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Luck was with Francqui for, as his good angel had prophesied, his one word of English met every requirement and he got the assignment. Since that time, I might add, he has acquired a fluent command of the English language. Francqui has always been willing to take a chance and lead a forlorn hope.
Some vital agency was necessary to centralize relief at home in the same way that the Commission for Relief in Belgium, the famous "C. R. B." crystallized it abroad. The Comite Rationale was formed by Belgians to feed and clothe the native population and it became the disbursing agent for the "C. R. B." Francqui was chosen head of this body and directed it until the armistice.
It was 1885 and the Congo Free State had just been launched. Having studied engineering he was sent out at once to Boma to join the Topographic Brigade. During this first stay in the Congo he was in charge of a boat-load of workmen engaged in wharf construction. The captain of a British gunboat hailed him and demanded that he stop. Francqui replied,
His war life illustrates one of the quaint pranks that fate often plays. As soon as the "C. R. B." was organized in London Francqui hastened over to England to confer with the American organizers. To his surprise and delight he encountered in its master spirit and chairman, the smooth-faced young engineer whom he had met out in the Kaiping coal mines before.
In 1901 Francqui again went to China, this time as agent of the Compagnie d'Orient, which coveted the coal mines of Kaiping that were supposed to be among the richest in the world. The British and Germans also desired this valuable property which had been operated for some years by a Chinese company. As usual, Francqui got what he went after and took possession of the property.
After he had mastered the intricacies of banking he became a director of the Société and with Jadot forged to the front in finance. If Jadot stood as the Morgan, then Francqui became the Stillman of the Belgian money world. Then came the Great War and the German avalanche which overwhelmed Belgium. Her banks were converted into hospitals; her industry lay prostrate; her people faced starvation.
He thereupon acquired the word "yes," his friend's injunction being, "If you say 'yes' to every question you can probably carry it off." Francqui thereupon went to the Foreign Office and was immediately asked in English: "Can you speak English?" "Yes," was his immediate retort. "Are you willing to undertake the hazards of this journey to Zanzibar?" queried the interrogator. "Yes," came the reply.
The crude Chinese method of mining had greatly impaired the workings and they had to be entirely reconstructed. Among the engineers employed was an alert, smooth-faced, keen-minded young American named Herbert Hoover. Upon his return to Brussels Francqui allied himself with Colonel Thys, who was head of the Banque d'Outremer, the rival of the Société Generale.
The affair brought him into business relations with another Belgian named Emile Francqui, of keen mind and great personal force, who, with de Wouters, were, strangely enough, later to be chief and first assistant executives, respectively, of the Great Belgian Comité National during the long hard days of the German Occupation.
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