UN DEUIL NATIONAL - LA MORT DU MARECHAL FOCH [Main Title]

The funeral procession of Marshal Ferdinand Foch through the centre of Paris, 25th March 1928.

The body of Marshal Foch lies in state at the Invalides. King Albert of Belgium and then a crowd of people file past to pay their last respects. For the procession the streets are lined with soldiers. A motorised hearse takes the coffin from the Invalides and with a Cavalry escort brings it to the Arc de Triomphe where, beside the Grave of the Unknown Soldier, it is placed on a field carriage and covered with the French flag. Crowds watch the ceremony as, following the memorial service at Notre Dame, the coffin is taken out of the cathedral and placed on the field carriage once more. One of the pall bearers is General John Pershing. The procession moves away. Among the escorts are contingents from Britain (Foch was an honorary British Field Marshal) led by Coldstream Guards in full dress and English and Scottish soldiers in khaki with arms reversed. Contingents of Belgian Infantry and Italian Alpini follow. The crowd throngs the route as the procession reaches the Place de la Concorde. President Doumergue leads the mourners on foot behind the coffin. They include the Prince of Wales, in his Welsh Guards uniform, and the Duke of York. The procession slows in front of the statue of General Gallieni. The coffin is followed by a riderless horse draped in a cloth of fleur-de-lis. At the Invalides the mourners take their seats. Aristide Briand is seated close to the Prince of Wales and Duke of York. Former President Poincaré mounts a lectern and delivers the address. As he talks the film shows Foch's honours: working at his desk on a train in April 1918 as Commander-in-Chief of the Allied Armies, being presented by Poincaré with his baton as Marshal of France in August 1918, being received by the City of Paris Council (together with Marshal Joffre and General Pétain) on 14th July 1919 in a procession passing under the Arc de Triomphe, arriving at Windsor to stay with the British Royal Family, on the saluting podium for the Peace Procession through London on 19th July 1919 together with George V, Queen Mary, Lloyd George, Admiral Beatty and General Pershing, and delivering an address to the new class of 1919 at the Ecole Polytechnique. Poincaré finishes his speech. The various contingents, French and Allied, pay their last respects in marching past the coffin, which is taken back to the Invalides for burial. The crowd rushes in for a final look.

35mm