Devil's Advocate

Last week Pierre Laval came to judgment. With him came none of the dreadful pity, the sense of terrible duty that had been in every Frenchman's heart during the trial, death sentence and commutation to life imprisonment, of old Marshal Henri Petain. The elimination of Pierre Laval, a necessary chore, might have been a satisfying vengeance. He made it a shameful farce.

The sunken-cheeked, 62-year-old Auvergnat wore his usual white tie, looked more than ever like a peasant dressed in 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 Andre Mornet, prosecutor of Mata Hari and Petain; red-robed Judge Pierre Mongibeaux, who had sentenced the Marshal two months ago; the jury of resistance leaders and parliamentarians.

Bawled Laval at the start: "I am a patriot and I will prove it!" Up jumped the Judge, the prosecutor, all 24 jurors to shout him down. Having robbed the Court of its dignity, Laval smirked. His lawyers walked out, protesting that they had had no time to prepare. Laval pleaded humbly for a delay. It was refused; he slammed his briefcase down on a table.

"Well, then, condemn me now!" he yelled. "At least the situation will be clear then!" The enraged Mongibeaux bellowed at the guards. Pierre Laval, thrice Premier of France, was hauled away to his cell.

He was brought back the next day, on the promise of good behavior. The third day he was expelled again, after exchanging loud insults with Judge & jury. By week's end he was boycotting the Court and defying the Judge to bring him back by force.

France's everpresent, ever-haunting awareness of national guilt would not down: the Court had to agree that Laval would "not be reproached" for his prewar career, for complicity in the 1940 armistice, for the law by which the National Assembly armed Petain and Laval with power and set up the Vichy regime.

Charges enough remained. Mongibeaux asked Laval who brought him back to power in 1942, after Petain ordered his arrest. When Laval did not answer, the Judge did. "It was Abetz!" (Nazi representative to Vichyfranee). Laval cried foul: ''You asked me a question and gave the answer. . . ."

"Take him out!" Mongibeaux screamed. That time, Laval stayed out. With or without him, his trial would not last very long.

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