The Birmingham age-herald., 1904-02-28

of the moderate republican element He has been closely associated with Jules Ferry, Moline, and F1oquet, and with the men who established the republic of Sep tember l. Ills political views have not changed They remain genuinely republi- can, without any tendency to extreme views. They have been consistently maintained by him both as private in- dividual under the empire and after- wards under the republic. and in his off- cial capacity as minister in the Tirard cabinet-where he vigorously opposed Boulangism-as well as subsequently when he co-operated in the senate with Frey cinet and Ribot, and with Rouvier. who is working with him today His main line as an active politician consists in the close study of economic questions and vigil 1ant attention to administrative affairs. M. Loubet is a protectionist, but not of such pronounced type as M. Moline. In 1895 he delivered a great speech on finan- cial reform, which remains a striking ex- ample of a well reasoned appeal for econ omy. At the same time it afforded the French people the satisfaction and en- couragement of assuring them that on the whole their finances were well managed.
 The late NJ Emile Deschane in the now far off years of the second empire brought the lecture. as in Boston. Lau- same, Geneva, into fashion in Paris. He used to lecture after his return from long exile in the house In which Voltaire died. and in the room in which he must have received Franklin. at the corner of the Rue de Beaune and the Quai Voltaire. It was then Fourierist library kept up by some wealthy Lyonese votaries of the particular socialism of Fourier. The libra rian an enthusiastic old maid who had been robbed of great tontine fortune by Louis Napoleon and his gang at the Elysee, lent the room to Deschanel, both because she liked him and dctested the empire She had any number of rich friends and asked them to patronize a conferencier who had the double merit of being a man of brilliant talents and hater of the empire In a short time the library became too small to hold all those ladies who gathered into 1t. Des- chancel and five other former exiles agreed to hire large ground floor room in the Rue de la Paix, where each in turn might give, privately" a lecture once week. The tickets had to be sent to those who wanted them as invitations and payment was managed without bringing anyone into trouble.
 The lecturers talking at the Empire drew down plaudts. and the emperor to silence them, bought the house through man of straw, whose landlord eJected them. They removed to the Sale des Conferences. opposite the Grand Hotel which a Breton named Henri hired as a speculation, and did uncommonly we'll The deftness and light grace, the point and the Attic salt of Deschanel In his at- tacks made him the darling of the public. One had for many days ahead to secure a seat to be able to hear him. Foreigners of distinction found him out and the great Gladstone attended three of his "conferences,' and asked to be introduced to the conferencier, whom he wished to thank for bringing the age of Pericles so vividly before his mind. The lectures had been on that period and on Aspasia and Pericles. Deschanel had beaming coun- tenance and threw a sweetness Into his criticism that always softened it. He had a silver tongue and the naturalness of happily constituted child This was all the more remarkable and meritorious in- asmuch as his life until about twenty-five years ago had been a constant struggle against poverty.