ABSTRACT
Pierre Laval acknowledged that he had made broad claims in court that he lacked influence or standing in the Pétain regime. How, he asked, did it happen that the day after the adoption of the constitutional acts, Laval had been named Petain's successor or, as he put it more elegantly, his heir presumptive. Petain at the time had been eighty-four or eighty-five. He could die or be incapacitated. There had to be some recognition of this in the constitutional acts and, Laval maintained, had he written into these laws that in the case of Petain's death or disability, he, Laval, would succeed him, he was certain that Parliament would have agreed. Mongibeaux accepted Laval's plea and returned to the use that had been made of the constitutional acts. How could anyone believe, Laval insisted, that he would accept Germany hegemony. The point of all of this was that Laval had always thrived in the rough and tumble of elective politics.
