In June 1951 President Auriol of France issued a decree permitting Philippe Pétain, now 95 and senile, to be moved for humanitarian reasons from the fortress on the Ile d'Yeu in the Bay of Biscay, where he had been held since 1945, to a house at Port Joinville nearby. Earlier, in February, the anniversary of the 1916 battle of Verdun, in which Pétain had won heroic fame, had moved General de Gaulle to suggest that he be allowed to end his days with dignity. In April the prisoner was so ill that he was given the last rites of the Church, and three weeks after the move to Port Joinville, he died. He was buried there on July 25th in the presence of his wife, Marshal Weygand and other former associates. The authorities allowed him to be described on the death certificate as ‘Philippe Pétain, Marshal of France' rather than ‘Philippe Pétain, without profession', as originally intended.
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