Louis Dupré, Head of Unit Germany II, Quai d'Orsay
The year's finally over. Tomorrow morning we will go with Robert to the New Year's Eve weekend. I'm gonna put on my new perfume, Vol de Nuit. My collection is getting on in years: Mitsouko, crepe de chine, shalimar. The Orient is no longer modern. Vol de Nuit is completely different: of all my fragrances, the Tosca that the little one from the German embassy gave me is the one that most resembles him. Bergamot and lemon in the top note; aldehydes, narcissus, vanilla: many similarities, almost a Briand-Stresemann pact in perfume form... But the new one is different from everything else: Galbanum and oakmoss until it squeaks, which gives a dark, mossy, abysmal depth; Tosca is much more conventional there and much more feminine through the flowers. I ought to get something together with my perfumes at the Ministry anyway. Anyway, the night flight is irritatingly ambiguous, I like that. There's almost a men's fragrance in it
Politically, it was a terrible year. Five Prime Ministers, that's got to be a record. Boncour has held out all year as minister. My memorandum "Six Months of Hitler" never reached him, the head of department stopped it. Too pessimistic. Since then I've been "Loulou la Cassandra". "Dupré, what do they want, we'll watch him closely and do what is necessary, but he won't be really dangerous to us. His army is a joke, the Rhineland is demilitarized, the Maginot Line almost finished." You make it too easy on yourself, underestimating your energy and malice. Italy is lost, Spain is on the brink and England is tired. So do I, by the way. Tomorrow is another day, and one with Robert!
Ingrid Eide, Secretary International Law Department, Ministry of Foreign Affairs Oslo
My first full year is over, and how colorful it was! When I was hired in the autumn of '32 it was said that the trial in The Hague would drag on, and if we had won it, idealists would be needed to expand the administration in East Greenland. I had flirted with it - Papa and Mama were not very upright. Now it's smashed. The StIGH judgement was already made in April, and Denmark won with fanfares. All of Norway is in mourning, but we bow and go. But what a time for me! Everything was constantly on the move: to the Hague, to Geneva to the League of Nations and where not yet. Because I am the best stenographer and also understand something of the law, I was everywhere. And usually by plane! What an exciting world! The beauty of the shimmering machines with their buzzing rotor blades! And to be able to look at this small world like a bird, with its teeming people who feel so important. Nothing has ever changed my life like this. I hear there are also women who have become pilots! And they say that next year there will be a Norwegian airline of its own. Whether I...
In October were elections; great victory of the Social Democrats. I don't know if I like her. But I know that I hate with all my heart these mean nationalists who raise their cries in Europe. It is as if they come crawling out of them like the Fenris wolf and the Midgard slaughter from our old legends to devour the people. Fortunately Norway is spared; no more than two percent voted for the ugly Vidkun. And Italy and Germany will not declare war on us
In Geneva, I chose a real perfume from Paris, not a boring cologne with lily of the valley, which our Oslo ladies consider to be the pinnacle of elegance. And of course it had to be "night flight". A flyer's perfume! The scent is confusingly beautiful. Also dark and threatening. A little like an animal sleeping in the bottle. But a night flight is not a spring walk. I think Trygve is a little afraid of me when I put on Vol de Nuit. He's just used to lilies of the valley... Not by plane, but at least by car!
Toma Girdauskaite, Cultural Advisor, Kaunas Foreign Ministry
The year comes to a gloomy end. The five years as cultural attaché in Paris already seem like a dream and I realize that much has changed. I detest the Reds, I am Lithuanian with all my heart and in these times the country needs a strong hand. Poland and Russia would crush us if they could. It was good that Smetona ended the party bickering. But it was easier to defend Lithuanian politics than to see beautiful poets with diplomatic passports swarming around the Parisian soirées than to experience them here. The spirit of optimism of the early 20s is over. The old friends from the national movement, who sang of the building of a beautiful, prosperous Lithuania, now murmur with pinched faces about the "Jewish danger". How uninspired, how corny. And as a woman, unmarried to boot, I look like the man in the moon in the corridors of the ministry; the tasks I am given are ridiculous. I cannot wear the new Parisian fragrance that everyone found so adorable about me at the farewell reception ("it goes so wonderfully with your Slavic beauty"; a scientifically not very precise compliment...), here I cannot wear it, it looks like a shrill disguise. Maybe I should go back to the academy; but who knows if it's better there.
Alexandru Rosetti, Head of Policy Department, Ministry of Foreign Affairs Bucharest
Not much more to come this year. How I am looking forward to New Year's Eve and the beautiful hours with Luminita. I brought her a new Guerlain fragrance from Paris: Vol de Nuit! The thought of smelling it on her skin already excites me
It's been a good year! Titulescu is exactly the right person as foreign minister, even if he is in the wrong party. The highlight of the spring was his appearance in Yugoslavia during the reform of the Little Entente. Our alliance with Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia has received a permanent council, the French are happy. He has cleverly stayed out of the turbulence of the second half of the year, so that he remained minister when we national liberals took the helm. I could not believe our good fortune, and no one understands why the king appointed our Duca as interim premier, even though we are his harshest critics. And Duca has cleaned up within a few weeks, the fascists of the "Legion" are arrested by hundreds and thousands. And on 20 December in the elections: 51%! Screaming in the corridor, the office boy calls all leaders to the crisis meeting...
Titulescu has just informed us that Duca was shot after the audience with the king in Sinaia. Three legionnaires arrested who were talking about the fight against the Jewish-Masonic conspiracy. On leaving, Titulescu whispered to me: "Be on your guard, Rosetti, it is rumored that the king smiled at the news of the assassination. And yesterday, they say, Duke's bodyguard was reduced to one man." When I returned to my room, I knocked over the package of perfume, the whole room smelled of it. I'm gonna throw up. My God, my God, where is this going?
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