Of course, I’d heard a lot about Doumer from the newspapers and the orange box speakers in the parks of Paris. I needed textbooks, but that wasn’t my only reason for attending the event at the Hotel de Rothschild. Even before I learned that it was true, I’d always believed that you could look into a man’s eyes and see his soul. I wanted to see the face of a man who’d been so adept at shifting and shuffling human cargo that he’d been able to change the destiny of a people. The French had killed thousands of us in the name of advancement. Yet, there in Paris, the colonial overlords were saints, sacrificing their valuable time to bring peace and hope to the poor nations. I needed to learn from Doumer—the great magician—how he’d pulled off this trick.

The previous year I’d gone to see the colonial exhibition. I was one of the nine million people who queued to see an interpretation of life in the French controlled territories. Grinning Africans in ostrich feathers danced comically. The scent of homemade coconut sweets wafted through the crowds. On the Lao stage a handful of bored non-Lao actors were threshing rice and pounding in an endless loop. A black-and-white film showed scenes of jolly villagers welcoming men in uniform, working beside them in the fields, drinking together. Of native girls learning from a white woman in crinoline how to use a steam iron. Every country had its film and none of them made mention of the schools poor local children weren’t allowed to attend or the slave porters carrying a new officer’s household goods, or natives being whipped for insulting an administrator. In fact, the actors at the colonial exhibition were all having such fun you’d want to hop on a steamer and join them. The French Communist Party ran an alternative exhibition showing the depressing truth of colonial occupation, but, naturally, very few people attended. Reality was such poor entertainment.