THE "TIGER" IN LOVE AND WAR.

Taranaki Daily News, 18 July 1918, Page 6

THE "TIGER" IN LOVE AND WAR.

FRENCH PREMIER'S LIFE OF ADVENTURE. Full of incident has been the life af Georges Clemenceau, now Premier if Fiance, the fiery Radical who in love and war has lived intensely. His career is best indicated by the following characteristic episodes. Georges was a little more than ten years old when, on the eve of the coup d'etat that established the Second Empire, he saw his father arrested and led away handcuffed to prison. Then and there he took the oath of Hannibal, whispering to his father: "I will avenge you." To which his father replied: fc 'K you wish to avenge me, work!" Dlemenceau's mother regarded him '8 the least promising of all her children. At seventeen he knew no more than t'jj iaverage boy of twelve. But he had | learned the English language, because jhe wanted to read "Robinson Crusoe." At the age of seventeen he suddenly I woke up to that dynamic energy that has characterised his whole career. He fairly devoured books, being aided by a ' phenomenal memory. In consequence if this intensive study ho went through the Nantes High School and the University of Paris with flying colours, and took his doctor's degree in 1865. At nineteen young Clemenceau went to Paris, where he learnt at once to conspire and plot, and where he studied medicine. He and his -friends plotted a revolution. In his rooms ho concealed a printing press, from which revolutiona.y pamphlets poured forth. At twentyone he was put in prison. His sentence was brief, and on its expiration he went to America. Married in New York to one of his pupils at a girls' school, he and his bride set sail for France. He was elected as Mayor of Montmartre, and, sent to the National Asaemoly by that liberty-frenzied constituency, he burst upon it like a meteor. His attitude towards the Commune made him suspect by both the Government and by his own electors. For thirty years he made and unmade Ministries. At least sixteen iPrime Ministers fell from power under his savage assaults. Among them were Julia Ferry, Freycinet, Da Broglie, Rouvier, and Caillaux. They called him "the Tiger." His attacks were cold, merciless. He had an unrivalled power of summing up a situation in an epigram, or applying a single epithet that wounded his enemy like u rapier thrust in his tenderest spot. Since the present war began Clemenceau has been the frankest critic of the errors of France and England. Even Marshal Joffe has not been exempt from his criticism. It has been asked if Clemenceau really knows what he wants. To which the answer has been made: "No; but he is the only man in France who knows what he does not want."

In October, 1906, President Faliiercs charged M. Clemenceau to form a Cabinet. He went out, called a taxi-cab, and proceeded to visit the men he wanted. Forty-two hours and forty-five minutes later the new Ministers had held a Cabinet Council and been presented to the President.

After thirty years of happy married life with the American girl he wooed and won when she was a pupil and he a teacher in Miss Aitken's school at Stamford, Connecticut, and when the children she had borne him were grown to manhood and womanhood, M. Clemenceau began to be seen often with Mile. Reichenberg, of the Comedie Francaise. His ''affair'' with Leonide Leblanc w.is the next savoury morsel of gossip for the Boulveyards. His attentions to the Countess d'Aunay, wife of a Frenca diplomat, were so flagrant, that Mme. Clemenceau obtained a divorce and returned to the United States, never to go back to France; and one of her daughters had to go out and earn her living as a journalist. Jn that affair with Leonide Leblanc, M Clemenceau displayed a rashness that challenged the admiration of the boldest of Don Juans. She occupied apartments the rent of which was paid by the Due d'Aumale, and in which that descendent of St, Louis and Francis I. and Louis IV. and all the long line of Bourbon kings was quite as much at home as in his own palace. M. Clemenceau was so importunate and ardent that Mile. Leblanc lived in dread of the rivals meeting in her house.