Foreign News: Strength and Firility

Curling Atlantic waves swept in one morning last week over the long sand dunes on the sea coast just above Bordeaux. Occasionally a wave burst over the sea wall, spattered with tingling droplets an old man who sat hunched upon a bench, staring seaward. Grey skies shrouded the 85th birthday of Georges Eugene Adrien Clemenceau.

The granite-founded, verdant-wooded Vendee cradled the cub that was to grow into “Tiger” Clemenceau at the Chateau de 1’Aubraie, near Feole. Now on his little four-acre estate, Bels Ebats, in the Vendee, the old “Tiger” waits for Death. The world has been his province, but the Vendee is his home.

There he treasures the collection of Japanese antiquities which is his pride. Above his snug lair floats a long streamer displaying a gigantic carp in black and white. “It is the Japanese symbol of strength and virility,” chuckles M. Clemenceau to puzzled visitors.

Daily he works with his U. S. translator over the English text of his Civilization. Occasionally he entertains his brothers Paul and Albert, his daughters, the Mmes. Jacquemaire and Young. More typically he sits out long evenings with his old friend M. Andre Pierre Gabriel Amedee Tardieu.

The birthday of M. Clemenceau was not “celebrated” last week. Few Frenchmen know his birthdate, for it has been his whim to conceal it from the compilers of reference books. Instead of giving or attending a stuffy birthday dinner, M. Clemenceau observed his birthday by ordering his chauffeur to drive hi mto the village of Les Sables d’Olonne. There he bargained vociferously with the vegetable and fisherwomen for the substance of a frugal meal. Returning to Bels Ebats, he dined alone.