"What Is Honor?"

After 90 days of sanctuary, Pierre Laval was "formally invited" by the hard-pressed Spanish Government to leave Spain.

At Barcelona the haggard refugee and his wife boarded the same Luftwaffe plane with the same Luftwaffe pilots who had flown them in. A few hours later they came down on a U.S. Army airfield in Austria. Rumor said that Traitor Laval had vainly offered his German pilots one million francs if they would head for Portugal. U.S. officers promptly turned Laval over to the French, who flew him to Paris.

At Paris' Le Bourget airfield, the prisoner, his wife and their 13 pieces of luggage were swiftly motored to Fresnes Prison.

There Laval was assigned to a 7 ft.-by-12 ft. cell, with an iron bed he would have to make himself. When officials sealed his luggage, the prisoner lost his taut composure, wept.

Next day he was whisked to court as a witness in the treason trial of Marshal Henri Philippe Petain. The testimony of another figure from France's dingy past had prepared the way for him.

Weygand Testifies. To the crowded courtroom in the Palais de Justice, the Marshal's lawyers had summoned their star witness: ailing, emaciated General Maxime Weygand, 78, commander in chief of the French Army when it surrendered in 1940 and now under charge of high treason.

Scorning a chair, but leaning on a cane, Weygand hammered at the prosecution's case. "I will accept from no one," he cried, "lessons in patriotism and honor. What is honor? To be steadfast and to speak the truth. . . . Nothing will induce me to call Petain a traitor. . . ."

Hotly the General denied the charge that Petain had "plotted" France's defeat in order to seize personal power. He maintained that Petain had secretly ordered cooperation with the Allies in North Africa. Testily he exchanged taunts with ex-Premier Paul Reynaud. If Petain had erred, said Weygand, it was the fault of "his evil genius," Vichy's Chief of Government Pierre Laval.

One Charge Dropped. The court was impressed. The prosecution was disturbed --the more so, when the defense followed with a letter written to Petain by U.S. Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy. Marshal Petain, said the former U.S. Ambassador to Vichy France, had often "expressed to me the fervent hope that the Nazi invaders would be destroyed. . . ." Suddenly Prosecutor Andre Mornet declared that he would no longer press the charge that the Marshal had plotted to defeat France. Hereafter, he would emphasize Petain's record of collaboration after the Armistice.

The jury demanded to hear testimony from Pierre Laval. Both prosecution and defense objected. Presiding Judge Pierre Mongibeaux decided: "Nobody will understand if we do not hear Laval now. . . . I would like to see the Marshal, who was only a piece of bric-a-brac in Laval's hands, brought face to face with his 'evil genius.' "

Nonagenarian Marshal Petain, who had dozed through much of the testimony in his behalf, suddenly sat up straight.

"Violent Emotion." The next day Pierre Laval shuffled into court, fedora in hand, grey-striped suit hanging loosely from his gaunt frame. He wore a soiled white tie. For two days he testified as the "court's witness."

Uncertain at first, Laval soon regained his old bearing. He dominated the chamber. He ignored judicial admonitions, whispered to reporters, half-bowed and smiled ingratiatingly at the Marshal. Though he knew he was not yet on trial, he also knew that his testimony was a prelude to his own fight for life.

Laval sought to identify himself and Petain as partners in collaboration. He admitted that he had broadcast to the nation: "I hope for a German victory." But that broadcast, he added, "was approved by the Marshal."

Petain rose stiffly from the dock. "I am

laboring under very violent emotion," the

old man quavered. "I objected to the phrase in question. ... I imagined that it had been deleted, so that I was aghast when it came over the air. ..."

Laval continued: collaboration was a double game to fool the Germans and insure French survival. . . . (Hoots of derision from the jury.) Shouted Laval: "Who in his right mind would have thought otherwise than that Germany would win the war?" . . . (The hoots swelled into a roar.) Screamed Laval: "I am not a Nazi. I am not a fascist. ... I hate war--even when we win, and we always lose. ... I love the republic. ... I resent being called Petain's 'evil genius'. . . ."

The witness continued: he was not responsible for the murders of French patriots by Vichyminister Joseph Darnand's notorious "Blackbird" militia. He had denounced no one. In fact, he personally had saved ex-Premier Reynaud and Leon Blum from Gestapo execution. The prosecution confronted Laval with a letter he had written to Petain: "... A few spectacular executions will prevent disorder and anarchy. . . ." Cried Laval: "I respect human life." (Searing laughter in the courtroom.)

"And I Refused." The witness concluded: the Marshal, and by implication he himself, had played the double game in North Africa. They had secretly ordered help for the Allies, but publicly they had sided with the Axis. And, added Laval, he had refused to help organize a puppet French government in Germany after the liberation of France. . . .

The Marshal rose to interrupt: "And I refused. . . ."

Then Pierre Laval, his testimony finished, shuffled out under heavy guard.

* Laval and Petain.

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