Heir to Le Chef

Quebec Strongman Maurice Duplessis lay buried less than a week, but already the government of French Canada was taking on the easier, more tolerant attitude of Premier Paul Sauve, 52, the longtime Duplessis lieutenant who was hand-picked by Le Chef to succeed. COMPLETELY NEW CLIMATE IN QUEBEC, headlined Montreal's Duplessis-hating Le Devoir.

Sauve was first elected to the Quebec legislature in 1930, taking a seat his father had held since 1907. In the 1944 election he piled up a record majority from 3,000 miles away in Normandy--where he was a lieutenant colonel in Les Fusiliers Mont-Royal. He made his reputation as the super-efficient minister of social welfare and youth. He is a natty bon vivant who made a million on the stock market.

In his first acts in office, Sauve took steps to consolidate himself as the new Chef, eying his Union Nationale party's first big test in expected elections next spring. From the treasury he sprang $16.5 million to build old couples' homes and aid 63 private high schools across the province. (Twenty of the schools never had received grants before because Duplessis enigmatically decided to ignore them.) Affably, Paul Sauve set out to woo Quebec newsmen, who often feuded with Duplessis. He named a press attache "so the public can quickly be informed.'' And he quickly began to use his talent for delegating authority and work, much in contrast to his predecessor. Summed up Le Devoir: "Under Duplessis, there were 20. ministers looking at one man hard at work; today, there is one man looking at 20 ministers hard at work."

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