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Show RETICENT JDFFRE OF SPANISH BLOOD Famous Commander in Chief of French Armies Has History. RAPID IN ASCENDING Interviewer of General's Only Living Sister Sheds Light on Man. By GEORGE DTJFRESNE. Special Cable to The Tribune. PARIS, Jan. SO. The character and personality of General Joffre is of immense im-mense interest to Frenchmen these days. As a result a newspaper man made a journey to Rivesaltes, where the generalissimo gen-eralissimo was born, and then interviewed inter-viewed Joffre 's only surviving sister, Madame Artus. Tho interview did not develop much concerning military operations, but a host of interesting trivialities. The first discovery of the scribe was that the Joffres, according to Madame Artus, Ar-tus, are not French at all, so far as blood goes. They are Spanish. According to the tradition in the family, fam-ily, said Madame Artus, her great-greatgrandfather was a Spanish nobleman, named "Gouffre, " who, for political reasons, fled from Spain and settled in southwestern France in the eighteenth century. Of Large Family. The father of the future general in chief was one of a large family, and was left, like .Topsey, "just to grow." When he reached man's estate he adopted adopt-ed the trade of cooper, a- trade he continued con-tinued to exercise even after the death of his mother had made him a landed proprietor in a small way. Joseph Joffre, the present commander in chief, was one of eleven children. Born in 1852, after a brilliant course in the college of Perpignan, he left for Paris at the age of lb to prepare for the entrance examination of the " Ecole Polytechnique. ' ' ills place on the list was unexpectedly low fourteenth and the reason has, in light of later events, a piquancy. Young Joffre, though exceedingly good at mathematics, was 1 ' somewhat weal in German. ' ' A sublieutenant in 1870, Joffre served in the garrison of the beleaguered capital. cap-ital. Throughout a brilliant career of extraordinarily rapid promotion Joffre was a general at 49 he retained his simplicity. sim-plicity. He used to spend his leaves of absence down in Rivesaltes, where he spoke the patois, and played many a game of "mouille" with his old father. It was during one of these games, say's his sister, that he explained to his father how to dig 6lanting trenches on his property as a protection against the ravages of " the spring rains. "I know something about trenches,'.' he is said to have remarked; "dash it, it is my jobl " Satisfied With Events. Madame Artus confided to the reporter re-porter that her big brother big in more senses than one told her sister-in-law in a letter that he is "quite satisfied with the course of events." The chair left vacant at the academy by the death of the Comte de Mun is, it is believed, not to be filled till General Gen-eral Joffre occupies it after the victory. vic-tory. Would such an election be in accordance with the traditions of the " immortals " The Petit Journal cites today the weighty authority of Ernest Kenan. In ISSo, when Ferdinand de Lesseps, the freat engineer, first took his seat in the reach academy, it fell to Reran to pronounce the discourse of reception. The first words of the exquisite stylist, the man of letters par excellence, were these: "Those who for a moment expressed surprise at your election can have but little comprehension of the spirit of our companv. You are a master in the hardest hard-est of "schools, a school that wo have too long neglected that of great action. ac-tion. You are one of the few who have maintained the ancient French tradition tra-dition of brilliant, glorious and fruitful lifB-" Then, turning to the assombly, Renan said, in a firm voice and spacing each word: "Another who is certain to have a seat in our midst is the general who shall bring victory to France. There is a man at whose prose we shall not cavil. We shall elect him by acclamation, caring car-ing nothing for his writings. What a glorious session will bo the session of His reception, and what an honor will be his who is president on that day." That day may be coming. |