Word: marshallizing
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...tumbril but in a Black Maria, Henri Philippe Pétain, 89, hero of Verdun, Marshal of France and chief of the late Vichy Government, rode to one of history's great trials-his own, for high treason. With him rode the France of 1940 to be judged by the France...
...Marshal's countrymen, who five years ago looked to him as a fallen nation's hope, caught a glimpse of him as he passed on the way from Montrouge Prison to the Palais de Justice. Stiff with age and dignity, Pétain sat far in the back of the van. His wife, two doctors, two nurses and three lawyers trailed him in a five-car convoy. In the Palais courtyard the half-deaf old man was helped down by two gendarmes. "Ah," he quavered, "so we are here...
Next day he donned his khaki uniform with its seven stars (for Marshal of France) and one decoration-the gold-and-blue Médaille Militaire, France's highest award for valor. Then he shuffled from his Palais lodging (a 14 ft. by 12 ft. magistrate's cloakroom) to the prisoner's dock in the jampacked chamber...
...Saved France." The prosecution read the Bill of Accusation: As Vichy Chief of State, Pétain had put the capstone on "a long-prepared plot against the Republican regime. ..." Then the judges (following French legal fashions), turned to question the defendant. The Marshal cut them short...
Cried dapper ex-Premier Paul Reynaud, 66, who had been Pétain's predecessor: "I, like the rest of France, was fooled by the Marshal. ... He tried to destroy what remained of France's soul...