men call Destiny.


LEADERSHIP AND THE ROAD TO IT.

Laurier, then in his 46th year, became leader of the Liberal party
in June, 1887. It was supposedly a tentative experimental choice;
but the leadership thus begun ended only with his death in February,
1919, nearly thirty-two years later. Laurier was a French Canadian
of the ninth generation. His first Canadian ancestor, Augustin
Hebert, was one of the little band of soldier colonists who, under
the leadership of Maisonneuve founded Montreal in 1641. Hebert's
granddaughter married a soldier of the regiment Carignan-Salieres,
Francois Cotineau dit Champlaurier. The Heberts were from Normandy,
Cotineau from Savoy. From this merging of northern and southern
French strains the Canadian family of Laurier resulted; this name
was first assumed by the grandson of the soldier ancestor. The
record of the first thirty years of Wilfrid Laurier's life was
indistinguishable from that of scores of other French-Canadian
professional men. Born in the country (St. Lin, Nov. 20, 1841) of
parents in moderate circumstances; educated at one of the numerous
little country colleges; a student at law in Montreal; a young and
struggling lawyer, interested in politics and addicted upon occasion
to political journalism.--French-Canadians by the hundreds have
travelled that road. A fortunate combination of circumstances took
him out of the struggle for a place at the Montreal bar and gave
him a practice in the country combined with the editorship of a
Liberal weekly, a position which made him at once a figure of some
local prominence. Laurier's personal charm and obvious capacity for
politics marked him at once for local leadership. At the age of 30