And so, most indisputably, it is. It was M. Poincaré who “desired” the famous interview, and this was made clear (at M. Clemenceau’s request) in the official communication to the Press. Why did he “desire” it? What induced M. Poincaré to forget all about M. Clemenceau, M. Pams and Versailles? The truth is, M. Poincaré has need of the “Tiger’s” support, not only in the Chambers, but in his new paper. It is also a fact that, in spite of the Pams episode, M. Clemenceau is far and away the most powerful journalist and politician in France. If M. Clemenceau doesn’t agree with you, he “smashes.” “He assassinates you in the Chamber and then buries you in his newspaper,” once said a Deputy. To come to the point: the President of the French Republic, disturbed by the hostility to the Three Years Army Service Bill, sees in the “Tiger” the only statesman powerful enough to cope successfully with the situation. In other words, the next French Premier will be M. Georges Clemenceau. And, according to many a reliable French politician, the fall of M. Barthou, the actual Prime Minister, is near. A kindly, admirable man, M. Barthou: but no “leader.” I remember him, as Minister of the Interior, attending the funeral of the victims of the Courrières mining catastrophe—eleven hundred lives lost. Tears ran down his face; he was literally a wreck, pale, red-eyed, almost inarticulate, when the special train took him back to Paris. Six weeks later, during the subsequent strike, down to Courrières came M. Georges Clemenceau, the new Minister of the Interior. Not a trace of emotion about the “Tiger” as he visited the stricken mining villages. He spoke sharply to the strikers. He promised that, if order were preserved, the troops would be withdrawn. Next day three—precisely three—windows of an engineer’s house were broken. Then trainful after trainful of troops, until there were ten soldiers to every striker—and that broke the strike. A man of iron, M. Clemenceau—when in power. No pen so eloquent, so stirring as his in French journalism, and his pen he has now taken up in favour of M. Poincaré and the new Army Service Bill. Throbbing, thrilling phrases, as always. Here is a passage of his appeal to the French Army: “Athens, Rome, the greatest things of the past were swept off the face of the earth on the day that the sentinels hesitated as you are beginning to do. And you—your France, your Paris, your village, your field, your road, your stream—all that tumult of history out of which you come, since it is the work of your forerunners—is all this nothing to you?” All this may be very sound, very lofty, very noble. But all this, by arrangement with President Poincaré, will lead to the next Premiership. And all this leaves me unhappy, for the reason that I can’t help thinking and worrying about M. Pams. What is the “Tiger,” the future Premier, going to do for him?