TRANSLATION
 
Confidential             Enclosure No. 1 to Despatch No. 232
communication       of June 19, 1941 from the Embassy at Vichy.
 
                         Vals, May 18, 1941.
 
Mr. Marshal:
 
A year ago I assumed the responsibility of asking
 
you to enter my government.
 
         When I resigned my office I assumed the responsi-
 
bllity of advising the President of the Republic to
 
designate you as my successor.
 
     If it were true that after having concluded an
 
armistice with the enemy, in violation of your pledged
 
word, you were preparing now to reverse our foreign 
 
policy without consulting the people of France, which
 
has constantly approved it, without any citizen having
 
the right to express an opinion, as if they were a
 
nation of helots;
 
     If it were true that your policy has the effect of
 
striking in the back our ally who, left alone in the com-
 
bat, is fighting heroically in Egypt, in Ethiopia, in
 
Irac, on the Mediterranean, over England, on the Atlantic,
 
750,000 of whose sons fell in the last war while defend-
 
ing the soil of France, and only whose victory can give
 
us back our lost independence;