He left the car, followed by his two officials, and mounted the raised path, keeping Manon beside him.
“To begin with,” he said, “I must look at this house of yours while Monsieur Durand is arranging the stage for us. It interests me vastly, this house.”
He entered the café, pausing to look at the broken door. “A Prussian trick, that!” His round, white head seemed to sink more grimly between his shoulders. Manon had to show him the whole house from cellar to roof, and to give him an account of how they had lived through that adventurous spring. His eyes twinkled, he noticed everything; his interest in all the human details of the house was simple and intense. Stubbornness and courage appealed to him, and there was courage in every corner of this little provincial home. He saw in it life, inevitable yet miraculous, pushing its way through the ruins. It was a poem in timber and iron, an emotion, a part of the heart of France.
At the foot of the stairs he turned and looked up at Manon.
“He has done well—this man of yours. I will see him presently.”
Then he went out into the sunlight and faced the crowd. Five chairs had been set in a row along the raised path, and Georges Clemenceau took the centre chair. On his right sat Lefèbre; on his left Anatole Durand. Manon had the chair next to Durand, Philipon the one on the extreme right. Clemenceau nodded to Durand. Bibi and Ledoux were pushed forward into the open space below the path, and the crowd closed round them. There was silence.
XLV
Every man and woman in the crowd watched Georges Clemenceau, for his presence dominated them all. Even the naturalness with which he sat in his chair and looked at them from under his bushy eyebrows seemed part of his greatness, part of his magnificent yet subtle simplicity. They saw in him the man who had held up the sword-arm of France, a man who could be stubborn with the stubbornness of a peasant. That round head of his and that almost feline face had a shrewd and humorous benignity. The Tiger could smile, he could hate, and he could love.
He began to speak to them, leaning back in his chair; his hands resting on his thighs.
“Let me tell you that in the country men do not make speeches; they put their hands to the plough and hoe; that is the eloquence we understand. To-day I came to this village of yours to see if Monsieur Durand had been telling me fairy tales, and I find a little family quarrel going on, and someone has asked me to sit here as the head of the family to decide who is right and who is wrong. At my age—and in these days—the things that are right and good for our country seem so plain and so simple that it is easy for us to judge whether a man is a good citizen or not. The ruins and the very stumps of the dead trees call to us for help. He who builds, he who plants, he who gives his sweat to France, that man is the man whom we honour.”