Not for Pleasure

At the end of the royal entertainment for President and Mme Albert Lebrun in London's India Office fortnight ago, one of the entertainers (the saucy French actor, Sacha Guitry, who has often taken the parts of famous court intriguers) stepped up to Queen Elizabeth and murmured in a low voice, "I have a favor to ask of Your Majesty. I should be very grateful if you would persuade M. Lebrun to run for President again." The Queen said she would do what she could.

This incident is only one example of the hundreds of forms of pressure which had been brought to bear on President Lebrun. who some time ago expressed his reluctance to run for a second seven-year term. This week, just four days before the election, he bucked up enough to announce that he would run again. In a speech in Montelimar. in the Rhone valley, at ceremonies memorializing France's seventh President (1899-1906). Emile Loubet, President Lebrun quoted a famous Loubet statement: "I didn't come here [into office] for my pleasure. I don't intend to clear out for the pleasure of others."

The rest of the proceedings at Montelimar. indicated a high degree of unanimity between the President and his Premier. Premier Edouard Daladier eulogized him. In return M. Lebrun, who had recently been exposed to Neville Chamberlain's belated distrust of the dictators, came out strongly against aggressors, and praised the strong reply of Premier Daladier to Benito Mussolini's declaration on Italy's colonial issues (TIME, April 3). M. Daladier had said quite flatly and unexcitedly over the air that: 1) France would willingly discuss Italy's demands as soon as Italy clarified them; but 2) France would not "cede a foot of our land nor one of our rights." Such words, said President Lebrun, were "calm, firm, loyal, courageous, and human." This week, for the first time in months, those adjectives applied as well to many a bucked-up French citizen.

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