Ill
France s Secret Fascist
Army
HITLER nor Mussolini could have foreseen the devel
NEITHER of a Cliveden set or England s willingness to weaken
opment
her
own
position as the
dominant European power by
sacrificing
Austria and a good portion of Czechoslovakia. The totalitarian
powers proceeded on the assumption that when the struggle for
control of central Europe, the Balkans
and the Mediterranean
came they would have
The Rome-Berlin
pected war broke
to fight.
axis reasoned logically that
if,
when
the ex
be disrupted by a wide
internal rebellion, not only would she be weakened on
spread
the battlefield but fascism might even be victorious in the Re
public. In preparation for this, the axis sent into France secret
agents plentifully supplied with money and arms, and almost
succeeded in one of the most amazing plots in history.
of
out, France could
The opening scene of events which led directly to the discovery
how far the foreign secret agents had progressed took place in
Drouant on the Place Gaillon which is frequented
by leaders of Paris financial, industrial and cultural life.
Precisely at noon, on September 10, 1937, Jacqueline Blondet,
an eighteen-year-old stenographer with marcelled hair, sparkling
the Restaurant
eyes,
and heavily rouged lips, passed through the rotating doors
famous restaurant and turned right as she had been in-
of the
31