FOOTNOTES: 

[21] Published by courtesy of Lady French and Earl Roberts.

CHAPTER XII

FRENCH, THE MAN

    A Typical Englishman—­Fighting at School—­Napoleon
    Worship—­“A Great Reporter”—­Halting Speeches and Polished
    Prose.  A South African Coincidence—­Mrs. Despard and the
    Newsboy—­The Happy Warrior.

So far, this book has necessarily been chiefly a record of events.  That was inevitable, for the man of action writes his story in deeds.  Nor was there ever a great soldier who made less clamour in the world of newspapers than General French.  He has never adopted the studied reticence of Kitchener nor yet the chill aloofness of certain of his colleagues.  War correspondents are not anathema to him; neither does he shudder at the sight of the reporter’s pencil.  Yet, somehow, few anecdotes cluster round his name.

Perhaps that is because his modesty is not a pose, although it has become almost a tradition.  It is simply a natural trait in a modest and rather retiring disposition.  French simply will not be talked about—­and there is an end of the matter.

If one were asked to describe the man, one might best answer that he is the Englishman to the nth. degree.  It is usual to find that the man of extraordinary merit is in some degree a contrast with and a criticism of the mere average mortal of his set.  The dour urbanity of Kitchener, for instance, is Oriental rather than English, and contrasts strangely with the choleric tradition of the army officer.  So the infinite alertness and constant good humour of Roberts has a quality of Latin esprit very foreign to the English temperament.  But there are no such peculiarities about French.  He is the very essence of healthy normality.

Yet, although of Celtic descent, he is essentially English.  He has not hacked his way to fame in the manner of the Scot, nor has he leapt upon her pedestal with the boisterous humour of the Irishman.  He has got there in the dogged but sporting English way, taking Fortune’s gifts when they came, but never pushing or scrambling for them when they were out of reach.

One catches the spirit of the man in the schoolboy.  When he first went to school at Harrow, the boys, knowing that sisters had been responsible for his education, were prepared to take it out of him.  But as French was ready to fight at the slightest provocation, and equally ready to swear eternal friendship when the fight was done, he quickly won his way through respect to popularity.

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