* * The Hooded Ones The latest reports on the
enquiries by the French police into the activities attributed to Les Cagoulards (the Hooded Ones) are sensational enough to satisfy even the most ardent opponents of the French Right Wing. At the Council of Ministers on Tuesday, the Minister of the Interior, M. Dormoy, announced the discovery of a plot against the Republic, of a military organisation modelled on the Army, and of plans prepared for occupying key positions and the Chamber of Deputies. The organisation intended to establish a dictatorship as a preliminary to restoring the Monarchy. This announcement had been preceded at the week-end by a proclamation by the Duc de Guise, the French Pretender, asserting his right to the throne but disowning the Royalist Action Francaise and dictatorial movements. The plot, whatever its importance or extent, is almost certainly the work of men, more to the right than Colonel de la Roque or the Croix de Feu, in whom even nationalism has been overcome by panic fear for their class interests, and its incredible folly is an apt reflection of their political weakness and incapacity. With no popular basis, it is of little danger to the Republic ; but its discovery is extremely welcome to the Front Populaire. Nothing could be more calculated to throw discredit and ridicule on the methods of the extreme right in France.
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