But still there was strength in the grand old lion. And he would need every ounce of it. Five days after his collapse, Paderewski was strong enough to sail for France on the _Normandie_. After resting in Paris for several weeks, he returned to his beloved Riond-Bosson. On August 1, 1914, he had once stood and said, “My friends, the war is here.” And here, on September 1, 1939, twenty-five years and one month later, the news came to him that the Nazi army, at Hitler’s orders, had invaded Poland. On that day Paderewski broke his long-standing rule never to listen to the radio. The only set in the villa was brought down to the dining room where, throughout the day, it poured out its tragic reports: Warsaw and many other Polish cities being laid waste by German bombs. His prophecy of a quarter of a century before had come true all too soon! Now the blows came faster, with the fall of France, and, in Paderewski’s opinion, with the complete failure of the machinery of the League of Nations to function as his old friend, Woodrow Wilson, had intended it to. “Dishonorably discharged!” was Paderewski’s final verdict against the League one evening after a long, discouraging discussion. In 1940 Paderewski was named President of the National Council, which was the Polish government-in-exile. Together with President Raczkiewicz and General Sikorski, the three men were to operate wherever and however they could to keep alive the body and the spirit of Poland. But when France fell, Paderewski felt that he could do more if he could return to America. He was also sure that the United States could not remain much longer outside the conflagration that was sweeping across Europe. In September Paderewski began his last (and what was to prove by far his most hectic) trip. His friends had been urging him for weeks to leave Switzerland as soon as possible. Great as his personal prestige and international reputation were, it was feared that, as the living spirit of exiled Poland, his life might be put in real danger at any moment. There were seven passengers in the two cars that left Riond-Bosson on September 23. One car was a Cadillac that Herbert Hoover had given Paderewski in Warsaw. The other one helped to carry the luggage of the party. At the Swiss-French border they were joined by an agent of the Sûreté Générale, the political police. Monsieur Garric had been assigned to the Paderewski party by the French Government to assist them in their journey, and he proved an invaluable addition before they were out of France. Time after time when the party was stopped for questions by various authorities, M. Garric merely flipped his lapel, revealing his badge, and the party continued on its way. And, of course, the name of Paderewski had the greatest possible effect. An official in the customs office at the Spanish border began to whistle the Minuet when he saw whose passports were passing over his desk.