Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: May 14, 2025
"I do not stop to inquire if even in the story, Monsieur Claretie's 'Marianne Kayser' is frequently self-contradictory, and if in some features I clearly recognize his Guy de Lissac; two characters that play an important part in the narrative! But after all, what does it matter?
Victorine had a friend whom she deemed most happy; this was Jules Claretie's mother, for, young though her son was, he wrote in the papers, wrote books, too, and earned money, so that he was able to maintain his mother altogether. He was a young man who ought to be held in high estimation, an author who was all that he should be.
In Monsieur Claretie's romance it is the old Member of Parliament, Collard of Nantes converted late in life to Republicanism, who chose the provincial Vaudrey for his Minister of the Interior; this may, with equal probability be Marshal MacMahon.
Those, however, who search for vulgar gossip in this book, or who look for private scandal are far astray. They are quite mistaken as regards the tendency and moral of Monsieur Claretie's book. The Vaudrey of the romance is no minister in particular, neither this statesman nor that. He is the Minister whom we have had before our eyes for the last quarter of a century.
"In Monsieur Claretie's romance, Monsieur le Ministre is of the Left Centre or the so-called Moderate Party, he is therefore on the side of Law and Order. He enters into the Cabinet with the determination to reform every abuse, to recast everything; to seek for honest men, to make merit and not faction, the touchstone of advancement.
"This was popularity and it must be confessed that only one man in France to-day receives such marks of it. This man is Gambetta. "Meanwhile Claretie's minister continues his walk through the corridors of the Opéra house. He reaches the greenroom of the ballet at last and exclaims: "'And that is all! "Alas, yes, your Excellency, that is all! And everything is only a "that is all," in this world.
Joffre quoted this part of Renan's address, in taking his seat. Claretie had not lived quite long enough to see, save with the eye of faith, that day Renan foretold; but Claretie's successor in the French Academy had seen it!
Word Of The Day
Others Looking