Lexington weekly intelligencer., 1883-01-27

him, then went back to his chums, and
tearing off cravat and collar gave them
the Whole scene to the music OF his
Homerlc laugh. Sarcey tells this story
of him with half dozen others, all
of the same kind. 1t would be wrong
to say that he was idle-only he work
cd his own way. When he was not
listening to the debate he was reading.
He knew Rabe!ais almost by heart, and
they say he has lett behind him book
of all things on the Jurisprudence"
(of all :hings) of his favorite. He read
a little OF HIM every night before going
to bed, it was his intellectual night-cap.
he was luled gently to sleep with his
own chuckling laugh over the Panta-
gruclism of Pantagruel and the story OF
the old woman nurscd by the lion and
fox.
In regard to other and more delicate
relations OF his life, it may be said
that while he was no saint he was
by no means the sinner many have
made him out to be. He was q
Frenchman. anSi Frenchman of his
generation. He never married; he
was never father Git is not true that
he lett all iIlegitinate sou, as has
often been said). But he was true to
one Eaison for at least all the later
years OF his life. No life has ever
been SO much the property of legend
while it was being lived. On the
fact of this liaison Psrisian Journal
ism has, for the last few weeks es-
pecia!ly, been embroidering every
possible creation Of fancy. 1t is said
that the whole story of the wound
that indirectly caused his death was a
mere polite fiction and that he
died really by the hands of u
woman. The story told by his
friends, the story meant for the public,
is, as you may remember. that he WAS
playing with revolver In his own gar
den; that it accidentally went off aud
wounded him in the hand that he was
cured of his woand, but the want Of ex.
ercise incidental to the treatment with
man Of his full habits of body
brought OH constipation and finally
acute inflammation OF the bowels, of
which he died. The other story. be-
lieved l may say by nlnety-nine hut
dredths OF tho people OF Paris, is that
he was not playing with revolver ut
all, but trying to wrench it from the
hand of a passionate woman who was
about to shoot herself at his feet. 1t
was the Nine. Leonie Leon of his liai-
SON. She had asked him 10 marry her,
aud, on his refusal, tried to put an end
to her life. The only thing that gave
any color TO this and that still gives q
certain color 10 1t is the very impolltic
determination OF his friends to ignore
it. At time when all Paris was ring.
ing with the rumor and whom it was
printed in half the papers there was
not word said about it Tor or against
either in The bulletins OF the doctors Oh
in the republican journals. Even in
the report on the autopsy just published
there is hardly word about the orig.
inal wound, though the immediate
causes of death are minutely detailed
l am assured in the most positive way
oy those who were nearest to him anu
m ust likely to know, that there was nc
attempted suicide. l can only, say III
that case that the report should have
received more than the merely negative
and inlerential contradiction " iiich hi:
friends have thought proper to give II
Not once have they said in public tina
it was not true they have at the mos
/ merely retrained from saying that i
| was.
or the probable political conseq7en
ces OF his death it is yet little early t.
speak. but everything seems TO point t
a break up of the Gambetsist party int
two parties, one led by NJ Clemencea,
and the other led by NJ. Jules Ferry
The party of M. Clemenceau will i'll
clude the radicals or more progressive
men the party OF NJ. Ferry, the Con
servative republicans. 1t is hardl,
right to say that the former are par
of the Gambe,tist party at all, sine
long ago they broke off from their leade
and their persistent hostility to him wa
the chief cause of his rapid tall as
minister. Long before his death he ha
passed ous of the ranks OF advances
republicanism, not that he bad gon
back, but rather that repablicanism ha
gone ahead. His policy WAS no longe
a working class, a poor mans policy
1t was a middle-class policy. Hav
ing established the republic he wa
very much disposed to accept every
thing else as he found it, to leav
labor and capital to the SLOT
solution OF their difficulties with
out any interference from the state, t
maintain the magistrature, the tw
chambers-in short, the whole civil
political and social constitution Q
society as it was. Clemenceau, Will
still by o"igin aud principle and t
some Il middle-class man, woulG sti
go much farther in his concessions t
that party who wish to see most rx
listing institutions either reform ID O
abolished. Ferry also is pure MID
die. e.class man by birth, education ali
native sympathies, although th
Clericals. exasperated by his sever
ties against the church, have foolishl
classed him as Il radical. They ma
yet live to see the day when he wi
be their only hope.
RICHARD WHITEING.