A Sad Case

Pétain: How the Hero of France Became a Convicted Traitor and Changed the Course of History, by Charles Williams (Palgrave Macmillan, 320 pp., $29.95)

THE life of Philippe Pétain is a study in ambiguity that goes to the heart of the French experience in recent times. Holding the proud title of Marshal of France, he was both a hero and a traitor, and the line between these alternative perceptions of him easily blurs. Had he died between the world wars, he would almost certainly have been buried with other great Frenchmen in the Invalides. He was already 84 when France collapsed in the summer of 1940, and he stepped forward to offer the country what he called, grandiloquently, “the gift of my person.” This gift meant that after a series of highly dubious constitutional steps, he became head of the rump regime of Vichy, which was all the victorious Germans were prepared to allow the French. Once the Allies were winning the war, Vichy duly foundered. Tried and sentenced to death (but then reprieved), Pétain lingered wretchedly in prison till the age of 95.

About the Author

David Pryce-Jones

David Pryce-Jones (1936–2025) was a British author and commentator and served as a senior editor of National Review.

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Pétain: How the Hero of France Became a Convicted Traitor and Changed the Course of History, by Charles Williams (Palgrave Macmillan, 320 pp., $29.95)

THE life of Philippe Pétain is a study in ambiguity that goes to the heart of the French experience in recent times. Holding the proud title of Marshal of France, he was both a hero and a traitor, and the line between these alternative perceptions of him easily blurs. Had he died between the world wars, he would almost certainly have been buried with other great Frenchmen in the Invalides. He was already 84 when France collapsed in the summer of 1940, and he stepped forward to offer the country what he called, grandiloquently, “the gift of my person.” This gift meant that after a series of highly dubious constitutional steps, he became head of the rump regime of Vichy, which was all the victorious Germans were prepared to allow the French. Once the Allies were winning the war, Vichy duly foundered. Tried and sentenced to death (but then reprieved), Pétain lingered wretchedly in prison till the age of 95.