The Second World war threw up many difficult issues for mankind to face. For the French whose territory was largely occupied by German troops, the chief issue was whether to resist or collaborate. The collaborators found their focus around the Vichy regime.
After the German victory in the battle of France in 1940 a newly formed French State was created called Vichy with Marshal Pétain as premier. After making peace with Germany, Pétain and his government voted to reorganize the discredited Third Republic into an authoritarian regime.
To understand something of the astrological nature of the regime it might help to look at the chart of one of Vichy’s principle leaders, Ferdinand de Brinon.
Brinons was a journalist and leading socialite in the and close friends of the political right-wing elite. He also became friends with German Foreign minister, Joachim von Ribbentrop. A leading advocate for collaboration, Brinon was invited to act as the Vichy representative to the German High Command. In 1942, Philippe Pétain, head of the Vichy regime, gave him the title of Secretary of State.
De Brinon’s Sun in Leo conjunct the Midheaven in the 10th house of career shows how high he reached becoming the 3rd ranking member of the Vichy regime. The conjunction of Mercury / Venus and Jupiter in the 10th house confirmed his high status.
The Sun’s only aspect was a square to a Neptune / Pluto conjunction which suggests that his career was based on a deception and underhand methods and be achieved by a misuse of power but also that it would come to a sticky and sudden end.
Despite the nobility of the Sun’s elevated position in Leo, the true nature of his life is revealed by the exact conjunction of the Moon and Ascendant in Scorpio.
The Sun, Moon and Ascendant are the three main personality significators and their level of importance generally goes in that order. However, when two of them are in the same sign particularly if conjunct, this will have a stronger effect on the personality than the other one. So despite the Leo Sun, Brinon’s life was more of an expression of Scorpio.
Scorpio is a much misunderstood sign generally. It is the sign of mid Autumn when nature is in the process of dying and the leaves are falling of the trees. This process is an essential part of the cyclical nature of life because without it there would be no chance of renewal and new growth in the Spring.
The Scorpio character has to be understood in terms of its potential for rebirth. The character is designed in such a way that it has to explore everything deeply in order to go beyond experience and achieve transcendent change. So in order to be free of a certain behaviour, the Scorpio has to experience it deeply first. The explains the capacity to act and perform in the most decadent ways, they are capable of the lowest but also the highest forms of human expression.
The trouble is that many of the subjects of these articles have a certain notoriety and this comes through their exploration of the lowest forms of behaviour, and many of them didn’t quite get around to the phoenix like transformation. Brinon was certainly one of these and the Moon / Ascendant conjunction in Scorpio created the behaviour that was rightly seen as treason by the French people once the war was over.
With the march of the Allied Forces towards Paris in 1944, Brinon and his wife fled to Germany where he became President of the Vichy government-in-exile. He was so important to the Nazis that he was able to obtain a special pass for his Jewish-born wife that kept her away from the concentration camps.
Brinon was eventually arrested by the advancing Allied troops.
After the war he was accused of treason, condemned to death by the French courts and executed in April 1947.
Because of the arrangement of Brinon’s chart, Pluto never made a transit to his Sun and its only major aspect of his life was the square to his Moon and Ascendant in 1947.
Pluto is the ruler of Scorpio and it’s transits to planets in the sign often represent the judgement of the life that is led. If the particular Scorpio individual fails to make the required personal transformation, Pluto’s judgements by transits are usually both summary and final.
Pluto, the planet of karma ensured that Ferdinand de Brinon got what was coming to him.