 He remained in office after Carol's fall from power of and the establishment of the Iron Guard's National Legionary State government; in the autumn of 1940, as Madgearu and Nicolae Iorga, who had been assassinated by the Guard's armed groups, were being buried, he led the delegation of Academy members who defied the policies of Horia Sima by attending the funeral.During World War II, he was supportive of the dictatorship of Ion Antonescu and Romania's alliance with Nazi Germany against the Soviet Union.As late as 1944 he abhorred the attempts of the Romanian opposition to negotiate the country's switch to the camp of the United Nations.