prevented just such a strike as he had formerly encouraged by threatening to fetch the railway men under control of the State by conscription, he was denounced violently as a renegade, only to light a fresh cigarette and shrug his broad shoulders.

"Look," he smilingly suggested the other day to friends who had congratulated him upon his break with the Socialists, "at poor Paul Boncourt, entangled in the Socialist organization when he could have progressed much better if, like me, he had become an honest renegade!"

A highly characteristic remark, if ever one was made, revealing both candor and confession, pregnant with meaning, and yet so wholly devoid of sting as to evoke response only of humorous appreciation from his old friend, such as he himself would have made in like circumstances, since he has never been known to cherish resentment against even the most virulent of the many enemies he has made during his stormy career. Some attribute this admirable trait to his philosophy of living; others more frankly, and not without vestige of justification, ascribe it to sheer laziness; none in any case denies his indolence or his indifference to public acclaim. More than once he has connived at resignation simply because he was bored and wanted to withdraw to his little farm in Normandy and recline for hours under trees lining the banks of a tiny stream, apparently fishing but actually smoking and sleeping alternately until dusk should set him trudging home with basket either empty or forgotten and left behind. Like Mr. Lloyd George, M. Briand never reads the newspapers, but, unlike his astute contemporary, he has no précis of their contents prepared for his inspection by capable secretaries. He reads no books; he possesses none. Like our own most remarkable journalist of his time, Samuel Bowles, he gleans essential information from the utterances of others who have laboriously mastered subjects under consideration. One day, long ago, the scholarly Freycinct delivered a long address elaborating all aspects of a certain question with extraordinary skill and comprehensiveness, but so monotonously that his exposition made no impression upon his wearied auditors.

When others had spoken and the end of the discussion was approaching, M. Briand arose and enchained the attention of all

with an oration charged with profundity and teeming with eloquence.

"What a remarkable fellow he is!" exclaimed Freycinct. "How was it possible for him to make so brilliant a speech upon such a topic?"

"It is quite simple," his colleague replied. "He knew nothing about the matter when he came here; he got it all from you an hour ago."

Just as many writers, among them the unassuming novice who now sits before you, never know where pens once taken in hand may lead them, M. Briand never can tell what he is going to say when he rises to speak. Intuition furnishes the key, memory the facts, logic the argument, and a veritable gift the persuasive expression which has reversed the attitude of many a Chamber. Talking is his delight. With unsurpassed readiness of wit and suavity of humor serving as a background, he exudes aptness, drollery, satire, brightness, brilliancy and wisdom with voice, eyes and gesturing hands in joint and constant play, yet as simply and unaffectedly as the great Benjamin Franklin himself, his only real rival in history as the idol of the drawing rooms of Paris; the two incidentally alike in preferring no favorites, although differing in that our own hero took unto himself a thrifty wife for what Mr. Hoover would call economic reasons while Aristides the Second, from sheer apathy, has never married at all, and recently created a sensation by reaching from his tiptoes in a railway station to touch with silken moustache both cheeks of the statuesquely beautiful wife of the prim, monocled British Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs-a unique exploit which even the most audacious of Frenchmen would hardly have essayed and could not have achieved without the coöperation of the tactful English gentlewoman herself, who was obliged perforce to incline her head in the interest of patriotism and the entente cordiale.

This pleasing episode so firmly established the success of the Locarno conference that Mr. Chamberlain was accorded a Knighthood, a Garter and a dinner at Guildhall, and his vicariously sacrificial helpmate was created by His grateful Majesty a Dame Commander of the British Empire.

That these honors were well earned all agree. The straight

forward, honest minded, humorless statesman from the Pittsburgh of England, at a single session, succeeded where the adroit Welsh politician and the imperious aristocrat had failed lamentably in similar attempts at rapprochement, following unceasingly one after another through a period of years. And yet, as Sir Austen himself would be the first to admit, his efforts, too, would have proved utterly futile but for the invincible resolution and extraordinary suppleness of the more adept and appealing fisher of men, no less than of trout, from the meadows of Normandy. Well might Mr. Sisley Huddleston, the keenest observer at Locarno, exclaim: "Has there ever been a more striking example of the influence of a single man for good? I must not be misunderstood as minimizing the highly important rôle of the German Chancellor and Foreign Minister, or the magnificent coöperation of the British Secretary for Foreign Affairs. But when all the tributes are paid, it remains the indisputable truth that the leading figure in the negotiations for the Peace Pact, and the leading figure in the pacification of the Balkans, was the Frenchman, Briand."

When, at a critical stage of the negotiations, the conference seemed doomed to failure the resourceful "Frenchman, Briand," in unconscious emulation of the sagacious American, Lincoln, told an amusing and wholly irrelevant story, relaxing the tension and permitting an adjournment which saved the situation and afforded him an opportunity to take Dr. Luther for a drive along the shore of the lake to an unfrequented café, where for an hour or more the two sat upon wooden benches, draining many steins of beer and chatting amiably. What was said upon this historic occasion nobody knows, but a shrewd surmise may be adventured from the remark of M. Briand while the agreements were being signed in London, when he turned directly to the German delegates and said ingratiatingly, in terms deftly combining selfrespect and gratifying compliment:

"I am a good Frenchman, you are good Germans. Without renouncing our patriotism, we may both be good Europeans." Four years ago M. Briand would have been execrated by his countrymen for thus tacitly placing the Huns on a plane with themselves, but when, after having bided his time with a patience

unsurpassed by Job's and hardly equalled by Mr. John D. Rockefeller's, he courageously swept away the animosities that barred the path to peace and returned to Paris, he was greeted by a huge delegation of blind, legless and armless soldiers grouped under a resplendent banner bearing this inscription:

"Welcome to the Man Who Has Insured Our Children
Against the Misfortunes Which Have Befallen Us."

Deeply touched by this surprising tribute, the happy recipient hailed it as heralding "The Spirit of Locarno", and thereby coined a phrase whose influence upon future conferences cannot be measured, but was felt and revealed immediately by the German people as interpreted by the caricaturists of their Press, who forthwith became "as gentle with M. Briand and as unsparing with Herren Luther and Stresemann as the cartoonists of any other nationality."

"Without overemphasizing it," declared the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, "this kindly treatment of Briand is an obvious indication of a pleasanter popular mood toward France in Germany, dating from the time when men like Herriot, Painlevé, and Briand rose to power. Popular sentiment reveals itself more frankly and unaffectedly in caricature than in political editorials. The opinion it crystallizes in respect to Briand is, to put it baldly: a shrewd, sly old weazel, but no wolf. This is a radical change from the familiar German caricature of Poincaré, which represents him with a bitter, nutcracker face."

To be depicted as cunning and carnivorous and accustomed to prey upon others incapable of defending themselves would not ordinarily be considered a pretty compliment, but it so far surpasses in considerateness anything that has emanated from Germany since the armistice that relatively it must be reckoned a distinct advance from contumacy toward courtesy. In any case there can be no doubt that the German people feel far more kindly disposed to the present Premier than to any of his predecessors, and there is fair reason to believe that today he would receive a cordial welcome if circumstances should make advisable a visit to Berlin.

His position in England, too, as well as throughout the Con

tinent, even in Italy, is now so fully assured that he was fully warranted in declaring solemnly, though not menacingly, to a largely hostile Chamber when he resumed control, "If you overthrow us now, the outcome will be a calamity to the country." For that reason, he implored the Deputies to "rise above party divisions," to the end that public confidence might be regained, and calmly announced that his Government would hold fast so long as it could muster “a majority of one," and that one himself. He did not need to say that he was not actuated by personal ambition, but he did not fail to add, at the close of the all-night sitting, the most effective and significant utterance in his long career: "For the first time in my life, I cling to Power."

For himself? No. For his country? Yes. The Deputies knew, and knew that the people knew, that this was the simple truth. For that reason, and for no other, up to the day of this writing, all attempts, a few open and many furtive, to dislodge him have failed. When challenged to produce evidence of his possession of the slightest knowledge of national finances, successful reorganization of which was essential to the very life of the Republic, he replied frankly:

"I know nothing about money? How could I? I have never had any. I have none now. I do not know the difference between a stock and a bond. I must learn."

The answer sufficed. His ignorance was shared by a vast majority of the electors. They also could not tell the difference between "a stock and a bond" and they had come to distrust those who could and whom they suspected of having used their superior knowledge to mulct them. What they did comprehend more acutely than any other people on earth was the relative purchasing power of the small hoards of gold in their stockings and their large stores of printed paper in glass jars impregnable to attacks by predatory mice. M. Loucheur was an adept guardian of the "securities" of the rich, but M. Briand would be the more efficient caretaker of the savings of the poor. M. Loucheur, then Minister of Finance, was deposed; M. Briand remains. Upon his shoulders and his alone rests the twofold burden of resolving simultaneously both the domestic and foreign problems of France.