Georges Clémenceau

Clemenceau was a very old friend and confidant of the impressionist painter Claude Monet. He played a major role in getting his donation to the French state of Les Nymphéas(Water Lilies) paintings, now displayed in Paris' Musée de l'Orangerie.

Deeply influenced by Auguste Comte, J. S. Mill, and Charles Darwin ideology, liberation and usual rights were of prime importance to Clemenceau.

It was during his in teaching career in Stamford, he got married on 23 June 1869 to Mary Eliza Plummer, one of his pupils at school.

Clemenceau was born on 28, 1841, at Mouilleron-en-Pareds in Vendee, Western France to Sophie Eucharie Gautreau and Benjamin Clemenceau.

His father Benjamin, a non practicing physician, was a political activist. Popular as a devotee of the 1789 Revolution, he was responsible for shaping his son’s inclination towards Revolution and Catholic detest.

In 1858, post his education in the Nantes Lycee, he got his French baccalaureate of letters.

In November 1861, he was taken to Paris by his father to study medicine where he came in contact with the youth who were leading the republican opposition through an association called Agis Comme Tu Penses (Act as You Think).

Clemenceau initiated a journal entitled Le Travail (“Work”) in December 1861. It covered his further course of action in the political sphere but it was seized by the police.

He returned to Paris in 1870 after the French defeat at the Battle of Sedan during the Franco-Prussian War and the fall of the Second French Empire. After his return, he became the mayor of Montmartre and was elected to the National Assembly for the 18th arrondissement.

His efforts to settle a compromise between the radical leaders, the commune and the French Government after the power seizure by the Paris Commune in March 1871 could not be successful.

He had to forego the Mayor post due to pressure from the Commune as being non authoritative on legal grounds.

He tried his luck with the Paris Commune Council but remained unsuccessful. It was only after the fall of the Commune in 1871 that he secured a position in the Paris Municipal council on 23 July 1871 in the Clignan court quarter. He remained in service till 1876 as the secretary, vice-president and finally a President.

He held membership of the chamber of deputies as a Radical Republican from 1876 .The following decade saw Clemenceau’s major focus on journalism.