“I was told a month ago, when I paid my first visit to Detroit, that there were twenty-five thousand French people living here,” I said to him.
“The number is exaggerated, I believe,” he replied, “but certainly we are about twenty thousand.”
“I suppose you have French societies, a French Club?” I ventured.
He smiled.
“The Germans have,” he said, “but we have not. We have tried many times to found French clubs in this city, so as to establish friendly intercourse among our compatriots, but we have always failed.”
“How is that?” I asked.
“Well, I don’t know. They all wanted to be presidents, or vice-presidents. They quarreled among themselves.”
“When six Frenchmen meet to start a society,” I said, “one will be president, two vice-presidents, one secretary, and the other assistant-secretary. If the sixth cannot obtain an official position, he will resign and go about abusing the other five.”
“That’s just what happened.”
It was my turn to smile. Why should the French in Detroit be different from the French all over the world, except perhaps in their own country? A Frenchman out of France is like a fish out of water. He loses his native amiability and becomes a sort of suspicious person, who spends his life in thinking that everybody wants to tread on his corns.