Georges CLEMENCEAU (1841–1929). Autograph manuscript, Direct - Lot 453

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Georges CLEMENCEAU (1841–1929). Autograph manuscript, Direct - Lot 453
Georges CLEMENCEAU (1841–1929). Autograph manuscript, Direct Descendant, [April 1914]; 4 pages, in-4 format, on the verso of Senate letterhead sheets. A forceful political article published on April 18, 1914, in *L’Homme Libre*. The manuscript contains cross-outs and corrections. Clemenceau points the finger at the coalition of Aristide Briand, Millerand, and Barthou, which, despite a few superficial differences, is an anti-republican triumvirate comparable to Boulangism. Under the guise of resuming diplomatic relations with the Vatican, Clemenceau warns against this resurgence of Boulangism. “Mr. Briand complained that people had taken the liberty of comparing the regressive movement—which he initiated and led alongside Messrs. Millerand and Barthou—to Boulangism. If one were to consider only outward manifestations, one would indeed find very marked differences. I see, for example, neither the Count of Paris nor the Black Horse. For a civilian, the Longchamp parade is not necessarily a suitable setting for a grand display. If one were to focus solely on this aspect of the matter, one would have to acknowledge that Mr. Briand is right. But an entire program cannot fit inside a feathered hat. There still needs to be a head underneath it, and if we happen to find both heads in the same cap—so different as depicted by Mr. Briand and General Boulanger—and if their intentions are expressed through an identity of criticism and “program,” how can one fail to agree that there is a very strong kinship between the two undertakings?” While the Duke of Orléans “does not lend his personal support,” the royalist Arthur Meyer provides the triumvirate with the support of the press… “As for the Pope and his priests, how could they fail to work toward the success of the enterprise when they have already been given assurances—such as the ‘Pichonnerie’ on Good Friday, as well as the hypocritical, Barthou-style textbooks, and when they are enticed by the prospect of resuming diplomatic relations with the Vatican—a move enthusiastically recommended by the same Mr. Hanotaux mentioned earlier. The triumvirate thus drags in its wake the same disparate yet coherent band as General Boulanger. All the vanquished of the Republic, all the representatives of the regimes, laws, and principles that the French people, in returning to the republican system, intended to rid themselves of”… Etc. And Clemenceau concludes: “Since his ‘revisionist’ candidacy, as it was called at the time, Mr. Briand may have changed his opinions a number of times. His mindset, his inclinations, and his views on public life have remained the same. Changes in terminology, not in feelings or thoughts. Far from slandering him, we are simply trying to reveal him to himself. He is probably not the only one who does not know himself. Events have given us a very short election period. It will undoubtedly be enough for the Republic to recognize its own. This same Republic that Messrs. Boulanger and Briand, with one voice, declared “uninhabitable”—and which the sons of the French Revolution will continue to shape for the good of all French people.”
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