Books: Men's Life Catalog*

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Even when a portrait-painter takes to cabinet photography, however, he is apt to turn out a more artistic likeness than a journeyman photographer can. If you do not know much about Lyautey or French colonial policy you will be both interested and entertained by Maurois' sympathetic picture.

Hubert Lyautey was born in Lorraine, to a heredity of aristocracy, military service, absolute filial piety. He naturally entered the army. There he found stupidity in the discipline, incompetence in the red tape. He was glad to be sent out to Indo-China. Under Joseph Simon Gallieni he learned how to be a wise administrator, to let native customs alone, to win over the ruling class, to think in terms of government, not of conquest. Fighting was only the policeman's part of his job: when he could avoid using force by showing it he always did. In Madagascar, still under Gallieni, it was the same story. The scandals of the Dreyfus Affair (1898) found Lyautey out of France. He was accused of sympathizing with both parties. When he was made General and appointed to Algeria his big chance came. By cutting many a Gordian knot, disregarding or disobeying feeble or contradictory orders from Paris, Lyautey added Morocco to French Africa, held his protectorate loyal all through the Great War. Moroccans trusted him; his own subordinates swore by him. One reason: "I muster them at each stage of the march, and explain the day's policy on the map, the result obtained, the reason for each movement—an unusual practice, and all the more appreciated."

When France mobilized, Lyautey sent thousands of colonial troops to help, would have liked to go himself, but the Government could not spare him. In Morocco he was No. 1 man, and there was no No. 2. "In the year 1915 no monarch on the face of this planet wielded a personal power more widespread and untrammelled than General Lyautey." But black days came at home. Briand's Cabinet wanted a popular figure for Minister of War, thought Lyautey would be the man. With misgivings that were justified he took the job. Accustomed to rule, he found his hands were tied; he was no good at being a figurehead and resigned a few days before the Briand Cabinet fell. Restored to Morocco he breathed more easily; he still had some good years left before he retired, a Marshal, in 1925. Lyautey left Africa amid great ovations. His official welcome to Paris was a bill for taxes. He retired to obscurity near his war-ruined old home in Lorraine, among his medals, his memories. This year's Colonial Exposition in charge of which he was put brought him one more blaze of celebrity (TIME. May 11).