Change at Crisis

For most of the afternoon President (speaker) Fernand Bouisson of the Chamber of Deputies had little to do. On his high rostrum at the front of the Chamber he stroked his little white beard, tapped for order occasionally with an ivory paper cutter, but there were few occasions to ring the huge brass bell reserved for bigger ructions. A nervous crowd, kept in hand by a line of police, moiled about the Place de la Concorde and over the bridge to the Palais Bourbon, shouting "Save the franc!" Inside, important speeches were going on but few paid attention. Over the backs of benches, from ear to ear a whisper rustled like the echo of a thousand leaves: When was Flandin coming? When would he speak?

Just before 7 p. m. a black-uniformed usher whispered in President Bouisson's ear. Bong! went the big brass bell.

"There will be a short recess," boomed President Bouisson. "Immediately thereafter the Chamber will be addressed by the President of the Council."

Out into the corridors tumbled the Deputies of France, but now they had a new rumor. Crop-headed Finance Minister Germain-Martin had resigned and Premier Flandin was coming before the Chamber to beg emergency financial powers and long life to a government that had already lost the Minister most important to France's current money crisis.

Down Flandin. When Deputies straggled back to their desks, they found a flunkey struggling up to the tribune with a heavy pedestal, its top padded with red plush. A few minutes later Pierre Etienne Flandin walked slowly into the room, his face pale, his huge frame much thinner than before his automobile accident last month. His broken left arm in a plaster cast was supported by a sort of wicker basket which, when he reached the rostrum, he rested on the plush pedestal. The entire Chamber, including the Communist Deputies, rose and cheered not Flandin the Premier but Flandin the Frenchman who bravely defied physical pain to do his duty.

The Premier began to speak in a low voice. Yes, Finance Minister Germain-Martin was out, but he, Flandin, would take that post himself. Then he started to plead:

"The Government asks for power to throttle speculation and stop panic. Today is the time to act rather than to talk. Just at the time when world stabilization of moneys seemed possible, an attack has been launched on the franc. . . .

"Every occasion has been exploited. Municipal elections took place on the 5th and 12th of May, and the American correspondents telegraphed to their newspapers on the other side of the Atlantic that the Communists were getting hold in France, that they would soon reign as masters and that the country was within two steps of a triumphant revolution.

"The next government to which the Chamber accords its confidence must inevitably arrive at devaluation, and such an operation has not been undertaken in any country without decree powers being accorded to the government. Tomorrow you will have to grant full power to a government destined to prepare devaluation; today you can give it to a government which will combat devaluation."

After a full hour of this, Premier Flandin stepped from the rostrum, walked slowly from the Chamber, slumped in a faint in the corridor outside. He was hustled home, put to bed. Not for many hours did he learn that his entire speech had been in vain. Paunchy little Edouard Herriot, leader of the Radical Socialists, had leaped in to plead the government's case until long past midnight. It did not change a vote. The Flandin Cabinet was voted out 353 to 202.

Why. Hard-boiled reporters felt that hulking Premier Flandin had made several tactical errors in his last appeal to the Deputies. His entire speech had been dramatic and emotional, from the pedestal to prop his broken arm to the hints of dire plotting on the part of U. S. correspondents--hints that no other French official could substantiate. And sympathy is an emotion that French Deputies find hard to sustain for more than an hour. Flandin had referred directly to his physical handicap, to the secret rage of his opponents, had stung their vanity by insisting that he alone was capable of saving the country. Furthermore he had made no answer at all to definite questions from the opposition early in the afternoon. Two weeks of financial panic had brought forth nothing more specific than a demand for emergency powers with no clear clue as to how those powers would be used.

Up Bouisson. To succeed Premier Flandin, President Lebrun turned promptly to the man who had been sitting directly above the Premier all evening, President Fernand Bouisson. A huge man, almost as tall as Flandin, with a sleek paunch and a neatly-cropped white beard, he was born in Constantine, Algeria, later moved to Marseille. Once a rugby player, he has represented Marseille in the Chamber since 1909, avoiding scandal and public attention, a stolid routine politician. Since 1927 he has held the safe but physically exhausting job of President of the Chamber, a job for which he is ideally suited because of his size, his strength, his enormous Marseille voice, generally admitted to be the loudest in Paris. President Bouisson broke the handle of so many brass dinner bells, bonging for order, that the present bell is firmly screwed to the desk, rung by a lever at the top. Like a head waiter, President Bouisson has spent his working hours in full dress. When the bonging of his bell or the bellow of his voice failed to quiet a parliamentary riot, he had one last way to restore order. He clapped his hat on his bald head. When the President of the Chamber of Deputies puts on his silk topper the Chamber is automatically adjourned.

Out of office hours Fernand Bouisson indulged in the three hobbies that all Frenchmen admire: he eats, with skill and discrimination; he collects pictures and rare editions; he tells funny stories in dialect. Until the riots of February 1934 he was a faithful if unimpressive member of the Socialist Party. Then he resigned m disgust, has since carefully avoided aligning himself with any political party.

Reshuffle. The late Aristide Briand was Premier of France more times than he could remember. Most French politicians with the length of service of Fernand Bouisson have held the job at least once. Last week was M. Bouisson's first try and he completed a Cabinet, and a workmanlike one at that, within 24 hours. Essentially it was the Flandin Cabinet over again, with a few important shifts. Its principal members:

Premier & Minister of Interior: Fernand Bouisson

Ministers Without Portfolio: Marshal Petain, Edouard Herriot, Louis Marin

Foreign Affairs: Pierre Laval

Finance: Joseph Caillaux

War: General Louis Felix Maurin

Navy: Franc,ois Pietri

Air: General Victor Denain

Labor: Louis Frossard

But every political observer knew that if devaluation is to be postponed even a few months, the Bouisson Cabinet had to have the same emergency powers that the Flandin Cabinet had vainly begged for. Would it get them? The proposition was immediately put to a vote in the Chamber of Deputies. By an exceedingly narrow margin the Chamber voted to grant the Cabinet power to rule by decree until Oct. 31. Premier Bouisson, flushed with success, uprose to lecture the Chamber in schoolmasterly fashion, telling them to wind up their affairs and go home in a week. But his optimism was premature. The vote had been so close that a recalling of the roll was demanded. On the re-call the Chamber, by a margin of two votes (264-to-262) reversed itself. All France was stunned when Premier Bouisson, pale and agitated, called his Cabinet together and announced its resignation. The members promptly departed for the palace of President Lebrun to apprise him of their action. With France thus thrown once more into political chaos. President Lebrun summoned Jules Jeanneney, President of the Senate, and other political leaders to discuss the formation of a new Cabinet. There was some possibility that M. Herriot, radical-socialist leader, would be called to head a Cabinet with a left-wing majority.

Gold. In the meantime gold, as it had for weeks before, continued pouring all week from the Bank of France. For the week ending May 24, last official figure, $208,665,035 worth left the bank's vaults. Experts of other banks estimated that $329,000,000 more were withdrawn during the following sennight. Since 1928 the only way a French citizen can get his hands on actual gold is to buy a brick, the smallest of which weighs 26 3/4 lb. t., costs $12,000 (at current exchange). But Frenchmen have the money. Clubbing together, shopkeepers, concierges, little lawyers, and the like sent seedy representatives with brief cases stuffed with paper notes to exchange for gold bricks. Every plane out of Paris was loaded with frightened investors, their suitcases bulging with gold.

Temporarily, news of the Bouisson Cabinet and rumors of an extra long summer vacation for the Chamber of Deputies halted the flood. Newshawks hurrying around to the Bank of France found nervous gold buyers still at the windows, but the lines no longer reached out into the open courtyard.

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