New-York tribune., 1906-11-18
NJ. CLEMFNCFAT

NJ. Clemenceau has that gift which If the
I solidest statesmen lack they never will be called
| great; he can always when he pleases, strike
the public imagination, and he pleases often.
! Whatever he does says has that one quality;
he sends a circular to the Prefects the thou
| sand and first which has reached them from the
! Home Office, and phrase In It catches the
! fancy. compelling public attention, though no
| outside the Civil Service, and possibly few
in II. thought of reading line of the thou
| sand circulars of his predecessors; he reforms
! his department, cutting down few hundred
! pounds expenses, and every one admires, though
! the Home Secretaries who went before might
| reform and nobody cared; he has his study at
| the Place Beauvau Ministry reupholstered, and
| the public rejoices TO learn that he has done
| away with heavy hangings, let in sunlight, and
| had the GObelins cleaned; he tours his native
| province fOrensically, and his luck has ii that
| his fellow countrymen are Chouans, that the
| tour takes picturesqueness of which other
statesmen's political raids rural districts
bare and that speaking. he a free thinking Re
| RoyaliSts, he finds words, honeyed or pungent,
| on love Of country and love of freedom
| freedom spelling in the Vendee faithlessness
| towards throne and altar'-which SOothe
| rankle, stir friendly or hostile passions. but at
| all events stir something while other ministers
| may make speeches in their native villages, and
| who minds them? because neither they nor their
| surroundings strike the imagination. This
doubtless is talent as well as luck in NJ Clemen-
! cesu. hut II is partly luck Not only has he
| imagination, but there seems to be imaginative
ness IN the things circumstances and events in
| which he moves. Luck of this sort is a sign of
arresting personality. Other ministers go to
| Carlsbad but Paris not other ministers
| days. but NJ Clemnceau in tweed suit with a
| bag perhaps containing a Baedeker, doing" the
! Berlin museums and avoiding embassy dinners
because he brought no dress clothes. interests
Parisians Wadeck- Rousseau interested them.
| Ioed in the ballet girls green at the opera
| and have ridden in the Bois of mornings; have
even been Hellenists as we'll and kept Plato
| by their bedside o. nights; but NJ. Clemenceau
/ has done or does these things with q peculiar
| picturesqueness of his own, and they are re-
| nembered Of him. while other men behave SINH
| larly amid general indifference. NJ. Clemenceau
| never is indifferent-The Contemporary Review
| THE FRENCH WOMEN OF THE SALONS.
| It was in Mime. de Rambouillet's salon that the
| French language. as at present spoken, was first
| brought to completion and perfection. 1t had
| been corrupted by many ignoble modes OF speech,
| and there was an excessive amount of Rabelais-
| ian coarseness which Nine de Rambouillet and
| her preceuses determined TO put down. That
| ton, know. But even this had its uses in
| inspiring Moliere to write his Witttly sarcastic
| comedies Les Preceuses Ridicules" and lies
| Femmes savantes" which hold ths stage even
| now, and have contributed TO the gayety of ma
| tions. The afTectations passed away, the good
| results IN purifying the most fascinating Ian
! guage in the world remain to this day.
| As regards the purfcation OF manners, this
\ salon has been called "the cradle OF good man
neTs in France" and well II deserved the title.
l cannot give instances of the worst cases OF bad
manners among this great ones Of The court