THE FRENCH PRESIDENT.

Auckland Star, Volume XVIII, Issue 88, 15 April 1887, Page 6

THE FRENCH PRESIDENT.

It was really a comical freak of fortune that brought M. Jules Grevy to succeed Marshal McMahon. The story goes that during the street fighting cf the Revolution of 1830, a law student wns kicked by one of the King's officers, for tearing down a copy of the ordinances placarded on the wall. The officer was armed, the student was not; so the latter ran away and lived to fight anothor day. For the officer, as it is said, was Pratriee de Mac Mahon, and the law student Jules Grovy. After this affair, M. Grevy became a barrister, won reputation and money by defending journalists in state prosecutions, and upon the downfall of Louis Philippe was immediately appointed to something equivalent to a prefecture by the Provisional Government of the Second .Republic. Noxt, his countrymen in the Jura sent him to eit in the Constituent Assembly, and here M. Grevy distinguished himself by proposing that the new .Republic, which this Assembly was deputed to iound, should have no President, or rather that the President should be a mere Prime Minister, liable to be dismissed at any moment. M. Grevy did not cut his wisdom teeth in those days. Ho has since learned to think that it is good for a Republic to have a President not amenable to sudden dismissal.

M. Grevy is a man of talent and great moral courage, but he owes hia rise to an uncommon laculty for holding his tongue at the right moment. ' I kept silent, and it was grief to me,' saya the Psalmist. M. Grevy may have felt like other people at times, an almost incomparable longing to say foolish things; but having bridled his tongue he was accounted wiser than many who had spoken wisely. Under the Empire he practised at the Bar, continued to make money, was elected in his turn batonnier, or Chief Bencher as we might say to the Order of Advocates, and in Is6B was returned to the Corps Logislatif by his old electors of the Jura—in which department he hadbythisthneacquiredaprettylargelandecl estate. A neat, creasless sort of man, with abaldhead,ashaven chin and closely-trimmed whiskers, he looked eminently respectable. The only reprehensible things about him were his hat and hishands. He always woreawideawake instead of the orthodox chimney-pot, and he eschewed gloves. If his hands were cold he put them into the pockets of hie pantaloons. Some pretend to descry astuteness in this contempt for the usages of civilised man, for the wide-awake is more cf a Radical head-dress than a silk hat. But it never occurred to M. Grevy at any time since he firet achieved success in life to regulate his apparel, his general conduct, or his words, in view of pleasing the Radicals. At the Revolution of the 4th September, 1870, he was requested to become a member of the National Defence. No, he said ; tho Government must be elected by the nation before he could recognise it as a lawful one. Throughout the siege of Paris he kept repeating the same thing. Nothing that was being done was constitutional. ' You are one of those men who would make an omelette without breaking eggs,' said' Gambetta impatiently to him at Tours. ' You are not making omelettes, but a hash,' replied M. Grevy calmly. ' All revolutions would be unjustifiable from, your point of view,' continued Gambetta. ' You will die in the skin of an insurgent,' was all M. Grevy deigned to answer. The Assembly elected after the war at once chose M. Grevy for Hb Speaker, and he took up his abode in the Royal Palace, from which party jealousies had debarred M. Thiers. But he did not alter his manner of life one whit on that account. In Paris and Versailles he was to be seen sauntering ftfagut the streets looking in at shop

windows, dining in restaurants, Or sitting outside a cafe smoking a cigar and sipping iced coffee out of a glass. He had a brougham, but would only use it when obliged to go long distances.1 It often happened that setting out for a drive he would alight from hi 3. carriage and order his coachman to follow, and for hours the puzzled and disgusted coachman would drive at a walking pace behind his indefatigable master, who took easy strides as if he were riot in the slightest hurry. M. Grevy's favourite evening pasttime in those days was billiards, and it is so still. He is a first rate player of the cannon game on these small French tables which have no pockets. He has been known to make more than one hundred cannons at a break, and he is sufficiently enthusiastic at the game to care not a button with whom he plays. Whilst he was President of the Assembly the man who came to play with him most often upon the private table of the Palace was M. Paul de Cassagnac, the Bonapartist. M. Grevy made an irreproachable Speaker. Without fear or favour, coldly, firmly, he performed his task of keeping order over the unruly Legislature, and ncbody could ever accuse him of unfairness. His character for justice got so well established that Marshal MacMahon once rendered homage to it in a way most honourable to them both. This was in 1877, after the General Election, which drove the Due de Broelie's last Ministry from office. A make-shift cabinet had been formed, but Marshal MacMahon was being advised by some of his Conservative friends to dissolve the newly-elected Chamber, and call the Due do Brogli i again to office to prepare another general election. He sent for M. Grevy and asked him point-blank — 'Do you want to become President of the Republic ?' ' I'm not in tho least ambitious of the honour,' answered M. Grevy.

' If I were sure you would be elected in my stead I would retire,' continued the Marshal, ' but I don't know what would happen if I were to go.'

'My strong advice to you is not to resign,' said M. Grevy, ' only bring an end to this crisis by choosing your Ministers out of the Republican majority, and you will be pleased with yourself afterwards in having done your duty.' ' Well, you nrc an honest man, and I wish there were more like you,' observed the Marshal, and, having shaken hands with M. Grevy, he dismissed him without promising to follow his advice. But he did follow it the same day.

There is ono point of resemblance between M, Grevy and .the Marshal, for M. Grevy is a keen sportsman; but in most other things the two differ, though in some M. Grevy differs more from M. Thiers than he does from the Marshal. His manner of living at the Elysee is dignified without ostentation. His servants do not wear grey and scarlet liveries, but the arrangements of his household nre more orderly than those of M. Thiers could ever be. His servants in black know well how to keep intruders at a distance. No mob of journalists, inventors and place hunters calls to see M. Grevy in the morning. On the other hand, three or four times a ■week a great number of deputies, artists, journalists and officers may bo seen going into the Elysee as freely as if they were entering a club. They do not ask to see the President or the latter's secretary, M. Fourneret, but they make straight for a magnificent room on the ground floor, overlooking the garden, which has been converted into a fencing saloon, and thero they find M. Daniel Wilson, ' le fils do la maiaon.' All these habitues, who form the Court of the Third Republic, keep their masks, foils and flannels at the Elysee, and set to work fencing with each other as if they were «at Gatechair's or l'az's. Presently a door opens ond the Provident walks in. For a moment the fencing stops, the combatants all turn and salute with their foils, whilst the other visitors stand up. But with a pleasant smile and wave of the hand M. Grevy bids the jousters go on, and then he walka round the room, saying something to everybody, and inviting about half a dozen of the guests to stay with him to breakfast. INI. Grevy has allowed his beard to grow of late, and he is almost always attired in evening clothes, with the moire edge of his scarlet cordon peeping over his waistcoat. But for tho rest he is the same unassuming man as ever, and he takes life very easily. Now and then the Cabinet meets at Elysee in the Salle dcs Souvcrains, and he presides over it. It is worth observing that in this Saile thero are the portraits of a dozen sovereigns of the nineteenth century, including Queen Victoria, but not a symbol of any kind to remind ono that it is a Republican Government that sits in this room. Even the master of the house has more in him of the Constitutional Monarch than of the President. The Constitution has conferred upon him large powers which he never uses; he seems to keep his eye on the portrait of the English Queen whilst his Ministers discourse. Whatever papers are offered for his signature he signs, and then it is ' Bon jour, Messieurs; au revoir ;' and while the ministers disperse the President makes his way to his private apartments, where he finds his daughter and his grandchild, in whose company he somehow takes more delight than in that of statesmen. — Temjile Bar.