Robert Brasillach, the brilliant and pugnacious pro-fascist French novelist and critic, was shot by firing squad on Feb. 9, 1945, on the direct orders of Gen. Charles de Gaulle himself. The James Dean of French fascism, as historian Alice Kaplan calls Brasillach in her lucid and gripping new book "The Collaborator," met a dismal fate that was shared by countless other collaborationists. But Brasillach's death was different.
