Salesman & Suite

When he left Paris to visit President Hoover for reasons of high policy (see p. 11), Premier Pierre Laval of France had to think of Josette and of J. P. Morgan, also of the Press.

With dignity and wisdom Mr. Morgan called in Paris upon the Premier, unbosomed the welcome advice of wealth. But Josette was a handful, has been for the past month. She has teased and begged to be taken along, pirouetted on her pretty feet and left the Premier no choice. She went along last week, but only on three conditions laid down by M. Laval: Josette must ride from Paris to Havre in an ordinary coach, not in the Premier's private car; Josette must not appear at the official farewell administered by the Mayor of Havre; and aboard the lie de France Josette must not sit in the public rooms or walk the public decks unless chaperoned by the Premier himself.

Josette is 19, une jeune fille bien elevee, adored by her father and adoring him. If she lapsed from any of his conditions, the lapse was not noted. But every two hours, Romance knocked publicly at the Premier's daughter's door.

Every two hours her steward appeared, staggering under a huge box of flowers addressed thus:

To Mile Josette Laval from an American Friend of France.

Fortunately (in view of this avalanche of flowers) the Laval suite was large, largest on the He de France which also carried Miss Anne Morgan, Mrs. W. K. Vanderbilt, Mrs. Whitney Warren, Mme Suero (daughter of President Machado of Cuba) and Mile Reine Claudel (daughter of French Ambassador to the U. S. Paul Claudel) who chattered Washington pointers to Josette.

Deck chair gossips remarked that Mile Laval's complexion is as unusually dark as her father's; that she stains half her fingernails blood red; that she has a sports ensemble consisting of yellow crocodile shoes, a tip-tilted red hat, tight black woolen dress and Scotch plaid coat. "I send Mother a radiogram every day," confessed Josette, "to inform her of the state of Father's temper and health."

Mr, Robert T. Pell While M. Laval was reasonably sure that he could manage Josette, the Premier was quite sure that he could not manage the U. S. Press, a horrid BUGABOO. What to do? The answer last week was Little Bob Pell, first U. S. citizen ever appointed press contact man by a French Premier.

Little Bob--Mr. Robert T. Pell of the U. S. Embassy, Paris, son-in-law of a one-time U. S. Federal Reserve Bank Governor--is able. When Ambassador Edge has no time to hang a baby's nipple around his neck and make a night of it with important visitors--Little Bob does this duty (see cut). But his chief functions are as a rapid, discreet translator for the Ambassador (whose French is not rapid), and to keep Paris newshawks from picking on the Embassy. They are so tame just now that before Little Bob sailed on the He de France last week the grateful newshawks gave him a fountain pen, gold mounted, suitably inscribed.

Bring the Whole Cabinet! In every Cabinet the key men are undersecretaries, unseen factotums who do the showy Minister's real work. The extreme importance attached by Premier Laval to his meeting with President Hoover was proved last week by the fact that on the lie de France were a whole French cabinet of undersecretaries, picked men, key men. They are:

For the Finance Ministry and the Bank of France: Professor Charles Rist, Honorary Under-Governor of the Bank; and the Ministry's Assistant Director of the Movement of Funds, M. Jean Jacques Bizot.

For the Army & Navy: Louis Aubert, Adviser to the Superior Council of National Defense and Commander Dupre of the Naval General Staff.

For the Foreign Ministry: M. Jules Bandevant, assistant to M. Briand; and Financial Attache Jacques Rueff of the French Embassy in London.

In the interests of Commerce: President Albert Buisson of the Tribunal of Commerce of Paris.

With such a staff (and M. Laval brought also his chief of staff omniscient M. Andre Boissard) the Premier of France was equipped to put President Hoover's experts and key men on their mettle. Half a ton of French documents, code books, official stationery and what not the Premier also brought. But plain Pierre Laval brought no valet, wore his white wash tie, came "dressed like a salesman," as Paris papers said.

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