Paris 1935
Destiny’s Crossroads
Paul A. Myers
Published by Paul A. Myers Books
Copyright © Paul A. Myers 2011
ISBN-13: 978-0-9825960-8-1
Revised edition 2014
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AUTHOR
Paul A. Myers lives in Corona Del Mar, California with his wife Minche. He is the author of the satirical novel Greek Bonds and French Ladies, the historical novels A Farewell in Paris, Paris 1934: Victory in Retreat and Vienna 1934: Betrayal at the Ballplatz, and the maritime history North to California: The Spanish Voyages of Discovery 1533-1603. More information at myersbooks.
Paul A. Myers at Tuileries Gardens, Paris
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Table of Contents
Book One – The Hoare-Laval Pact
Quai d’Orsay
Hotel Matignon
Palais de la Mutualité
Fourth of July
Place Malsherbes
Bastille Day
Budget Decrees
Café de la Paix
Quai d’Orsay
The Colonel
Finance Decrees
The Booksellers
The Writers
Quai d’Orsay
Geneva
The Opéra
Finance Commission
Rue Monsieur
Reichs Chancellery
La Duchesse
Hoare-Laval – Maneuverings
Hoare-Laval – Saturday
Hoare-Laval – Sunday
Hoare-Laval – The Storm
Facing the Commons
Facing the Chamber
Dinner Party
American Embassy
Book Two – The Rhineland Crisis
New Government – Old Troubles
Plotting Begins
Soldiers March
Diplomats Gather
Ambassador’s Reception
Hotel Matignon
On Reflection – Some Words
Some Sources
Epigraph
Lost Horizons
The Peace Treaties should have enabled Great Britain and France, the two countries pursuing a joint and active policy for the defense of these Treaties under the auspices of the League of Nations, to be the masters of war and peace in Europe for half a century at least.
Geneviève Tabouis
Blackmail or War
February 1938
The pages which follow are concerned with relations between allies, and either joint or single negotiations with the dictatorships whose appetites then threatened peace and later led to war. The negotiations were for the most part a record of failure, but their lessons are important.
Anthony Eden, Earl of Avon
Facing the Dictators: The Memoirs of Anthony Eden
1962
Principal Cast of Characters
Dexter Jones – an American diplomat
Marcelle Lambert – a senior civil servant working in the premier’s office
Suzanne Bardoux – a senior civil servant working in the foreign ministry
Étienne – a lecturer at Sciences Po, a prestigious university on the Left Bank
Secrétaire Général – the head of the permanent staff in the premier’s office
Monsieur le Minister – a fictionalization of the finance minister
Historic characters
Geneviève Tabouis – diplomatic correspondent for a Parisian daily newspaper
André Géraud, pen name Pertinax – political correspondent for a Parisian daily newspaper
Pierre Laval – premier and foreign minister of France (and Time magazine’s Man of the Year for 1931)
Alexis Léger – secretary-general of the foreign ministry and head of the permanent staff (later awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1960 as the poet Saint-John Perse)
Anthony Eden – British minister to the League of Nations; later foreign secretary
Stanley Baldwin – British prime minister
Sir Samuel Hoare – British foreign secretary
Sir Robert Vansittart – British permanent undersecretary of the Foreign Office
Pierre-Étienne Flandin – French foreign minister from February 1936
Albert-Pierre Sarraut – French premier from February 1936
Cameo – André and Clara Malraux, Sylvia Beach, Adrienne Monnier, André and Lucy Chamson, Colonel Charles de Gaulle
Book One
The Hoare-Laval Pact