1. See their respective memoirs, as well as their reports in the later volumes, second series, of the Documents Diplomatiques Français. André François-Poncet, Souvenirs d’une ambassade à Berlin: septembre 1931 — octobre 1938 (Paris: Fayard, 1946); Au Palais Farnèse. Souvenirs d’une ambassade à Rome, 1938–1940 (Paris: Flammarion, 1961); Léon Noel, L’Agression allemande contre la Pologne (Paris: Flammarion, 1946) and also La guerre de 39 a commencé quatre ans plus tôt (Paris: France-Empire, 1979).
2. A more detailed account of reporting practices in the foreign ministry can be found in the second chapter of Young French Foreign Policy, 1918–1945. A Guide to Research and Research Materials (Wilmington: Scholarly Resources, 1991). See in particular the organizational charts between 14–15, and the remarks on 17–18.
3. Further information on data gathering, assessment and interministerial communication can be found in my ‘French Military Intelligence and Nazi Germany, 1938 – 1939’, in Ernest May (ed.) Knowing One’s Enemies. Intelligence Assessment Before the Two World Wars (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984) 271–309; and Peter Jackson, ‘French Military Intelligence and Czechoslovakia, 1938’, Diplomacy and Statecraft, vi, no. 1 (March 1994) 81–106.
4. Further information on the responsibilities and duties of the national defence secretariat, and of various interministerial committees, may be found in Young In Command of France. French Foreign Policy and Military Planning, 1933–1940 (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1978) 24–6, and in Elisabeth Du Réau, ‘L’Information du “décideur” et l’élaboration de la décision diplomatique française dans les dernières années de la IIIe République’, Relations Internationales, no. 32 (Winter 1982) 525–41.
5. These readings and calculations derive from a collection of sources, including the September 1939 PRO report previously cited, Alain Bomier-Landowski, ‘Les Groupes Parlementaires’, Adamthwaite, France and the Coming of the Second World War (London: Cass, 1977)