47^ 



The Review of Reviews. 



June 1, JWS. 



Leon was born in Paris in 185 1. and the bov was 

 educated at the Lycee Charlemagne in the Rue St. 

 Antoine. He is, therefore, a Parisian bom and 

 bred. He was a studious youth, devoted to the 

 classics, and with a strong bias for art. His father, 

 however, insisted upon his taking to the law, and 

 filial obedience deprived M. Rodin of a rival. 

 Henceforth sculpture was the hobby of Leon's lei- 

 sure instead of the pursuit of his life. He pros- 

 pered at the Bar, and became the friend and disciple 

 of M. Floquet when he was Prelect of the Seine. 

 The attachment stood him in good stead when M. 

 Floquet became Minister. ^L Bourgeois was seen 

 to be a coming man. He was prosperous, full of 

 savoir faire, genial with all men, eloquent, and with 

 a happy knack of not making enemies. In religion 

 he is a Positi\'ist, although like many other followers 

 of Comte, he married a Catholic, and allowed her 

 to bring up their daughter in the Roman creed. 

 After he had been two years Minister of Public 

 Instruction, and had prosecuted the Panamists as 

 Minister of Justice under M. Felix Faure, he be- 

 came Prime Minister, when he had the satisfaction 

 of making his friend M. Berthelot, the distinguished 

 chemist, Minister for Foreign Affairs. As Prime 

 Minister he was more popular than the President, 

 and M. Faure seized the first opportunity to replace 

 him by a less conspicuous man. 



HIS BEPUTATIOX AT THE HAGUE. 



Under M. Loubet he was selected as first pleni- 

 potentian.' to represent the French Republic at the 

 Hague Conference. Up to that time, although he 

 had been Prime Minister, he was comparatively 

 unknown outside France. At the Hague he made 

 an international reputation. Writing at the Hague 

 immediately after the Conference closed, I thus 

 expressed what I believe was the sentiment of all 

 his colleagues : — 



Before the delegates met at the Hague, M. Bourgeois was 

 known to he one of lialf a dozen clever Frenchmen, par- 

 liamentarians and others, wlio have for a brief season held 

 the post of Prime Minister in France. To-day he occupies 

 ai unique position in Europe. By universal consent there is 

 no new reputation which has yet been made at this Con- 

 ference so great as that of M, Bourgeois. So far as new 

 reputations go, he has been the man of the Conference. 

 His skilfnlness. his extraordinary receptivity, his consum- 

 ing energy, and his faculty of grasping the drifts of a 

 dozen currents of opinion and forging in a moment a 

 formula which will embody all the different shades of senti- 

 ment, has been a revelation to many men. France never 

 stood more in need of great men than at the present 

 moment. It is with hearty delight, a delight felt especially 

 by her ally Russia, that a great statesman ha« at last been 

 revealed to the whole world in the debates at the Huis ten 

 Boach. As Chairman of the Comity d'Examen and as head 

 of the French delegation. M. Bourgeois, brilliantly aided by 

 his lieutenant. Baron d'E.stournclles, has done a great deal 

 to revindicate the repiitation of France is the opinion both 

 of her allies and her enemies. 



FEESIDENT OP THE CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES. 



On his return to France he remained in compara- 

 tive retirement for a year or two. He refused the 

 Prime Ministership in 1902 in order to have his 

 evenings free to spend with his invalid daughter. 

 He was elected in June the same year President of 



the Chamber of Deputies. It was just after M. 

 Loubet had visited St. Petersburg, and in his ad- 

 dress on taking the presidential chair M. Bourgeois, 

 Radical though he was, expatiated eloquentK with 

 his not verj- sonorous voice on the national pride 

 with which he had followed M. Loubet's pilgrimage 

 to St. Petersburg : — 



The reception offered to the representative of France by 

 the Sovereign of the Russian Empire, the striking proofs of 

 the sympathy of the great friendly and allied nation have 

 tightened once again the bonds which unite the two coun- 

 tries and given fresh force to the superior idea of right, 

 progress, and humanity which their alliance symbolises in 

 the eyes of the world. 



It is worth while recalling this, for the presence of 

 M. Clemenceau in the Ministry can hardlv be re- 

 garded in Russia as a remarkable manifestation of 

 devotion to the Alliance which binds together 

 France of the Revolution and the Muscovite auto- 

 cracy. 



After remaining President for a year, domestic 

 affliction, culminating in the death of both his wife 

 and his daughter, led M, Bourgeois to resign, and he 

 remained in retreat for a year. In 1905 he resumed 

 his place in the political arena, and was talked of in 

 many quarters as a possible President when M. 

 Loubet retired. His candidature, however, was not 

 seriously pressed, and he remained in resene to be 

 utilised as Minister for Foreign Affairs. 



HIS POLITICAL VIEWS. 



His appointment has been hailed with satisfaction 

 at home and abroad. He is a thorough Republican, 

 who has been e^-er since its formation an ardent sup- 

 porter of the union of all the democratic forces 

 which M. Clemenceau labelled the Bloc. He is an 

 uncompromising opponent of Clericalism ; his 

 speech denouncing the Christian Brothers' svstem 

 of education in r9ci was placarded in even,- parish 

 in France by order of the Chamber. It was one of 

 the preliminary- trumpet blasts which heralded the 

 separation of Church and State and the war against 

 the monastic orders. In internal affairs he is a 

 Radical with Socialist tendencies. He is in favour 

 of old age pensions, to be secured bv the co-opera- 

 tion of masters, workmen, the State, and benefit 

 societies. He has taken much interest in the hous- 

 ing of the poor, and is a strong advocate of co- 

 operation. When he opened the Co-operative Con- 

 gress at St. Etienne in r902, he declared: "The 

 Revolution broke might to create right. They must 

 create justice bv giving everv one his due through 

 solidarity, by guaranteeing everyone against natural 

 and social risks. Onlv co-operation ensured that 

 guarantee." 



mS FOEEIGN POLICY. 



But it is naturallv with his foreign policv that 

 Englishmen are most Interested. M. Bourgeois's 

 policy is peace. M. Bourgeois may be said to have 

 sown the seed of the Anglo-French entente when at 

 the Hague he co-operated so closely with Lord 

 Pauncefote and M. de Staal as to secure the success 



