Page:French life in town and country (1917).djvu/271

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  • ically round the head of the State in a loyal

protest against all the base and scandalous machinations of his enemies. It is not often one can congratulate a French editor on the political conduct of his paper, and M. Cornély deserves hearty congratulations for his skilful management of the governmental campaign in the columns of the Figaro. It is true he was magnificently supported by M. France, a host in himself, whose witching satires on Nationalism will remain among the most delicate and dainty of contributions to political literature of this or any country. It was a battle worthily won, the weapons, used with a surprising dexterity, being wit, charm, grace, and humour. The Figaro has also an old contributor, Le Passant, who out of nothing will fabricate you a half-hour of delicious hilarity, and for articles of a more serious and intellectual quality, the distinguished woman of letters who writes under the pseudonym of Arvède Barine.

Add to these intellectual features the bright interspersion of graceful little Parisian notes on anything, from a cabmen's or washerwomen's strike to the fraternity of European soldiers in China, from the weather to the circulation of false silver, the literary and theatrical chronicle at the end of such papers as the Temps and the Débats, always intrusted to writers of wide renown. For the criticism of books in Paris is