The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1879-02-08 00:00:00

A PRESIDENT IN A BLACK COAT.

The following is an extract from one of the "Round
About France' papers in the Daily News, entitled "A
President in a Black Coat," in which the personal appear-
ance of the new President, M. Grevy, is described .

Grevy is a President who has never worn any
other costume but the robes of the advocate and the
modest black coat which modern civilization is alleged
to have borrowed from the Quakers. He has not even
sported the epaulet of a National Guardsman, though
how he came to be exempted from this obligation
during his eighteen years' residence in Paris under
Louise Philippe's reign is more than I can say
M. Grery is a man of Republican simplicity in all
his ways. In his everyday attire, even in Paris, he
has always donned a wideawake instead o! a silk bat';
and in summer time he may generally be seen saun-
tering about the Boulevards clad all in grey, and
crowned with a pauama. Though a man of consider-
able landed property, as-estates go in France, he never
set up a brongheim till he became President of the
Chamber, and he has always kept this modest, one-
horse vehicle (with a coachman out of livery) at Ver-
sailles. In Paris he uses cabs and omnibuses; but it
must be a very muddy day which compels him to ride
at all. The state which hedges a President will
probably seem irksome to him, and one may expect to
see him cut much of it down. Marshal MacMahon
put all the servants of his palaces in the grey and
scarlet liveries of his private household. M. Grevy,
whose domestics have never worn livery, will no
doubt clothe his establishment in plain black suits
l'Anuricaine. He will now have two official resi-
dences—one at Versailles, located in the ex-Prefecture,
and the other the magnificent Elyeee, in Paris. He
will also have the run, for purposes of sport, or plea-
surable sojourn, of all the old royal and imperial chateaux
—Fontainebleau, Compiegne, Pierrefonds. His salary
will be £21,000, with an addition of £2,000 table
money, and £4,000 for office expenses,

- . •
"M. Jules Grevy is not the first civilian chief of the
State whom the French have had; but he will be
the first who will have eschewed official attire.
Robespierre contrived a special costume for him-
self, and shone gorgeous in a hat bristling with
tricoloured ostrich plumes. Under the Directo-
rate, Barraa and his colleagues dressed in a fancy
costume much resembling the fashion of Henry IV.,
their trunk hose and embroidered scarlet mantles
being particularly noteworthy. Carnhacbres and
Lebrun, Bonaparte's civilian colleagues in the
Consulate, sported coats of red velvet; and when
Prince Louis Napoleon was elected President of the
Republic in 1848 he immediately usurped the uniform
of a general of division, though there was a constitu-
tional prohibition against his doing so. An amusing
story is toll of how L Thiess argued in vain with the
President that he should shave off his moustache; and
it is said that he told him petulantly that a" pekin " in
general's uniform would look ridiculous. But Louis
Napoleon answered that, as commanderoin•chief of the
army and navy, he might do as he pleased ; and so, for
that matter, might M. Grdvy now. He would not
be exceeding his rights in arraying himself as a full
admiral. M. Grevy is not a President to whom
society can look much for the promotion of social fes-
tivity. As Speaker of the Lower House he broke
with the tradition of all his predecessors by giving no
balls, but only oceasional dinner parties Which mem-
bers of Right and Left attended, He will probably
give concerts, for he delights in music; but his
favourite pastime of all is to play billiards, and to
smoke cigars while making his cannons. • .
"M. Grevy is also a keen sportsman and an able
agriculturalist. In his native Jura he climbs the hills
for game, and strolls about the valleys admiring his
vines, his cattle, and his fields of maize. Part of a
large tobacco plantation used tb belong to him
until Government bought it; and this may ac-
count for his fondness for the weed. He smokes
much, and is of somewhat taciturn mood, though
very genial and sociable when he sees that conver-
sation is expected of him. There is no difficulty what-
ever in drawing him out. When men rise to high
station in France it is usual to attribute all kinds of
witticisms to them, and this will probably be done to
M. Gr6vy ; but the saying of smart things is by no
means his forte. Few men more carefully weigh their
thoughts before putting them into words; and fur that
reason the sallies which he launches go with a deli-
berate aim and hit with telling force. He never loses
his temper; but he never hesitates either to speak
out his mind with full frankness, and, if the occasion
needs it, with considerable warmth. If the Reactionists
flatter themselves that France has got in him a weak.
handed ruler, they are mistaken. M. Grdvy is no
feebler than an iron bar; and he is, perhaps of all
French statesmen, the one who would be the least dis-
posed to stand nonsense."