French Academy: "She is simply a being of genius. This is art in all its purity." Overnight, little Minou's reputation rose higher than the French cost of living.

Glory or Money? Then the Pierre Laza reffs' Elle (circ. 700,000), the country's biggest women's weekly, sent a reporter and photographer on the story. What they found made headlines not only for Elle, but also for the Lazareffs' daily France Soir (circ. 1,110,000).

Under the headline: L'AFFAIRE MINOU DROUET: CHILD PRODIGY OR PRODIGIOUS IMPOSTOR? Elle described how Mile.

Drouet's tales about Minou had failed to check with neighbors, teachers and the parish priest, and how she kept prompting the moppet in the interview. As for Minou, reported Elle, "She does not know the meaning of words used in her poems. Did she write them? If not, did her mother? And if her mother did, did she do it to sublimate her ambition and frustration, for love of glory or love of money?"

A Cruel Hoax. Jean-Jacques Servan-Schreiber's L'Express (circ. 75,000) promptly slashed at the Elle charges with double-page center spreads in defense "of that most fragile of human mechanisms: a poet." The paper ran photostats of Minou's green-inked scribbling, complete with its own expert's handwriting analysis ("imagination, energy, naive assurance") and psychological deductions ("harmoniously developed, neither stupid, nor poor nor vulgar").

At week's end, Elle dropped all caution and prepared its coup de grace for this week's issue. Charged Helene Lazareff: "A cruel hoax. Mile. Drouet not only thought up all of Minou's poems but we have evidence that she also wrote them herself, in pseudo-childish handwriting."

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