GRAND OLD MAN OF FRANCE

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLIV, Issue 1180, 1 December 1924, Page 11

GRAND OLD MAN OF FRANCE

M. Clemenceau entered with firm and buoyant step on his 84th year on September 28 (says the Morning Post). The Grand Old Man of France spent his birthday in his tiny cottage on the foreshore of the Atlantic in his beloved Vendee, where tbo sea rolls right- up to the edge of his garden and sometimes breaks among his vegetable beds. His retreat near Sablesd'Olonne is nearly as fur west of Paris as it is possible to go, and remote from the turmoil of political life. Interviewers who prowl round the veteran statesman’s seaside homo invariably come away with empty notebooks. “One reason why I am so fond of flowers,’’ M. Clemenceau remarked, as an indirect reply to a recent visitor who asked him for his opinion on the political situation, “is thut they have this advantage over men—they are always silent.” On political matters it is to-day almost as easy to induce the proverbial oyster to speak as the erstwhile eloquent “Tiger.”