End of Doumergue?

Seventy-one-year-old ex-Premier Gaston Doumergue let himself go last week to the extent of denouncing as "faithless" the majority of his Ministers in the National Union Cabinet which resigned fortnight ago.

"I was resolved to use the last of my strength," M. Doumergue told reporters. "What drastic measures I adopted--two intravenous injections every day--and I did not like that!"

"If he had listened to my advice," said Mme Doumergue, "he would never have let them call him back from his retirement." (TIME, Feb. 19.)

"I consider my political career ended," declared M. Doumergue. Thereupon the old man adopted remarkable precautions in returning last week to his estate at Tournefeuille in the south of France. To avoid demonstrations of affections for himself and possible violence to his enemies in Paris, M. and M'me Doumergue left their home by motor at 3:45 a.m., carried sandwiches so that they need stop at no restaurant on their 325-mile drive.

News that "Great Little Gaston" was homeward bound spread like wildfire along his route. Thousands of peasants and townsmen turned out to shout, "Long live Doumergue! Down with Herriot!"

In the Chamber, paunchy, pipe-sucking Radical Socialist Leader Edouard Herriot elaborately explained to whoever would listen that he had been faithless to M. Doumergue and encompassed his Cabinet's fall (TIME, Nov. 19) because he thought the beloved ex-President intended to set up some kind of Dictatorship.

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