Bourgeois

Last week two bright quizzical French eyes twinkled no longer. M. Leon Bourgeois, at 74, relaxed in death the cares of state which had absorbed a career of 49 years.

Having held many portfolios and tired of them; having been Premier for six months (1895); having declined a nomination for President of the Republic (1912), he long remained the revered adviser of Presidents. During the War he was Minister without portfolio in Briand's all-party cabinet.

Then the League of Nations seized his imagination. Under the leadership of Wilson he helped draft the Covenant. In 1919 he received the Nobel Peace prize. On Jan. 16, 1920, he presided as first Chairman of the Council of the League at its first meeting in Paris. In 1923 he resigned the Presidency of the French Senate, which he had held since 1918, in order to devote himself to the League. The recent session of the League Council found him too ill to attend. But he died in a measure triumphant, "the Spiritual Father of the League."