Over 1,300 other Germans, however, did come to Caux that year, including Alfred Hartman, the financial director of the British and American zones, Hans Böckler, the head of the German trades unions, and many other key figures, including twelve state cabinet ministers. From North Rhine-Wesphalia, for example, came seventeen politicians, eleven newspaper editors, fifty-nine industrialists and eighty-one members of works councils. The problem of Franco-German relations was, according to L'Aube, Schuman's MRP party paper, dealt with frankly and courageously.25

One day Villiers sat at table beside Böckler, whose part in creating the new Germany some historians consider second only to Adenauer's.26Böckler said, 'We ought to be enemies on two counts - I am a German, you are French; you are the head of the employers, I am a trade union leader.'

Villiers replied, 'Yes, and there's a third count. Your countrymen condemned me to death; I was in a political concentration camp; I saw most of my comrades die around me. But that is all past. We must forget it. And personally, I would like to shake your hand.'27

Countless similar encounters took place at Caux, not only between the Germans and the smaller but influential French delegation,* but also between them and former enemies from other countries. As Price concludes: 'It was not merely the personal trust relationship between Adenauer and Schuman that had been built (and Schuman had a deep distrust of the Germans). It was between hundreds and thousands of men and women - opinion formers at all levels and occupations at Caux - which gave a decisive impetus to European unity at a critical time.'28

(* Among other French to attend Caux in the first years were Paul Bacon, Vice- President of the Provisional Assembly and then Minister of Labour in several governments, business men like Pierre Carteron, President of the French Association of Insurance Companies, and Robert Carmichael, President of the Jute Industry, and trades unionists such as Yves Fournis, General Secretary of the Foremen, Technicians and Engineers' Association, and Maurice Mercier, one of the founders of the Force Ouvrière. Henri Lespès, a Deputy and later a member of the French High Court of Justice, had been one of those to urge Irène Laure to go to Caux. His assessment was: 'At Caux is the centre of international renaissance which all have been longing for.' (Manchester Guardian, 26 August 1946.)

On 25 October 1949 Boucquey invited Buchman and Schuman to dine together in his home, where they talked freely through a long evening. It had been a frustrating summer for Schuman, and he felt discouraged by his inability to move his colleagues and his nation forward along the road to a new Europe. Prime Minister Georges Bidault, for example, was at first indifferent, if not opposed, to any such proposition. When Boucquey spoke of the honour of having the two men at his table Schuman replied, 'If I have contributed anything to mankind, I must also admit that much of my work has been destroyed and frustrated. But Dr Buchman, because he has concentrated his efforts on one section of human life - the most important one - has the joy of seeing them succeed and spread all over the world. Statesmen can propose far-reaching plans, but they cannot put them into effect without far-reaching changes in the hearts of people - that is your work, and it is the kind of work I would like to do for the rest of my life.'

378