Well, the French Chief of the State goes almost royally abroad. In his own country, when he opens exhibitions or “inaugurates” monuments and statues and _lycées_ at Lyons and Marseilles, he is very nearly a king—and Madame la Présidente stays at home. She “counts” only in Paris; her powers are confined within the walls of the Élysée, where she is for ever dispensing all kinds of hospitalities—hospitalities that demand infinite skill and tact. For instance, one of those dinners upon other occasions—“eminent” Academicians, leading barristers, men of letters, and clericals, and anti-clericals, and militarists, and pacifists, and ambiguities, enigmas, and “dark horses” (so far as their political opinions are concerned)—many of whom are the bitterest of enemies, and all of whom Madame la Présidente has “placed” around the dinner-table, with such incomparable tact and discretion that not a guest can see more than the nose or the chin of his particular foe. Also, Madame la Présidente has often reconciled enemies—to the advantage of M. le Président—whose own endeavours to obtain the same reconciliation have proved vain. Furthermore, it is on record that, during an acute Cabinet crisis, Madame la Présidente stopped one of France’s leading statesmen, as he flung out of the Élysée, by grasping his arm and putting a rose in his button-hole, and the Cabinet Minister, exclaiming: “Ah, madame, vous êtes exquise!” allowed himself to be led by Madame la Présidente back to the Council Chamber. Has Madame la Présidente been once again working miracles? What is this we hear in the month of June, 1913? A reconciliation, an alliance, even, between M. Raymond Poincaré and M. Georges Clemenceau. 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.