FRANCE'S WOMEN LAWYERS.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 19691, 19 January 1926, Page 7

FRANCE'S WOMEN LAWYERS.

RECOGNITION OF RIGHTS. TWENTY-FIFTH ANNIVERS ARY. The French women barristers, notwithstanding tbe indifferent success of the 1 * majority of them in their professional career, celebrated the twenty-fifth anniversary of the recognition of their right to be called to tbe Bar (writes the Paris correspondent of a London paper). On December I, 1897, Mile. Jeanne Chauvin, who was the first woman to seek admission to the order, had her prayer rejected by tbe Court of Appeal on the ground that before she could be "called" a special law was necessary. Three years later, to the day, thanks to the united efforts of Raymond Poineaire, Paul Deschanel, and Rene Viviani, what is known as the Viviani law was passed and the Bar was thrown open to women. Since then nearly 150 fair girl graduates have accumulated the numerous parchments necessary to enable them to be authorised to practice law. Most of the feminine wearers of the toge, as all who have observed them sauntering in the broad corridors of the “Palais” will confirm, are distinctly pretty women, whose attractiveness is only heightened by their legal robes. This may account for the fact that, although a quarter of a century has elapsed since their first appearance in the courts, moat of their masculine confreres still find it difficult to look upon them as .really brethren of the basoche. Perhaps this is because a Frenchwoman, whatever her walk in life, is always, above all else, a woman, and allows no man to forget it.