Vatican diplomacy

The visitor to the home of Georges Clemenceau on the rue Franklin-now an official museum-finds a modest house kept just as it was when the "Tiger" left it. From here he went forth in 1917 to accept the call to form a government; here he lived when he was the dynamic force that rallied faint hearts in France's darkest hour of the First World War. Your guide will point out the ancient telephone which communicated directly with the General Staff headquarters.

The telephone is in Clemenceau's study, a ground-floor room walled with books. One volume lies on the desk. Undisturbed from the day when death made its visitation, it remains a source of reflection. This was the last book he read before the fatal illness struck him, says your guide, custodian of these souvenirs of a great Frenchman. "A political history of the Popes," he adds gravely, by way of description. You are not led to believe that it was anything more than a political work. It would not do for pilgrims to this shrine to infer that the old anti-clerical was in his last days getting religion.

But a history of the Popes nevertheless. To his dying day Clemenceau could not ignore the Pope. Devoted to separation, a notorious unbeliever, Clemenceau was fated as a government official to enter into negotiations with the Holy See in defense of French interests.