Philippe Pétain - Wikipedia

On July 23, 1945, Marshal Henri Pétain, leader of the Vichy-regime, went on trial. He would die exactly six years later. From the article:

"De Gaulle later wrote that Pétain's decision to return to France to face his accusers in person was "certainly courageous".[56] The provisional government headed by De Gaulle placed Pétain on trial, which took place from 23 July to 15 August 1945, for treason. Dressed in the uniform of a Marshal of France, Pétain remained silent through most of the proceedings after an initial statement that denied the right of the High Court, as constituted, to try him. De Gaulle himself later criticised the trial, stating, "Too often, the discussions took on the appearance of a partisan trial, sometimes even a settling of accounts, when the whole affair should have been treated only from the standpoint of national defence and independence."[57]

At the end of Pétain's trial, he was convicted on all charges. The jury sentenced him to death by a one-vote majority. Due to his advanced age, the Court asked that the sentence not be carried out. De Gaulle, who was President of the Provisional Government of the French Republic at the end of the war, commuted the sentence to life imprisonment due to Pétain's age and his military contributions in World War I. After his conviction, the Court stripped Pétain of all military ranks and honours save for the one distinction of Marshal of France.

Fearing riots at the announcement of the sentence, De Gaulle ordered that Pétain be immediately transported on the former's private aircraft to Fort du Portalet in the Pyrenees,[58] where he remained from 15 August to 16 November 1945. The government later transferred him to the Fort de Pierre-Levée citadel on the Île d'Yeu, a small island off the French Atlantic coast.[59]

Imprisonment and death Edit
Over the following years Pétain's lawyers and many foreign governments and dignitaries, including Queen Mary and the Duke of Windsor, appealed to successive French governments for Pétain's release, but given the unstable state of Fourth Republic politics no government was willing to risk unpopularity by releasing him. As early as June 1946 U.S. President Harry Truman interceded in vain for his release, even offering to provide political asylum in the U.S.[60] A similar offer was later made by the Spanish dictator General Franco.[60]

Although Pétain had still been in good health for his age at the time of his imprisonment, by late 1947 his memory lapses were worsening and he was beginning to suffer from incontinence, sometimes soiling himself in front of visitors and sometimes no longer recognising his wife.[3] By January 1949 his lucid intervals were becoming fewer and fewer. On 3 March 1949, a meeting of the Council of Ministers (many of them "self-proclaimed heroes of the Resistance" in the words of biographer Charles Williams) had a fierce argument about a medical report recommending that he be moved to Val-de-Grâce (a military hospital in Paris), a measure to which Prime Minister Henri Queuille had previously been sympathetic. By May, Pétain required constant nursing care, and he was often suffering from hallucinations, e.g. that he was commanding armies in battle, or that naked women were dancing around his room.[61] By the end of 1949, Pétain was completely senile, with only occasional moments of lucidity. He was also beginning to suffer from heart problems and was no longer able to walk without assistance. Plans were made for his death and funeral.[62]

On 8 June 1951 President Auriol, informed that Pétain had little longer to live, commuted his sentence to confinement in hospital (the news was kept secret until after the elections on 17 June), but by then Pétain was too ill to be moved.[63] He died on the Île d'Yeu on 23 July 1951, at the age of 95,[59] and was buried in a Marine cemetery (Cimetière communal de Port-Joinville) near the prison.[24] Calls are sometimes made to re-inter his remains in the grave prepared for him in Verdun.[64]

His sometime protégé Charles de Gaulle later wrote that Pétain’s life was 'successively banal, then glorious, then deplorable, but never
mediocre.'"