Word: barthou
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...fathers and a godfather were concerned. Thereby hung a tale, unrevealed until last week, of how a handsome apology enabled great concord to grow out of the furious spat in Geneva last May between glacial, correct British Foreign Secretary Sir John Simon and humorous, mercurial French Foreign Minister Louis Barthou. Knowing nothing of Sir John's deep sorrow at his childless second marriage,* M. Barthou lapsed accidentally into offering a deadly insult to Sir John. The issue was a plan not devised by the Briton but to which he had given approval. "It seems, Sir John," flashed M. Barthou, "that...
...this Sir John Simon flushed beet-red, his secretary paled amid French amazement. This climaxed the public spat over Sir John's proposal to grant a measure of rearmament to Germany which M. Barthou bluntly rejected (TIME, June 11). To all appearances they parted bitter enemies, but just before Sir John left Geneva, M. Barthou, having discovered the nature of his blunder, called to make a handsome apology which Sir John handsomely accepted...
...Exactly!" cried M. Barthou, "I should have preferred to speak a little naughtily rather than so clumsily. Hélas! What I am least ready to forgive myself is my clumsiness...
Since then secret negotiations have been proceeding between Paris, London and Moscow. The fathers of the new scheme to keep Europe's peace are M. Barthou and Soviet Foreign Commissar Maxim Maximovitch Litvinoff, but they need a potent godfather to urge their plans upon Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini. Last week Sir John Simon assumed this role with Augustan magnanimity...
...peerless civil servants of the British Foreign Office took charge of all details. M. Barthou, who crossed the channel for a personal conference with Sir John, ostentatiously returned last week to Paris. British public opinion was prepared for what was coming by a few intimations that what Europe needs is a return to "the Spirit of Locarno." Nine years ago at Locarno, Switzerland, gold pens squiggled in the hands of Benito Mussolini, Austen Chamberlain, and the late great peace men of France and Germany. Aristide Briand and Gustav Stresemann. Today the Locarno Treaty, still in full force, binds...