Times Have Changed For Mrs Bidault

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30079, 13 March 1963, Page 2

Times Have Changed For Mrs Bidault

SUSAN VAUGHAN)

Few lives have been changed so rapidly or so completely and dramatically as that of Mrs Suzanne Bidault. A few years ago, when her husband was Prime Minister of France, she was one of the busiest political hostesses in Europe. She travelled the world in style. Ambitious politicians sought her patronage.

Today, at 57, she lives under conditions near to house-arrest in her hpme at St. Cibud, outside Paris. Her husband, leader of the antiGaullist resistance, is a hunted man, who almost certainly faces the death sentence if caught by the French police. This month, when reports spread that he was staying in London, Mrs Bidault was questioned for 10 hours by the Surete about his whereabouts. It is fortunate for Mrs Bidault that she is a woman of Immensely strong will and has a very shrewd knowledge of the workings of French politics. This knowledge goes back long before her marriage in 1945 to Mr Bidault. First to Paas Before that she was in the French Foreign Office, which she had joined in 1930. She was in fact the first womanto pass the examinations for the French Diplomatic Service. • French officials were borri-

fled at the idea of a woman diplomat. Miss Borel, as she then was, got a job well below her intellectual capacity, of looking after propaganda newsreels. When war. came she took a prominent part in the Resistance. She met Mr Bidault, who was a Resistance leader. After their marriage, they had separate careers at the French Foreign Ministry, he as Foreign Minister, and she as a counsellor. They made a formidable team as they travelled about the world arguing France’s case. Often she acted as her hueband’s interpreter. She speaks English, Russian, Italian and Chinese. Made Enemies

Brilliant and beautifuleven now her blue eyes have not lost their sparkle—Mrs Bidault attracted enemies as well as friends. She inspired the pushing Madame Crapote in a scandalously successful novel “La Fin des Ambassades,” by Roger Peyrefltte. who was then working in the Foreign Ministry. As a result of the book—and, Peyrefitte says, through the intervention of Mrs Bidault—he lost his job. Last year Peyrefltte got his job back and, as an ironical gesture, marked the event by

sending Mrs Bidault a bunch of roses.

Mrs Bidault promptly threw them in the dustbin (All Rights Reserved)