Word: mornet
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Before him ranged the red-robed High Court of Justice, a three-man tribunal headed by stern Pierre Mongibeaux, 65, (in 1941 he had sworn loyalty to Pétain's Vichy Government). The public prosecutor was André Mornet, 75 (in World War I he sent Spy Mata Hari to the firing squad). The 24-man jury had been chosen half from the Resistance movement, half from non-collaborationist ex-parliamentarians. Behind the prisoner sat his counsel, his doctors and nurses, the witnesses (there would be about 50), the tightly packed reporters and spectators...
Germany's V5. Politically, Petain's return was embarrassing, confusing, frightening. General de Gaulle said nothing. State Prosecutor Andre Mornet, fiery scourge of World War I's spies and traitors, who had come out of retirement to prosecute the men of Vichy, hastily postponed plans for a trial of Petain in absentia, prepared a new trial for June or later. Cried the leftist press: "Petain is Germany's V5. . . . Germany wants to use him to sow disorder in France...
...prosecute the Government of Marshal Henri Philippe Petain, the Government of General Charles de Gaulle called from retirement the scourge of World War I's spies and traitors. At 75, famed Counselor Andre Mornet was tired, bent and heavy-eyed. His frayed red robe might have been the one he wore at the Mata Hari trial. But when he rose, red of face and white of beard, to open the case against Vichy, his years fell away, his old fire flashed...
This time the defendant was no Mata Hari. It was Vichy's bewhiskered, palsied, senescent (64) Jean-Pierre Esteva, the five-star admiral who had been Marshal Petain's Resident General of Tunisia. Cried Counselor Mornet: Esteva was the creature of Petain, who will soon be brought to trial in absentia. Esteva did not resist the Germans in Tunisia; instead, he appealed to the Free French to desert, conscripted Tunisians to help the Axis. "I ask death for the man who was content to accept dishonor...