His energy and power of work were those of a vigorous young man in the height of training. Starting for the front in a motor-car at four or five o'clock in the morning at least three times a week, he kept in touch with generals, officers and soldiers all along the lines to an extent that would have seemed incredible if it had not been actually done. Once at the front he walked about under fire as if he had come out for the pleasure of risking his life with the _poilus_ who were fighting for La Patrie. Marshal Foch and Higher Command were in constant fear for him. But he knew what he was about. Valuable as his own life might be to the country, to court death was a higher duty than to take care of himself, if by this seeming indifference he made Frenchmen all along the trenches feel that he and they were one. He succeeded. Fortune favoured him throughout. Then having discoursed with the Marshal and his generals, having saluted and talked with the officers, he chatted with the rank and file of the soldiery and rushed back to Paris, arriving at the Ministry of War at ten or eleven o'clock at night, ready to attend to such pressing business as demanded his personal care. And all the time cheerful, alert, confident, showing, when things looked dark, as when the great advance began, that the Prime Minister of the Republic never for one moment doubted the Germans would be hurled back over the frontier and France would again take her rightful place in the world. And that is not all. Clemenceau's influence in the Council Chamber of the Allies was and is supreme. The old gaiety of heart remains, but the soundness of judgment and determination to accept no compromise of principle are more marked than ever. Many dangerous intrigues during the past few months, of which the world has heard little, were snuffed clean out by Clemenceau's force of character and overwhelming personality. The French Prime Minister wanted final victory for France and her Allies. Nothing short of this would satisfy him. There was no personal loyalty he wished to build up, no political object that he desired to attain, no section or party that he felt himself bound to propitiate. Therefore the other Ministers of the Allies found themselves at the table with a statesman who was something more than an individual representative of his nation. He was the human embodiment of a cause. What that meant and still means will only be known when the dust of conflict has passed from us and the whole truth of Clemenceau's policy can be told.