Po?mes de la Libellule―Seireishū?dragonflies flown to Paris

摘要

In the book Saionji kinmochi1 written by KIMURA Ki2, the life of SAIONJI Kinmochi3 is looked back on in a dramatic style. When this book was published, Saionji was eightythree years old. In a situation when the deprivation of liberty was proceeding, Saionji took on the role of recommending prime ministers to the Emperor as the last genro. Furthermore, the first half of his life had already been like a legend. In his teen years, he received an offer to go to France for study after taking part in the BoshinWar. His stay in Europe during his youth reached aboutten years. During his stay, he experienced the ParisCommune, studied law at Sorbonne and associated withnoted people of the age such as Georges Clemenceau4and Edmond de Goncourt5. After he came back to Japan,he published Toyo jiyu shinbun in response to thedemocratic movement with NAKAE Chomin 6 and KOMYOJI Saburo7 who also studied abroad with Saionji.In Act 3 “Seikiro” of Kimura’s book Saionji kinmochi,Saionji, Chomin, Komyoji as well as female writer JudithGautier (1845-1917), meet at Café American in Paris.