FRANCE: Cabinet of Premiers

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Everywhere the mobs made a monkey of the late Baron Georges Eugène Haussmann. When pale Napoleon III ordered him as Prefect of the Seine to rip up streets, tear down blocks of old houses and lay out the magnificent system of wide Parisian boulevards, his object was neither to speed traffic nor create beautiful vistas, but to build streets easily swept by cannon and prevent the erection of such barricades as had cost the lives of so many soldiers and pulled down three regimes before him. As fine a barricade as Victor Hugo ever saw suddenly rose across the Champs-Elysées last week. Tin chairs, uprooted trees, paving blocks, parts of wrecked taxis and sections of newspaper kiosks composed it. It was topped by a row of wooden horses wrenched from a merry-go-round, and proudly on the crest stood the rioters' bullet-scarred banner, a large tin sign: DEFENSE DE MARCHER SUR L'HERBE—("Keep Off the Grass"). Rioting spread to the provinces, to Lyons, Lille, Nice. Amid howls for his political head, Premier Daladier called at the Elysée Palace, handed in his resignation after eight tormented days in office. "Power is not worth such sacrifices," said he as he left. "That is the reason for my decision. . . . I do not wish demonstrators to be shot down by soldiers. I do not want to expose those 20-year-old children. Certainly not!" Gastounet. As never before, France needed a Strong Man. That she could not find, but there was available the next best thing, a good, honest man without enemies. Early in the afternoon President Lebrun telephoned to the country place of his 70-year-old predecessor, Gaston Doumergue, begging him to take the government. Swarthy Pierre Laval also telephoned him. So from even deeper retirement did white-chinned old Raymond Poincairé, War President and "savior of the franc." M. Doumergue accepted but with conditions. He must be given power to recess Parliament if necessary and govern by ministerial decree. That evening he was leaving the village of

Tournefeuille ("Turn Leaf") for Paris.

"Don't exaggerate," said he to newshawks on the train. "I always mistrust miracles and miracle workers. And now excuse me, I must put on a clean collar to go and see the President of the Republic if I am to set a good example."

It was the sort of talk all France wanted to hear. Paris remembered how jolly Gaston Doumergue once rented a dress suit for a reception at the Elysée, how when years later he occupied the Palace as President he used to sneak out a side door to play belotte with cronies from the south, how he issued Presidential approval of the "Charleston" in 1927, how as the 67-year-old Bachelor President of the Republic he suddenly married a widow. Through streets littered with debris, crowds followed him shouting "Vive le bon petit Gastounet!"