Dynamite to Justice

Twenty defendants, 50 lawyers, 250 witnesses and 2,000 questions for decision faced a far from bewildered jury in Paris last week as the "Stavisky Trial" opened at last in the Palace of Justice. The jurors, briskly selected by a red-robed judge, were not bewildered because all aspects of the trial had been listed with forethought and precision on a sort of "score card" for the jury's special benefit. The defense lawyers, temperamental as prima donnas, opened with shouts for more chairs which soon reached the pitch of shrieks.

"Monstrous! Unendurable!" rose the Corsican cry of Maitre Vincent de Moro-Giafferi, defender of the late great Swindler Alexandre Stavisky's widow Arlette (TIME, Mar. 12, 1934 et seq.). "We are granted not even a fit place to sit down. Scandalous! Outrageous!''

Used as Paris newsmen are to such courtroom petulance, they seriously reported that "a real disturbance" seemed imminent before the 50 maitres were accommodated to their satisfaction in Justice's Palace. Twenty months ago two French Cabinets were unseated in succession by the Stavisky Scandal; the riots in the Place de la Concorde on Feb. 6, 1934 were the bloodiest in 63 years; and the present trial of Stavisky accomplices bristles with political dynamite. Since most Frenchmen believe that Swindler Stavisky did not commit suicide but was shot by agents of the State detective force to shield men who were high up two years ago and have never been arrested, some sympathy has always attached to the Great Swindler's young widow Arlette. To many a Frenchman her 14 months in prison awaiting trial have seemed unduly severe. She was let out on bail at last (TIME, May 13) but sympathy still enshrouds her. On the advice of Maitre de Moro-Giafferi last week Arlette Stavisky pulled out all the organ stops in a plea for PITY which went to the heart of France. "To be able to go away and forget all this by migrating with my children to America!" she cried. "To bring up my children to love me and respect the memory of their father! That is all I ask. "They are innocent and unsuspecting. All the time I was held in preventive arrest--more than a year--they believed I was in a hospital with a broken leg. When I was allowed to see them several times, the stage was set for them. I was taken under guard to a clinic, stretched out in bed and my leg swathed in bandages before they were admitted. "I don't care about myself any more. It is the children's future which concerns me. The court will decide my fate, and I pray that the jury will be kind and let me leave with my children to start a new life in America!" Parade of Innocents. Arlette Stavisky, onetime Chanel model and the mistress of the Great Swindler long before she was his wife, may never have been his confidante and accomplice, as the State now charges, but credulity was strained last week when the other 19 defendants sought to join her in a parade of injured innocents. Why did M. Raoul Desbrosses, director of the Orleans municipal pawnshop, sign worthless bonds so that Stavisky might sell them? "Stavisky was desperate!" cried Defendant Desbrosses last week. "When I refused to sign, he drew a pistol, pressed it to his temple, and threatened to pull the trigger. I signed to prevent him from committing suicide and because I could not bear the scandal of having a man found shot dead in my office!" Why did the jewel expert M. Emile Farault appraise as genuine jewels some synthetic emeralds said by Stavisky to belong to a company headed by the Emperor of Ethiopia and thus enable them to be pawned at a fabulous profit by Stavisky? "I had no doubt of their value!" swore Defendant Farault last week. "Ah, no! I never had any river pebbles in my hands!" Why did 75-year-old retired General Joseph Bardi de Fourtou lend his name as "front" to one of the Stavisky companies? On the stand last week the nervous old General protested his innocence to the point of dragging in, apparently without a scrap of pertinence, French Premier Pierre Laval. "I had complete confidence in Stavisky because so many important persons were mentioned in his affairs," cried the General. "Even M. Laval spoke for M. Hudelo"--onetime Paris Police Chief, once defended by Lawyer Laval and, like the General, a director of a Stavisky company. Why did gem expert M. Henri Cohen appraise 608,000 francs worth of jewels at 22,717,000 francs, thus enabling Stavisky to pawn them for 15,144,000 francs? Last week Defendant Cohen cried: "Who was I not to do as Stavisky told me? He had a pass issued by the Paris police which allowed him to sit at the races in the box of the President of the Republic!" Any man who could sit in such boxes could do no wrong, seemed to be the firm conviction of all defendants, and several plaintively declared: "If everyone had done his duty, we would not have this trouble now."--i.e. they still seemed to believe that higher-ups would have successfully hushed everything but for slips and imprudence. The Good Old Times. Star defendant last week was M. Henri Hayotte, Stavisky companies manager. He related how the Great Swindler provided himself with a virtual harem composed of ladies of the stage eager for the favor of a man who ultimately lost 1,000,000 francs ($80,000) producing two operettas but considered his fun cheap at the price. Ruefully Manager Hayotte told how Baron Maurice de Rothschild sold him for 1,200,000 francs a horse which failed to win even a single race for Swindler Stavisky. "I knew nothing about horses." Manager Hayotte confessed. "In the final collapse I found myself at the head of a stable of 42 racers, with no alternative but to take a revolver and shoot them or find money to feed them, which was impossible!" Lapsing into a mood of reminiscing about the Good Old Times, Defendant Hayotte soon had the Palace of Justice momentarily spellbound. "In our eyes M. Alexandre was a great speculator making millions of francs every day," he sighed. "Ah, what distinguished friends he had! After his death, we learned he lost 25,000,000 francs in one year, but how could we suspect that? He didn't have as much charm as they say, but he did have extraordinary persuasive force. That was his real genius and all who are in the dock here will bear me out."

Carried away by Defendant Hayotte, the other male defendants nodded ecstatically, while in the back row Arlette Stavisky went on with her soft sobs.

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