THE “TIGER” IN HIS “DEN.”

Taihape Daily Times, 27 August 1919, Page 7

THE “TIGER” IN HIS “DEN.”

M., CLEMENCEAU AS THE WORLD DOES NOT KNOW HIM. No public man in Europe shrinks snore from the limelight than M. Clemenceau, and none is more thankful to escape from it to the obscurity of private life. “Give me my ‘dcn’——the ‘tiger‘s lair,” he laTlghingly declared the other day, “and you are welcome to all the fame and laurelsf’ For a quarter of a century the great Frenchman has made his “den” on the ground floor of No. 8 Rue Franklin, Paris, a. charming “backwater” in the heart of Paris, and here he can shut himself out from the world almost as effectually as if he were in a Breton village. It is no Spartan home; it is the home of a man who loves luxury and refinement. There are few finer rooms in Paris than the “Tigers” Library, which is his sanctum, with its rows of books, its beautiful pictures, its wealth of Japanese bronzes and objects of art, and its Louis Quintze writingtable, equipped with a‘sheaf of his favourite quill-pens. READS HIS PAPER AT 6 A.M. From the library a short flight of steps leads down to a small and beautiful garden, and to the seat under :1 vine to which M. Clemenceau loves to retire for peaceful meditation for a nap in the sunshine.

In his retreat the Premier leads an ordered life, regulated by the clock. 011 the stroke of six every morning his valet brings him his papers; at seven his simple breakfast, in which eggs always figure, appears; and at eight

he is dressed and busy with his Swedish exercises with his professor of phyical culture. An hour later he enetrs his motorcar, and is driven to the Ministry of War for three hours of hard Work, from which he returns at noon for :1 modest luncheon—-a. little meat, boiled vegetables, desert. and a glass of* Bordeaux.

An hourfs nap on the couch in his library, and he is back again at his office, which he does not leave until nine o’clock.

Then follows a light dinner; and at ten o’clock M. Clemenceau retires to his bedroom with his pet spaniels, Lady and Chipolte, to keep Watch over his slulnbers.

For the moment, of course, the Peace Conference is taking up most of his time.