FRANCE: Paris Wit

The people of Paris have a curious sense of humor and no matter how tragic a circumstance may be they can always find in it de quoi rire.

When, in 1920, President Deschanel fell out of a train dressed in his pajamas — a really sad story — the Parisiens seized upon the incident with witty avidity. The following day every amusement place in Paris resounded with jokes at the expense of the unfortunate Deschanel.

Now, less than a month after the fall of President Millerand (TIME, June 23) — a less tearful episode than a presidential accident — there was scattered sur les grands boulevards the "Last Will and Testament of Alexandre Millerand." The enemies and friends of the ex-President could be distinguished at any café where the document was being read. The faces of the former were wreathed in fat grins of delight; while about the mouths of the latter played but furtive smiles.

The facetious pamphlet, for such it was, was for the most part untranslatable, being written in Parisian slang and filled with allusions "irreverent, recondite and even vulgar."

One of the more easily translated morceaux choisis is a list of mourners whom the ex-President has requested to attend his funeral: "Jean, Millerand's son; the Unknown Soldier; Maman Canti [canti, name given to profiteering junk-dealers]; Mme. Vichère [composed of vie, life, chère, dear—high cost of living] ; l'Abbesse du Franc [Abbesse means abbess, but it is here a play on the English word abyss; hence, the abyss of the franc, an allusion to the franc's tremendous fall in the Spring (TIME, Mar. 17) when Millerand was President]."

Another section of the "will" is a bequest made to Mme. Rasimi (well-known Parisienne entrepreneuse and directress of the Ba-ta-Clan Theatre, where Millerand once delivered a famed address) of "a republic entirely done over and entirely renovated and a demolished National Bloc, all of which is to be used as accessories for a new comedy which is destined to change the Ba-ta-Clan into a Washout Palace."