MARCEL SEMBAT (1862-1922) 2 autograph letters Signed to Léon Blum. Chamonix, 1918.

Socialist deputy from 1893 to 1922, Marcel Sembat held the Public Works portfolio in the Viviani and then Briand ministries in 1916, and then called Léon Blum to his side as chief of staff. Accused of being in league with the enemy, the deputy and former president of the Council Joseph Caillaux had just been arrested on 14 January following a search of a safe belonging to him in Florence. Having long defended a policy of reconciliation with Germany in an attempt to avoid war, he had faced a violent campaign of denigration for defeatism and had been splashed by the scandal caused by his wife who had killed the director of the Figaro. He would be sentenced in 1920, but for simple «correspondence with the enemy», and would resume his political career after the victory of the leftwing cartel in 1924.