Show SECRET OF LOVE IS REVEALED premier lived a bachelor after romance failed paris the secret of why arts tide briand eleven times premier of france a lover of children remained a confirmed bachelor until his death a few days ago has been solved by the story of an unhappy love affair now being told for the first time the attitude ot of the great orator and statesman toward marriage dates to the early days when he be was a struggling law student in his native nantes was a breton maiden who received the homage of all the young men of the best fa families milles but this girl jeanne Kerman dec by name nam ewas was ambitious and had declared that she would only listen to the wooing of a man nith a brilliant future she refused briand she refused to entertain the impecunious briand of humble origin odgin and cast in her lot with a young man of his own oin age one of his friends a member of a well known family and a brilliant star of local debating societies for whom a great future was predicted twenty years later the man of brilliance had emerged from prison after serving a sentence for fraud and he be and his ambitious wife were reduced to the direst straits living in a miserable attic in the most squalid section of paris at the time aristide briand who had up to then devoted himself to the law and journalism was just coming into his own as a politician and ills his dazzling eloquence earned for him the lie admiration of women of wealth and position who would gladly have linked their fortunes with the coming mao mad but briand remained faithful to his first love and cherished the hope that one da day v i they would be reunited when he became premier though i by no means rich mr briand arranged to give his friend a new start for the sake of the woman they had both loved but his efforts were unavailing and after a brief career as an official in the colonial office in france and africa the man fell again dragging his wife down with him both disappeared and when they were traced again the man was at the point of death and the woman was a wreck of lier her former self again offers marriage when the husband had been in the grave a year briand offered marriage but perhaps because she had realized the mistake she had made in rejecting him in the first instance she stoutly refused ills his offer saying that she had no right to burden him with a woman with a past who was an ugly shadow of her former self and was representative of naught but a wasted life in any case she said her own death could not be tar far off and in fact she died about two years rears afterwards she was buried in tin an unmarked grave in the little cemetery of co cherel cli erel where the remains of briand now rest r ach year on the anniversary of the womans comans death al briand mede made a point of journeying to Co cocherell cocherel Coclie cherel rel to lay lowers flowers on the unknown grave and not even the most important political engagements could induce him to omit this tribute to the dead woman lie had loved with such obstinacy for nearly a half century |