48

Photography and surrealism

49
What is a surrealist photograph
Berton is voven into a more complex and deeper
enigmatic set ot meanings pertaining to attitudes to
vomen, men and death (so otten linked vith issues ot
sexuality, vithin the rhetoric ot the image itselt. It is here
that ve must delve a little more into the history-vork
(dream-vork, ot the Germaine Berton case to unearth
the social-cultural chains ot association that led to these
things being in the image in the trst place.
Death, Politics and Sex
At the age ot tventy Germaine Berton valked
into the omce ot LAction Franaise on :: anuary +,:
and requested an interviev vith tvo ot its key tgures
Charles Maurras (the anti-Semite in the Dreytus anair,
and Ieon Daudet. LAction Franaise vas an impor-
tant right-ving nevspaper and an innuential political
organization vith popular support (among Catholics,
aristocratic tamilies and monarchist sympathizers, and
the Pepublican government. Having tailed to see the
tvo people she intended to kill, she obtained an inter-
viev vith Marius Plateau vhom she then shot several
times. She vas stopped trom turning the gun on herselt
as she had supposedly intended.
69
1he man she had shot
dead, Marius Plateau, vas general secretary ot a Poyalist
group called Camelots du Poi, an organized political
group tor young thugs, rioting boys, havkers ot the
king, a tghting ving instigated by the LAction Franaise
in +,o:. 1hey had orchestrated impressive student
riots.
70
1hey sold party nevspapers and as political
agitators vere involved in instigating demonstrations
and (organized, beatings ot political opponents.
7I
1he
Camelots group avenged Plateaus murder by vreck-
ing premises ot lett-ving nevspapers (LOeuvre, LEre
nouvelle and Bonsoir, and beat up socialist deputies.
Although Germaine Berton had stated that she vas an
anarchist, LAction Franaise published articles claiming
that she vas part ot an international conspiracy against
them and the policies ot the lrench government. 1he
editor, Ieon Daudet, one ot her vould-be victims,
vrote arguing that her assassination plan had been
the miscarriage ot a vhole plot by the lrench pro-
German police. He claimed that the murder had been
part ot a plan to kill the president ot lrance (Alexandre
o, See Lugen Weber, Action
Franaise; Royalism and Reaction in
Twentieth-Century France (Stantord,
CA: Stantord Lniversity Press,
+,o:,, p. +,.
;o By all accounts, the riots
vere caused by the insults that a
university lecturer had made
about eanne dArc, the adopted
(unomcial, nationalist saint ot
LAction Franaise (see Altred
Cobban, A History of Modern
France, Vol. [Penguin, +,,o|,
p. :,,.
;+ See Ldvard P. 1annen-
baum, The Action Franaise: Die-
hard Reactionaries in
Twentieth-Century France (Iondon:
ohn Wiley, +,o:,, pp. ,o. One
ot the Camelots leaders claimed
in detence that they only ever
used the amount ot violence that
vas necessary and they had not
ever killed anyone (see Maurice
Pujo, Les Camelots du Roi [Paris:
llammarion, +,|, p. xviii,.