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married Jeanne Brevet, the niece of Joseph Darnand, and they had four children. At the Liberation, he took refuge in Sigmaringen then in Switzerland, was arrested in 1945 and sentenced to ten years’ hard labour. On his release he took up journalism again. Léon Degrelle (1906–94): Son of a brewer in the Ardennes, a brilliant orator, devout Catholic and founder of the Belgian fascist party, the Rexists, in 1931, originally as a wing of the ruling Catholic Party. Financed by Mussolini. In August 1941 he formed and then commanded the Flemish and Walloon troops which fought for Germany on the Russian front. His Légion Wallonie was transferred to the Waffen SS and Degrelle was decorated by Hitler in February 1944. Sentenced to death at the Liberation, he crash-landed an aeroplane into San Sebastian in 1945, where considerable efforts by Franco’s staff protected him from extradition to Belgium, which clamoured for his return. Degrelle was another of those fascists who knew Louis Darquier – on 2 October 1936 he was turned away at the frontier en route to speak at Louis’ National Club – but he avoided him in Spain after the war. Jeanne Brevet Charbonneau Degrelle (dates unknown): In Spain in 1962 Jeanne Charbonneau met Léon Degrelle, whom she married, and with whom she lived until his death in 1994. The researcher and journalist Sylvie Deroche interviewed Jeanne Degrelle in Madrid in 1999. Like Action Française, Mme Degrelle considered Louis Darquier beneath her: she and Degrelle regarded Louis’ private life as unacceptable. So did her first husband, Henri Charbonneau, inasmuch as he does not mention Louis Darquier at all in his vivid and unreconstructed autobiography, Les Mémoires de Porthos. 11 The only exception to AF’s anti-parliamentary stance was Léon Daudet’s election as a deputy from 1924 to 1929, the first and last AF parliamentarian. 12 François Coty (1874–1934): Perfume and cosmetics manufacturer, secretive millionaire and endless source of wealth for the far right between the wars. He was the founder of the fascist party Solidarité Française and owner of the populist Ami du peuple and Figaro newspapers. Croix-de-feu was also funded by the aristocrat Joseph-Jean-Mathieu-Jérôme, 4th Duca Pozzo di Borgo, who became vice-president of the league. He was director of the Anti-Marxist Institute of Paris; pro-Hitler and Mussolini. François de la Roque (1885–1946): Wounded and decorated First World War veteran. Croix-de-feu was launched in 1928 and la Roque joined the following year, becoming its president in 1931. In 1936 he converted it into a political party, the Parti Social Français (PSF), renamed Progrès Social Français in 1940. It was authoritarian, anti-democratic, paramilitary, anti-communist and anti- Masonic. La Roque was resented by all other parties of the extreme right for his more conciliatory position towards the Republic, and his concentration on discipline rather than demagoguery. During the Occupation he was anti-German and anti-Nazi, but pro-Pétain, pro-Vichy and anti-Gaullist. His position was
always ambiguous, which led to his arrest and deportation by the Germans in 1943, and, despite two years in captivity and wartime resistance services, his re-arrest at the Liberation. He died before trial. 13 Pierre-Charles Taittinger (1887–1965), Jeunesses Patriotes was founded initially under the patronage – and funding – of General de Castelnau of the FNC and other patriotic and Catholic movements, as a reaction to the Cartel des Gauches government of that year. See website of Taittinger, http://www.taittinger.com/prix/main/ maingenese.htm. 14 Soucy, vol. 1, p. 211 15 Soucy, vol. 1, p. 49, ref. La Liberté, 1 January 1926. 16 I have found it impossible to get the membership lists of these leagues, whose activities and archives, should they exist, are shrouded in mystery. Jackson (p. 72) says Croix-de-feu’s membership was 300,000 in 1935; Soucy (vol. 2, p. 36) says nearly a million. Beloff gives the following figures for 1934: Action Française: 60,000 adherents, of which 8,300 in Paris Solidarité Française: 180,000, of which 80,000 in Paris Jeunesses Patriotes: 90,000, of which 6,400 in Paris Croix-de-feu: 50,000, of which 18,000 in Paris (Soucy says 100,000, of which 21,000 in Paris). In 1934 the four big leagues totalled 370,000 members. Later, Croix-de-feu became by far the largest. As to Darquier, there is considerable documentary proof of the dates given for his trajectory. 17 Eugène Schueller (1881–1957): Of Alsacian origin, Schueller studied chemistry, invented a new form of hair colouring, founded l’Oréal and, with Henri de Rothschild, Monsavon. A supporter of Eugène Deloncle and the Cagoule, he was co-founder with him of the MSR in 1940, and a close friend of Henri Charbonneau. After Deloncle’s eviction from the MSR in 1942, Schueller kept a low profile. His record was investigated at the Liberation, but he was not brought to trial. He went on to protect, through his worldwide beauty empire, many French war criminals after the war, in Spain, the USA and South America. 18 Wealthy men like this might have been members of what were known at the time as the ‘two hundred families’. In fact this figure referred to the largest shareholders of the Banque de France. These ‘two hundred’ had voting rights, and so were seen as the dictators of French financial policies. In the parlance of the time they came to stand for the powerful and exclusive financial elite of the country. 19 Werth, p. 90ff. 20 Philippe Henriot (1889–1944): Politician, broadcaster, Catholic militant, anti-Semite, anti-communist, anti-résistant, anti-republican and, after the British attack on the French fleet at Mers-el-Kebir in 1940, anglophobe. He was pro-Pétain. He broadcast against the BBC and the Allies from 1942 to
Page 1 and 2: Notes �� The not
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Page 23 and 24: of 1870-71. Born in Chile, he was w
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Army. Jewish relief funds tried to
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to Paris, where he performed simila
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32 Marcel Carné shot Les Enfants d
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58 Founded in 1941, the AJA’s fir
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Delpeyroux, president of the UFDR,
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14 Pierre Cathala (1888-1947): Lawy
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Historical Dictionary of World War
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chapter 20 The Family INTERVIEWS AN
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want to pay for the mistakes made b
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29 Laval was kept under supervision
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1945; Jean Darquier and Louise, unt
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15 Mathieu Laurier, Randa , p.114.
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15 Salle Wagram, March 1937. 16 Phi
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