Description

SIGNED AUTOGRAPH MANUSCRIPT, probably prepared for publication in Action Française. In it, Daudet refers to the conviction in November 1928 of Serge di Modugno for the murder of Count Nardini (the Italian vice-consul), and interprets it as proof of the corruption of the Seine jury:

This verdict should be compared with that acquitting Germaine Breton, who cowardly killed war hero Marius Plateau from behind, and with that acquitting the despicable Schwarzbard, Petliura's murderer.

[...]

The Seine jury is skilfully selected and rigged by the General Security, where love of Germany, revolutionary tendencies and hatred of Italian fascism flourish. [...] How does the Sûreté Générale rig the jury? In the simplest way possible: the list of potential jurors (from whom lots were drawn) was drawn up following investigations by police officers. The police, who have been given orders, are careful to select from among honourable people those who are notoriously or obscurely insane as likely to sit on the jury [...].

He supported the theory of a vast conspiracy organised by the Sûreté Générale, a theory that Daudet traced back to both the "panoplies conspiracy" (1917) and the death of his son Philippe, whom Léon Daudet continued to claim had been murdered. As a result of these accusations, in 1927 he was imprisoned in La Santé for defamation. On several occasions he referred to his arrest, which he claimed was the first stage in a plot to silence him:

It was the Sûreté Générale who had Plateau killed, just as they had Philippe killed [...]. It was also the Sûreté Générale who had us sentenced to prison by President Flory - a stupid, intimidating old man - in the hope of killing me in prison and thus silencing me once and for all.

Daudet also recounts his escape from prison, an incredible episode that the newspaper La Patrie will not hesitate to describe it as "aguignolade de la Santé"(29 June 1927). Daudet was in fact helped by Charlotte Montard and accomplices from the Camelots du Roi who, posing on the telephone as the Minister of the Interior, simply ordered his release!

that disgusting character [Barthou, Keeper of the Seals] lost his head at the scene of my escape (he feared the fury of the police, from whom the Camelots du Roi were snatching his prey), and blindly, stupidly, arrested [...] Madame Montard and the little Montard, a four-month-old child.

Following his escape, Daudet took refuge in Belgium, from where he continued to contribute to Action Française and publish essays and pamphlets. Pardoned, he did not return to Paris until 1929.

The political police are the den, the cavern where the wars and revolutions of modern times are waged. Until it is destroyed, [...] France and Europe will be in peril.