Notes

The French Academy--the 40 most learned men in France who meet in L'Institut de France and guard the purity of the French language with the vigilance of a duenna--decreed that the word "cocktail" has no place on the tongue of the Frenchman. Not even was coquetcle, a substitute compromise, allowed. The word is outlawed. Georges Clemenceau, "The Tiger," was interviewed in Vendee. He stood under an oak and said: "This is my old friend. A little older than I. It has lived 2,000 years."

The interviewer mentioned the League of Nations. Purred the Tiger: "I thought we were talking about trees. How can you talk of the League when the weather is so sweet, the sky so clear and the oak so beautiful?"

A Polish imposter, who had duped ten French Bishops by pretending to be a prelate of the Roman Catholic Church, was exposed when he entered a railway bar at Saint Brieuc and ordered cognac. The bystanders gazed longingly, so the cleric cried: "Set 'em up for the crowd!" His popularity grew; and at the third round there were three cheers for His Grace. After the fourth round, the "priest" indulged in Rabelaisian tales which shocked even the Breton topers. An investigation followed; and the convivial host was discovered to have been formerly a lackey of the Polish diplomatic mission in Paris.

The Academy finished the first volume, AH, of the dictionary of the French language begun in 1878. At a uniform rate of progress, it was estimated that the dictionary will be completed in 2022.