Vicious Vichyite
From Mr Roty O'Keeffe Sir: It offends against all decency for you to publish a letter (from one M. Armand Laferrere of Paris, 10 February) which refers to Charles Maurras only as 'the French philosopher and politician who inspired and led the small but active French monarchist party in the first half of the 20th century', without stigmatising him as the Vichyist, anti-Semitic editor of l'Action Francaise, and conscience of Main, who was lucky to avoid being sentenced to death at his trial in January 1945.
His crimes were greater than those of Robert Brasillach, who was much less influential yet was executed. Maurras called for more stringent measures against the Jews: for the taking of hostages and killing without mercy; for captured Gaullists to be shot out of hand; and 'if the death penalty is not sufficient to put a stop to the Gaullists, members of their families should be seized as hostages and executed'. His paper applauded the Statut des Juifs but demanded that it be applied more rigorously.
Maurras called for 'more serious efforts to rid the land of Jewish refugees who fed the Black Market and Gaullist propaganda, and who continued to corrupt the country as they had before the war. Jews were growing fat in the Pyrenees and on the Cote d'Azur, ranging the countryside in search of opportunities to debauch honest peasants with their tempting gold, always thinking of themselves first at the expense of Frenchmen — and of good manners too: the Jews and their Christian protectors should be punished, and to this end the Commissariat aux Questions Juives should be granted wider and more effective powers.'
In other words, ship them all off to Auschwitz and good riddance to bad rubbish. Far from being the commendable 'philosopher and politician' M. Laferrere implies, Charles Maurras was an evil genius behind Vichy, and, deaf as he was, he must as he died have heard the chorus of the people he was directly responsible for slaughtering.
If, in fact, he did say (as your correspondent claims) that his last words were, 'For the first time, I can hear someone walking', I suggest that what he heard were the footsteps of millions shuffling to the crematoria.
Roy O'Keeffe
Paris
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