Foreign News: Pimpernel

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Last July 14 the people of France, by order of Vichy, were forbidden to celebrate Bastille Day, the hallowed festival of French democracy. But in the ancient city of Caen, Normandy, an automobile sped to the Franco-Prussian War memorial. A man uniformed as a French officer jumped out, placed a wreath on the memorial stones, made a quick getaway.

Fortnight later a Caen policeman tried to stop what he thought was the same car, got shot for trying.

A few days later police thought they had found the car in a garage. They hid near by, but the "Scarlet Pimpernel" who came for the car shot it out with them, fatally wounded Caen's police chief, escaped again.

Last week angry Nazis joined the French police in hunting the wreath layer, described as "one of the most active De Gaullist agents" in Caen. Nazi-controlled Paris-soir said he was an Englishman, Jean Hopper, whose mother, wife and daughter are in a concentration camp.