M. BRIAND'S BURIAL.

Press, Volume LXVIII, Issue 20495, 14 March 1932, Page 11

M. BRIAND'S BURIAL.

LAST TRIBUTE IN PARIS. CHURCH GRANTS FINAL ABSOLUTION. (UNITED I'TSESS ASSOCIATION —BY ELECTKIC TELEGRAPH—COPYRIGHT.) (Received March 13th, 5.3 p.m.) PARIS, Mafrch 12. Hundreds of thousands of spectators assembled in the bleak March sunshine to watch M. Aristide Briand laid to rest. Cardinal Archbishop Vcrdier, .in the presence of the Papal Nuncio and the clergy of Notre Dame, gave absolution to tho statesman who had been excommunicated for separating the Church and State. The scene was the black-draped courtroom of tho Quai d'Orsay, the only witnesses being the President, M. Paul Doumer, relatives, closest friends, and members of the Cabinet. Occupants of the stands outside gazed silently while the coffin was placed on tho catafalque, which was draped in the Tricolour, where, after tho Premier, M. Tardieu, delivered the funeral oration, he saluted tho dead in the name of France, saying that M. Briand's last words were the Marne, Salonica, and Verdun—names which were inseparable from his own. M. Tardieu's final tribute was to name M. Briand as the guide and philosopher of the League of Nations, in which he interpreted its most powerful aspirations in spite of his nge and suffering. Hence the people would mourn him as an apostle. The coffin was transferred to a hearse escorted by detachments of the Republican Guard and 300 Poilus. The carriages' were piled with wreaths. Cabinet members and Ambassadors, including Lord -Tyrrell, repesenting King George, were in the procession, which crossed the spacious Place dc la Concorde, whose thousands of lamps were veiled in crepe. Between flanking guards and a silent populace the hearse and its attendants passed slowly up the Champs Elysees to the Arc de Triomphe, where glows for ever tho light M. Briand did so much to kindle. The official section of the procession halted at the Trocadero, only intimates accompanying the coffiu to the quiet little cemetery, at Passy where it will rest removed to Cochcrcl for permanent interment.