[5] Besides the overwhelming memory of him as a traitor and unscrupulous collaborator, he is commonly seen as the incarnation of a corrupt man and a doer of dirty work for the Vichy regime.

He is held to be the basis for the character of Monsieur Philibert in Patrick Modiano's wartime novel La Ronde de Nuit [fr] (The Night Watch).

After finishing his secondary education in Bordeaux, he briefly found office work at a Peugeot branch, and then at the Compagnie générale transatlantique (or the French Line).

He married Blanche Émie in 1920,[8] and worked in Somme, France, before being transferred to the oversight unit of the Sûreté générale's forensic investigation services in Paris on August 11, 1922.

Their jurisdiction was extensive, and included the policing of gambling, associations, labor unions and other groups with the potential to cause civil unrest, surveillance of foreigners and counter-espionage, as well as business, press, and publishing.

[7] Posted as a "clerical secretary" to Commissioner Achille Vidalin in June 1923, he became involved in the Seznec affair, but played only a minor role.

After the request for revision made in 1955 by the journalist Claude Bal, this was one of the arguments formed by the lawyer and writer Denis Langlois [ fr] in 1977, and is among those newly presented in 2001 by Jean-Denis Bredin.

The case was resolved quietly, but according to the lawyer and historian Maurice Garçon, it played a role in allowing Aristide Briand to put pressure on Pope Pius XI to publicly condemn the right-wing political group Action Française in 1926.