He first pronounced this
passage in English, and then repeated it in French, enforced by
gestures which so clearly indicated his desire to have his hearers
unmistakably understand him in spite of defective pronunciation of a
foreign tongue that the manifest approval of the audience was
expressed in a curious mingling of sympathetic laughter and prolonged
and serious applause.
A fortnight after the Sorbonne address, I received from a friend, an
American military officer living in Paris who knows well its general
habit of mind, a letter from which I venture to quote here, because it
so strikingly portrays the influence that Mr. Roosevelt exerted as an
orator during his European journey:
I find that Paris is still everywhere talking of Mr. Roosevelt. It
was a thing almost without precedent that this _blase_ city kept
up its interest in him without abatement for eight days; but that
a week after his departure should still find him the main topic of
conversation is a fact which has undoubtedly entered into Paris
history. The _Temps_ [one of the foremost daily newspapers of
Paris] has had fifty-seven thousand copies of his Sorbonne
address printed and distributed free to every schoolteacher in
France and to many other persons.
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