A FRENCHMAN'S INGENUITY

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1618, 25 July 1887, Page 3

A FRENCHMAN'S INGENUITY

It is related of General Manneuffel, the late German Military Governor of Alsace, trho hated nil that wss French, that he once- at a publio dinner engaged m a dispute with a French diplomat who maintained the superiority of the French workmen over the artisans of all other nations. ' A thing so ujly does not exist that the skill and genius if a Frenchman cannot make of it a thing of beauty,' he said.. Angered by the contradiction, the old soldier pulled a hair from bis bristly grey moustache, and, banding It to the Frenchman, said curtly * Let him make a thing of beauty out of that, then, and prove your claim.' The Frenchman took the bair and sent it m • lett.r to a well-known Parisian jeweller with a statement of the case and an appeal to his patriotio pride, giving him no limit of expense m executing the order. A week later the mail from Paris brought a neat little box for the general. In it was a handsome ecarfpin made like a Prussian eagle, that held m its talon* a stiff grey bristle, from either end of which dangled a tiny golden ball. One was inscribed Alsaco, the other Lorraine, and on the eagle's perch were the words, ' You hold them bat by a bair.'