OUR FRIENDS THE FRENCH.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 881, 29 July 1910, Page 4

OUR FRIENDS THE FRENCH.

0 • A pleasant item of news reaches us by cable to-day. Paris is about to name" a new street Rue Edouard VII and to erect an equestrian statue in memory of his late Majesty. This is by no means surprising, although it ought to be, for who can imagine the London County Council naming a street after a foreign potentate as a mark of lovo and honour ? There could be no finer testimony to the reality of the Anglo-French entente, nor a more striking proof that, by the Parisians at any rate, King Edward is regarded as the parent of the good relations between the two-countries.' VV hat Paris thought of his Majesty is made clear by Mu. Laurence Jereold in a delightful article in the June Contemporary.' "The only Parisian Kinj; for many_ generations," he writes, "has died with Edward VII. He was not merely the only Parisian- King, but was a great deal more Parisian than any President of the Republic has ever been." If the President were to die, Paris would say, "Dear me, how sad!" and go about its business, but:

"Edward is dead; 'the' King is dead," Parisians said; they almost said, "Our, King is dead." When he was dying, .1 listened to Parisian street gossip. "He is low, he cannot pass the night." "But he has vitality—such vitality!" "Yes, but he l.as spent it." "Spent it? I should think so, and small blame to him. He did well, and ho spent it well." "There is no saying but what' his life was well filled," put in an old ladyi in the cafs who knew the world. The waiter was emboldened, and said, "How right raadame is! How few of us shall have profited by our lives as Edward has!" "Of course, he had his especial chances, but he used them well," said the sententious, respectable tradesman. "Used them well?" ahouted the choleric politician; "I should like to see the man who says he didn't uso them well. What other king has been a Parisian King? What other was our friend and a friend who understood us."

The French, as Me. Jerhold observes, are a people of realists, and "no alliance with the French people can be lasting that does not at the same time strike its imagination and touch its deeply realistic human sense." The fibre of the entente is beyond question strong when Pana remombors her King in this striking fashion.