Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1906-03-24

at While and moving about Paris as quiet
~ as a cat In a cupboard. Being a very
flch banker, he became very much richer
so much so that when the Franco Prussian
war broke out the Germans captured him
and held him hostage
Also, he turned out to be q republican.
After the war his department of the Aube
sent him up TO the national assembly.
There he sustained Theirs who made him
twice minister of the interior When Theirs
resigned he went out with him. and in
1876 he was elected one of the curious life
senators, who are now disappearing. Like
his father. he was Casimir Perier. as | am
STERLING Heilig. But in 1873 the minister
OF justice gave him letters patent to add
Casimir' 10 ''Perier' with a hyphen as
his family name, and he and his descend
ants became Casimir Periers.
Son Won Legion of Honor Ribbon.
Thus his son-the present day ey-presi-
dent-is Jean Paul Pierre Casimir-Perier.
He was twenty-five years old when the
war broke out and he fought so CALAMITY
at the siege of Paris that he won. at tat
tender age, the right to wear a bit of red
ribbon in his buttonhole. / refer 10 the
coveted decoration Of the Legion OF Honor.
His grandfather somewhere around 1880
mad bought up ruined chateau near No
gent -Saf-Selne, some sixty miles from
Paris. In ancient times it had been a for
tilted place of the counts of Champagne
AFTER the revolution Napoleon had put his
hands on 1t, remodeled it. furnished ID l!p
regardless, and put his old mother Madame
Laetitia, to i've in it, In 1914 the Cossacks
burned IL. Thus it was q ruin. And thus
the Casimlr who had come into possession
OF Napoeons lady-love az a Young man
came into possession of Napoleon's moth
er chateau as an old man. He built 4 new
chateau upon the site, and WREN you hear
or any or the family going up to the leg
lslature from the Aube department II was
TINS constituency. It's advantage over
V1zlile was its nearpess to Paris
Five years after the Franco Prl1ssian
war the present-6ay Casimir-Perier was
elected deputy for the Aube. Being re-
elected. he was made under secretary 10 the
minister of public instruction Then IN 1881
they passed law he did not like-it was
the law exiting pretenders to the throne
and forbidding seryice In army or civil serv-
Ice to all members of families that once
reigned in France. SO he resigned his seat
1t showed the style Of man he was because
1t is almost unheard of for a French deputy
to resign.
In 1883 he was again elected to the legis-
lature. He held the seat through two SUBJ
sequent elections and in 1893 he was made
president of the Granddaughter OF the
house. Then he became prime minister and
minister of foreign affairs, and then again
speaker of the house.
Shortly afterward in 1894. they elected
him president OF the republic to replace
assassinated Carnot. He stayed president
a year, and then resigned, like all the rest
because of difficulties with the parliament
He refused to be fgurehead, blindly sign.
ing papers for his own cabinet
So he retired to the chateau near Nogent
He did not retire TO While, the cradle of
his race. Yet he had no future use for the
constituency of the Aube, because he had
retired from politics for good and all. And
here shows up the blank family mystery of
Casimir-Perier.