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 The Green Ba Vol. XI.

No. 12.

BOSTON.

December, 1899.

MAITRE FERNAND LABORI. A CHARACTER STUDY. By John De Morgan. "T ABORI may be a great lawyer, but he -I—' is incapable of guile," exclaimed a hard-headed Yankee, as he walked away from the court-house at Rennes one day, during the trial of Captain Dreyfus. The speaker was right, only he might have truthfully said that Labori is a great lawyer. When the eyes of the world were directed to that memorable court-martial in the old capital of Brctagne they rested on a central figure who had undertaken the herculean task of defending the accused, and that cen tral figure, Fernand Labori, is physically and intellectually the foremost member of the French bar. This great lawyer has won his laurels by the sheer effort of genuine talent combined with resolute perseverance, for he owes abso lutely nothing to political influence or par liamentary intrigue. Some thirty-nine years ago, in the town of Rheims, at the house of a railway official, a boy baby entered the world, and his proud parents gave him the name of Fernand. In roseate dreams, both by day and night, his parents saw a bright future for him, and they determined that he should have every advantage they could give him. After being subjected to the educational influences of his time in the Lyc£e of his native town, young Labori was sent to Mainz, in Germany, in order to acquire a practical knowledge of the language of that country, as well as an acquaintance with the requirements of a mercantile career, for his

parents intended him for a soldier in the ranks of trade. Labori mastered the language so rapidly, that he was soon able to utter his thoughts in idiomatic and elegant German, and even to write treatises which attracted attention by their logic and pure language. But book keeping and commercial arithmetic were not to his liking, and he wrote to his father that he could never make a success as a mer chant. His time was not wasted, for he acquired a knowledge of men and of nations which broadened his intellect, and placed him far above the average intellectual Frenchman. His parents were rather disappointed, though they would not admit it. They sug gested that he should study commerce in England, which had been called a " nation of shopkeepers " by the great Napoleon. Fernand lost no time in crossing the channel, and he soon mastered the English language, and talked like an educated English gentle man, but though he worked diligently and faithfully he could not overcome his repug nance to commerce as an avocation. Returning to his home, he won over his parents, and obtained the requisite permis sion to go to Paris and enter the faculty of law. What a change there was in the young man! In the shortest possible time, he ob tained the highest distinction, including learned degrees and gold wreaths. Twice in his student days he gained the title of 5)1