Word: pucheu
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
When Francois Coulet, General Charles de Gaulle's civil administrator for Normandy, fired subprefect Pierre Rochet, collaborationist chief of police of Bayeux, bitter-end patriots cheered. They pointed out that Rochet was a cousin of Pierre Pucheu, the first high Vichyite officially condemned and shot for treason...
Bitterly, onetime Vichy Minister Pierre Pucheu had cried, "La comédie est finie!" when an Algiers military court condemned him to death for treason (TIME, March 20). Last week a higher tribunal denied him a new trial. No final clemency came from the somber Chief of State, General Charles de Gaulle, himself under sentence of death by the Vichy Government Pierre Pucheu had served...
...ninth day after sentence, a guard unlocked Pierre Pucheu's cell, a chaplain said a brief mass. At the place of execution Pierre Pucheu spurned a blindfold, stared firmly at the firing squad, himself gave the command, "Ready! . . . Aim! . . . Fire!", then slumped in death...
...Pierre Pucheu himself had the last word. Bitterly he cried: "The majority of Frenchmen followed Pétain as long as they thought that he served France. Are they traitors or third-class patriots? . . . [My conviction will] plant the first stake in a civil war. . . . Whatever happens, vive la France...
Before the day was out, the convicted man appealed to the high Military Court of Cassation for a new trial. Beyond that, Pierre Pucheu's last hope would be a commutation from the tall, melancholy chief of the Committee of National Liberation, General Charles de Gaulle...