Word: laval
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...Pierre Laval spent his last days in sackcloth in the death row of the Fresnes prison. He wrote farewell letters to his family, his lawyers. He chain-smoked. His grieving wife cried that the people who "got France into the war so unprepared" now wanted to silence him with death. General Charles de Gaulle refused every request for a new or re-opened trial; the grotesquerie of the first one had revolted all France...
...Laval turned philosopher. To a fellow prisoner going to death he said: "Ne t'en fais pas: it lasts only a few seconds . . . it's like being killed in a bus accident on the Place...
...Laval, death was like a very messy bus accident. He was lying on his cot as officials approached the cell to take him. Before they could reach him, he slipped a poison capsule into his mouth, rolled writhing to the floor...
Charges enough remained. Mongibeaux asked Laval who brought him back to power in 1942, after Petain ordered his arrest. When Laval did not answer, the Judge did. "It was Abetz!" (Nazi representative to Vichyfranee). Laval cried foul: ''You asked me a question and gave the answer...
...Take him out!" Mongibeaux screamed. That time, Laval stayed out. With or without him, his trial would not last very long...