The Short Reign of Pippin IV Read Online Free PDF Page A

herself without a government. It will be remembered that when President Sonnet called on the Christian Atheists to form a government they could not agree even within their own ranks. Likewise the Socialists failed to draw support. The Christian Communists, with the support of the Non-Tax-Payers’ League, failed to qualify. Only then did M. Sonnet call the historic conference of leaders of all parties at the Elysée Palace.
    The parties involved at this time should be listed, since some of them have since disappeared and been replaced by others. Those groups attending the president’s call are here listed, not by their power but simply geographically in relation to the center. Gathered in the Elysée Palace were:
    The Conservative Radicals
The Radical Conservatives
The Royalists
The Right Centrists
The Left Centrists
The Christian Atheists
The Christian Christians
The Christian Communists
The Proto-Communists
The Neo-Communists
The Socialists
and
The Communists
    The Communists were broken up into:
    Â 
    Stalinists
Trotskyists
Khrushchevniks
Bulganinians
    Â 
    For three days the struggle raged. The leaders slept on the brocade couches of the Grand Ballroom and subsisted on the bread and cheese and Algerian wine furnished by M. le Président. It was a scene of activity and turmoil. The Elysée Ballroom is not only wainscoted with mirrors but also has mirrors on its ceiling, which created the impression that instead of forty-two party chiefs there were literally thousands. Every raised fist became fifty fists, while the echo from the hard mirror surfaces threw back the sounds of a multitude.
    M. Rumorgue, the fallen minister and leader of the Proto-Communists, left the meeting and went back to Juan les Pins on receipt of a telegram from Madame Rumorgue saying that the Poland China sow, named Anxious, had farrowed.
    At the end of seven days the conference had accomplished nothing. President Sonnet put the Elysée bathroom at the disposal of the delegates, at the same time refusing to be responsible for their linen.
    The seriousness of the impasse at last began to be reflected in the Paris press. The humorous periodical Alligator suggested that the situation should be made permanent, since no national crisis had arisen since the party leaders were taken out of circulation.
    Great historic decisions often result from small and even flippant causes. Well into the second week, the leaders of the larger political parties found that their voices, which had gone from loud to harsh to hoarse, were finally disappearing completely.
    It was at this time that the compact group of the leaders of the Royalist party took the floor. Having had no hope of being included in any new government, they had abstained from making speeches, and thus had kept their voices. After the confusion of eight days of meetings, the calm of the Royalists was by contrast explosive.
    The Comte de Terrefranque advanced to the rostrum and took the floor in spite of an impassioned but whispered address by M. Triflet, the Radical Conservative.
    M. le Comte in a clear, loud voice announced that the Royalist group had joined forces. He himself, he said, in spite of his basic and unchanging loyalty to the Merovingian line, from which his title derived, had agreed to join the Bourbons, not from lack of respect and love for his own great tradition, but simply because the Merovingians were not able to produce a prince of clear and direct descent. He therefore introduced the Duc des Troisfronts, whose proposal would have the backing not only of the other Royalist parties but also of the noble and intelligent people of France.
    The Duc des Troisfronts, who under ordinary circumstances was shielded from public appearances, because of the split palate which has been his family’s chief characteristic for many generations, now took the stand and was able to make himself not only heard but even understood.
    France, he said, stood at the crossroads. Under the