At Rambouillet M. Fallières’ predecessor, most admirable M. Loubet, also aroused the disdain of the flunkeys by reason of his simplicity—and his real holiday did not begin until he had reached his native town of Montélimar, where he was treated—and liked to be treated—as _un enfant du pays_—a son of the soil. Because Montélimar is famous for its nougat, M. Loubet was dubbed by fierce, lurid old Henri Rochefort—“Nougat the First.” But Republican France liked to hear of her President hobnobbing with the people of Montélimar and gossiping with the peasantry of neighbouring villages, and leading forth on his arm a little brown-faced and wrinkled old lady, in the dress and cap of a peasant woman—his mother. But those are all memories. We have nothing to do with Montélimar; we are only concerned with the wine-growing districts of Loupillon, where M. Fallières (released from official Rambouillet) will be amiable, pottering and peering about amidst his vineyards in a few days. Behold, just as last year, M. le Président, not only in slippers, but in his shirt-sleeves; and behold, too, the peasantry stretched over hedges and perched high up in trees, that they may view the burly Chief of the State inspecting and admiring his grapes. They are his hobby, his pride, his exquisite joy: and yet it is notorious that they are a very sour, a very inferior, one might almost say, a very terrible little grape. Ask the Loupillon peasants and they will exclaim: “It is extraordinary, it is unheard-of that a Son of this Soil, and a President of the President, should produce such a grape! Look at it! _Cré nom d’un nom_, what a sad little thing!” Ask those privileged, intimate friends who lunch _en famille_ at the Élysée, and they will cry: “Ah, the white wine of Fallières! Ah, the Presidential grape from Loupillon! It makes one shudder to mention it.” But, M. le Président ignores these criticisms and mockeries. After Morocco and Proportional Representation, his dear little grapes! In spite of their smallness, their sourness, how he loves them!