Death by Bomb

Even among the exuberant political beards of France, the beard of Socialist Rene Marx Dormoy was something special. Its grizzled fullness was a godsend to cartoonists in the days of the Popular Front, when Dormoy as Minister of the Interior was making things hot for the Croix de Feu and the Cagoulards (Hooded Ones), a reactionary Gallic Ku Klux Klan.

Son of a Socialist father, Marx Dormoy remained as uncompromising as his namesake, made lasting enemies among Communists and pro-Nazis. He denounced Petain in the Chamber of Deputies after the fall of France, agitated for a return of democracy. Interned last autumn, the 52-year-old ex-minister was released this spring to live under police surveillance at Montelimar in the Rhone Valley.

One night last week an explosion rattled the windows of the inn where Dormoy lived. Behind the broken door of his bedroom, Dormoy lay dying on the floor, his head a bloody mess. After he died, the police who were supposed to guard him found fragments of a clockwork bomb under his bed. His enemies had got revenge.

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