Evening star., 1926-03-28

should be given credit-because in a
little more Than a year from that first
election reactionary government OBJ
tained a dissolution of their Parlia-
ment from the President, Marshal
MacMahon Out of the 533 deputies
(members of the lower house, 363
promptly united and went back to
their constituents shouting the battle.
cry of the republic-and reaction was
swept into ancient history at the polls
in October, 1877
OF those now living. only one is still
in Parliament. He is a Senator. He
still proudly proclaims that he was
one of the 1853 who saved the Repub-
tic. He was born in 1887 and SO is
nearing his ninetieth' year.
Curiously, he was born in American
waters-or, at least, on the French
island of ST. Pierre, off Newfoundland,
which is a center of Goldfish for
France, as said to be of bootlegging
for the United States. He became a
shipbuilder and man of substance in
Normandy, the home of his family.
Parliament still looks to 90-year-old
Senator Riotteau for counsel in Ques-
tions concerning the colonies and
horse breeding and the merchant ma
rine
This is one type of the old fashioned
Frenchman, rising early and with de-
vouring activity, being equally saving
and enterprising. Another is Clemen-
member of that first Parliament but
had already, also, voted the constitu-
ton which set it going.
Naturally, every one in America
thinks he knows all about Clemenceau
-hnU hn 81 ,~;c
unearthly hour and writes away at
his memoirs. In his boyhood days
French college students We're rung up
in their dormitories at half past 4
in the morning, and the historian
Michelet gave his lecture course at
the university at 6. Even in these
degenerate days there have been
lectures at the Sorbonne at s.
President Felix Faure, who was
stout and needed exercise. took
the only hour he could find for it
and did a two-hour walk immediate
ly after rising at 4, and on an empty
stomach. The early rising of the old
members of Parliament is another
reason why the republic has lasted.
What every one does not know is
the number of books which Clemen-
ceau has written and published. The
first must have been the translation
of a volume of John Stuart Mill when
Clemenceau was O university student.
which shows that his mind was steer
ing straight for the republic.
His grandfather was a member of
one of the legislative assemblies of
the French revolution; and his father,
a country doctor of Vendee, was exiled
by Napoleon III. CIemenceau him.
self wrote in very independent Latin
quarter reviews, with young Zola and
Meline-who has just died a Senator
at the age of SO after a lifetime in
Parliament, where he was known as
the Father of French Agriculture.
Clemenceau's writings got him into
trouble with the empire while he was
yet medical student, and he went
to the United States, where he married.
But he was back in time for the siege
of Paris in 1870 and, like Meline, sat
in the National Assembly" that pre-
pared the way for the republic.
Both voted for the short constitu-
ton that is still vigorous, and were
of the first elected members of Parlia-
ment.
Clemenceau kept on his medicine
at the same time, practicing for many
years in popular quarter, and mean
while writing in newspapers (most
VI tIClll tAAo O"AJ Aoy Wy odyg a
which he kept.
His first book of his own must have
been his medical thesis on Genera
ton of Anatomical Elements''-just
as his last will have been on the
Peace Conference which has gener-
ated political elements.
Between these two time limits,
can count 81 published works of
Clemenceau-philos art, travel,
speeches and aggressive political con-
troversy-to which the last few weeks
have added a little book on Demos