The Amazing City

by John Frederick Macdonald

When, in February last, M. Raymond Poincaré was elected President of the French Republic, Parisians exclaimed excitedly, with one voice: “This means the end of Clemenceau. He is dying; he is dead; he is already buried.” For it will be remembered that M. Georges Clemenceau, the “Smasher of Cabinets,” also “The Tiger,” had savagely attacked M. Poincaré’s candidature; had even called upon him to withdraw in favour of an obscure Minister of Agriculture, in business life a maker of cigarette papers, of the unfortunate name of Pams. Cried M. Clemenceau here, there and everywhere: “I vote for Pams.” In the lobbies of the two Chambers he ordered his followers to “vote solidly for Pams.” The “Tiger” had sent M. Loubet to the Élysée; he would do the same for his dear Pams. The manufacturer of cigarette papers was a true democrat—M. Poincaré was a despot. Pams, indeed, had all the virtues; Pams at the Élysée would raise the prestige of the Republic, but heaven help the poor Republic if M. Poincaré were elected.

So fierce was the “Tiger’s” antagonism that, on the very day of the Presidential election, and in the Palace of Versailles, M. Poincaré appointed “seconds” to demand an explanation from M. Clemenceau. The affair was “arranged.” But up to the last moment the “Tiger” canvassed and canvassed for M. Pams in the lobbies of the Versailles palace. And he was sallower than ever; he did not attempt to conceal his anger and indignation when M. Poincaré was proclaimed Chief of the State by a handsome majority. Said a Deputy: “Versailles has been Clemenceau’s Waterloo. In Poincaré he met his Wellington.” But the “Tiger” wasn’t tamed. A few weeks later he “smashed” the Briand Cabinet. Then he started a paper—L’Homme Libre—and therein, as in the lobbies of the two Chambers, he renewed his attacks upon the new President. So has Paris been amazed, staggered, almost petrified to read in the newspapers the following official announcement:

“Sur le désir que le président de la République lui en avait fait exprimer par son secrétaire général civil, M. Clemenceau s’est rendu aujourd’hui à l’Élysée, pour conférer avec M. Poincaré.” Or: “At the desire of the President of the Republic, expressed through his principal private secretary, M. Clemenceau has called at the Élysée and conferred with M. Poincaré.”

Mortal enemies—nearly a duel—three months ago: but now is M. Clemenceau invited most politely to call at the Élysée, where he remains shut up with President Poincaré for a whole hour! Never such gesticulations on the boulevards, such excitement in the French Press. “Even the weather has been bouleversé by the interview at the Élysée,” writes a Paris journalist. “M. Clemenceau’s visit to M. Poincaré is undoubtedly responsible for the sudden heat wave.” Asks another journalist, somewhat cruelly: “What does M. Pams think of it? Also, where is M. Pams? We have sought for M. Pams at both his Paris and country residences, but in vain. No news of M. Pams either at the cigarette paper manufactory. We are becoming uneasy about M. Pams.” And declares a third journalist: “Versailles is forgotten and forgiven. Behold the President and Clemenceau hand-in-hand. But it is the triumph of the ‘Tiger.’”

And so, most indisputably, it is. It was M. Poincaré who “desired” the famous interview, and this was made clear (at M. Clemenceau’s request) in the official communication to the Press. Why did he “desire” it? What induced M. Poincaré to forget all about M. Clemenceau, M. Pams and Versailles? The truth is, M. Poincaré has need of the “Tiger’s” support, not only in the Chambers, but in his new paper. It is also a fact that, in spite of the Pams episode, M. Clemenceau is far and away the most powerful journalist and politician in France. If M. Clemenceau doesn’t agree with you, he “smashes.” “He assassinates you in the Chamber and then buries you in his newspaper,” once said a Deputy. To come to the point: the President of the French Republic, disturbed by the hostility to the Three Years Army Service Bill, sees in the “Tiger” the only statesman powerful enough to cope successfully with the situation. In other words, the next French Premier will be M. Georges Clemenceau.

And, according to many a reliable French politician, the fall of M. Barthou, the actual Prime Minister, is near. A kindly, admirable man, M. Barthou: but no “leader.” I remember him, as Minister of the Interior, attending the funeral of the victims of the Courrières mining catastrophe—eleven hundred lives lost. Tears ran down his face; he was literally a wreck, pale, red-eyed, almost inarticulate, when the special train took him back to Paris. Six weeks later, during the subsequent strike, down to Courrières came M. Georges Clemenceau, the new Minister of the Interior. Not a trace of emotion about the “Tiger” as he visited the stricken mining villages. He spoke sharply to the strikers. He promised that, if order were preserved, the troops would be withdrawn. Next day three—precisely three—windows of an engineer’s house were broken. Then trainful after trainful of troops, until there were ten soldiers to every striker—and that broke the strike.

A man of iron, M. Clemenceau—when in power. No pen so eloquent, so stirring as his in French journalism, and his pen he has now taken up in favour of M. Poincaré and the new Army Service Bill. Throbbing, thrilling phrases, as always. Here is a passage of his appeal to the French Army: “Athens, Rome, the greatest things of the past were swept off the face of the earth on the day that the sentinels hesitated as you are beginning to do. And you—your France, your Paris, your village, your field, your road, your stream—all that tumult of history out of which you come, since it is the work of your forerunners—is all this nothing to you?”

All this may be very sound, very lofty, very noble. But all this, by arrangement with President Poincaré, will lead to the next Premiership. And all this leaves me unhappy, for the reason that I can’t help thinking and worrying about M. Pams.

What is the “Tiger,” the future Premier, going to do for him?