French. It is fearful for the Germans. May God's curse rest upon the
arrogant men and the unholy ambitions which let loose this horror upon
humanity! Seeing what they have done, and knowing that they have done
it, one would think that mortal brain would grow crazy under the
weight. Perhaps the central brain of all was crazy from the first. But
what sort of government is it under which one crazy brain can wreck
mankind!

If ever one wanders into the high places of mankind, the places whence
the guidance should come, it seems to me that one has to recall the
dying words of the Swedish Chancellor who declared that the folly of
those who governed was what had amazed him most in his experience of
life. Yesterday I met one of these men of power--M. Clemenceau, once
Prime Minister, now the destroyer of governments. He is by nature a
destroyer, incapable of rebuilding what he has pulled down. With his
personal force, his eloquence, his thundering voice, his bitter pen, he
could wreck any policy, but would not even trouble to suggest an
alternative. As he sat before me with his face of an old prizefighter
(he is remarkably like Jim Mace as I can remember him in his later
days), his angry grey eyes and his truculent, mischievous smile, he
seemed to me a very dangerous man. His conversation, if a squirt on one
side and Niagara on the other can be called conversation, was directed
for the moment upon the iniquity of the English rate of exchange, which
seemed to me very much like railing against the barometer. My
companion, who has forgotten more economics than ever Clemenceau knew,
was about to ask whether France was prepared to take the rouble at face
value, but the roaring voice, like a strong gramophone with a blunt
needle, submerged all argument. We have our dangerous men, but we have
no one in the same class as Clemenceau. Such men enrage the people who
know them, alarm the people who don't, set every one by the ears, act