Word: mornet
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Died. Constant Victor André Mornet, 85, Procureur Général of France, prosecutor in the trials of Dutch dancing-girl-turned-spy Mata Hari (1917), Marshal Henri Philippe Pétain and Pierre Laval (1945); in Nohant-Vic, France. Called by his government to prosecute Pétain, Mornet summed up in a stormy five-hour speech, concluded: "I would not be doing my duty if I did not insist on the capital penalty...
...untidy Sunday clothes. But he was a peasant of genius. He took the measure of the High Court of Justice in Paris with a shrewd and baleful eye. As his treasonable acts were recited, the arch-collaborator of Vichyfrance calculatingly sized up the opposition: white-haired André Mornet, prosecutor of Mata Hari and Pétain; red-robed Judge Pierre Mongibeaux, who had sentenced the Marshal two months ago; the jury of resistance leaders and parliamentarians...
...under heavy escort, came two of France's most hated men : suave Count Fernand de Brinon, former Vichy ambassador to Ger man-occupied Paris, and defiant Joseph Darnand, once head of Vichy's hated militia. The court had called them despite the refusal of Prosecutor Andrá Mornet to hear the evidence of "a crook and a gunman...
...defense followed with a letter written to Pétain by U.S. Fleet Admiral William D. Leahy. Marshal Pétain, 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 André Mornet declared that he would no longer press the charge that the Marshal had plotted to defeat France. Hereafter, he would emphasize Pétain's record of collaboration after the Armistice...
Judges hurriedly consulted. Spectators burst into jeers and catcalls-some aimed at the bench and the prosecution for "political" bias. Said Prosecutor Mornet: "There are too many Germans in this room." The hubbub grew to a tumult of protests and shrieks, scuffling bodies, overturned chairs and tables. In the prisoner's dock the old man sat stoically until he was led away for safety. At Tommy-gun point, gendarmes restored order...