the voice of Mr. Take Ionesco, who, more than anybody else, is the voice
of those who want war. Once in the government, but at the moment out of
it, Mr. Ionesco keeps up a continuous bombardment of editorials and
speeches, and with his-vigor, verve, and facility reminds one a bit,
though a younger man, of Clemenceau and his L'Homme Enchainé. Rich,
well-informed, daring, and clever, with a really fascinating gift of
expression, he will talk to you in French, English (his wife is
English), Rumanian--I don't know how many other languages--about
anything you wish, always with the air of one who knows. We have no
such adventurous statesmen, or statesmen-adventurers, at home--men who
have all the wires of European diplomacy at their finger ends; look at
people, including their own, in the aggregate, without any worry over
the "folks at home"; know what they want much better than they do, and
to get it for them are quite ready to send a few hundred thousand to
their death.

Mr. Ionesco writes a long, double-leaded editorial every day, and very
often he prints with it the speech, or speeches, he made the night
before. In a time like this, he says, those of his way of thinking can't
say too much; they must be "like the French Academicians, who never stop
writing." Now and then, in the intervals of fanning the sparks of war,
he takes his readers behind the scenes of European politics, of which he
knows about as much, perhaps, as any one.

I arrived in Paris the 31st of December, 1912, in the evening. M.
Poincaré received me the 1st of January, at half past eight o'clock in
the morning--an absurd hour in Paris. But I had to go to London in the
afternoon, and M. Poincaré to the Elysee at ten o'clock for the
felicitations of the New Year. I asked M. Poincaré for the support of
France in our difficulties with Bulgaria. M. Poincaré said... I