The Bollingen Foundation was an educational foundation set up along the lines of a university press in 1945. It was named after Bollingen Tower , Carl Jung's country home in Bollingen, Switzerland . Funding was provided by Paul Mellon and his wife Mary Conover Mellon . The Foundation became inactive in 1968, and its publications were later re-issued by Princeton University Press .
212-538: Initially the foundation was dedicated to the dissemination of Jung's work, which was a particular interest of Mary Conover Mellon . The Bollingen Series of books that it sponsored now includes more than 250 related volumes. The Bollingen Foundation also awarded more than 300 fellowships. These fellowships were an important, continuing source of funding for poets like Alexis Leger and Marianne Moore , scholars like Károly Kerényi and Mircea Eliade, artists like Isamu Noguchi , among many others. The Foundation also sponsored
424-412: A U.S. state or Washington, D.C. can vote in presidential elections. Puerto Rico has eight senatorial districts , 40 representative districts , and 78 municipalities ; there are no first-order administrative divisions as defined by the U.S. government. Municipalities are subdivided into wards or barrios , and those into sectors. Each municipality has a mayor and a municipal legislature elected for
636-563: A fig leaf , i.e., associated with the covering up of an act that is actually embarrassing or distasteful with something of innocuous appearance. Puerto Rico remains a territory of the United States, exercising substantial internal self-government, but subordinated to the U.S. Constitution in areas such as foreign affairs or defense. For this reason, it is not considered to be a full-fledged associated state under either international or U.S. domestic law. The history of Puerto Rico began with
848-442: A voyage de Rome and put little attention to the details of the agreement, which inspired St. Léger to threaten to resign in protest. St. Léger who went with Laval to Rome for the summit with Mussolini was excluded from the private meetings where Laval essentially gave Mussolini a free hand to invade Ethiopia. Likewise, St. Léger felt that Laval was too keen to make his voyage de Moscow to meet Joseph Stalin , which St. Léger wrote
1060-588: A "rather strange" character who chose to undercut policy initiatives that he disapproved of. Between 13 and 15 May 1935, St. Léger went to Moscow with the premier of the republic, Pierre Laval , to sign the Franco-Soviet alliance. Foreign visitors were rarely allowed to see Joseph Stalin in the Kremlin, and it was considered a great honor that Laval and the rest of the French visitors were allowed to meet Stalin along with
1272-534: A Polish delegation led by the Military Affairs Minister, General Tadeusz Kasprzycki , visited Paris to strength the Franco-Polish alliance; to work out staff plans if Germany did invade Poland and to facilitate French arms shipments to Poland. General Maurice Gamelin and Kasprzycki signed a military accord, which remained a dead letter as no political accord was signed. Bonnet claimed to Gamelin that
1484-436: A binding referendum. The bill does not decide PR's fate, it simply prepares the United States to respond the outcome of referendum. In the 5 November 2024 elections, there was three choices in a non-binding referendum which included Statehood, Independence, or Independence with Free Association on the ballot; Statehood won with 59%. In addition, on November 5, 2024, Jennifer Gonzalez won the office of Governor of Puerto Rico in
1696-573: A breach with Britain over the issue of Spain. He therefore argued to Blum that France should cease supplying arms to the Spanish Republic and agree to the British plan for arms embargo on both sides. Within the Foreign Office he led the optimist faction that believed that Germany was unstable and that if Britain and France stood up to Hitler, he would back down. In October 1936, St. Léger welcomed
1908-409: A cabinet meeting of 31 August 1939, Daladier was described as having "bristled like a hedgehog" at the cabinet meeting as he exploded in rage at Bonnet as he warned the planned conference was a "trap" and he accused Bonnet of sullying France's honor with his opposition to declaring war. At a crucial moment, Daladier read out a letter from Coulondre that St. Léger had kept secret from Bonnet that won over
2120-728: A conference inLondon with the Foreign Secretary Sir John Simon ; Sir Robert Vansittart , the Permanent Undersecretary at the Foreign Office; Sir Anthony Eden , the League of Nations minister; Orme Sargent and Lord Stanhope . Simon ridiculed French fears of Nazi Germany, and when Barthou said an "Eastern Locarno" was necessary to protect France and its allies in Eastern Europe, Simon incredulously replied "To protect yourselves from Germany?" Barthou, known as one of
2332-428: A decaying ruin as his family's plantation is being reclaimed by the jungle, while all of the books in the family library have rotted away. The autobiographical nature of the Éloges is underscored by a major character in the poems, an authoritarian father who owned the plantation, depicted as having omniscient power over both his family and the plantation. For St. Léger, only poetry endures and allowed him to recapture
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#17328454087922544-423: A different line with the British than what he favored. In a memo he wrote about the "probable attitude" of Britain and Poland, St. Léger wrote that the foreign policy of Colonel Beck was entirely "cynical and false", and that Beck wanted a military alliance with Britain, which he believed the British would refuse. St. Léger further predicated that Beck would follow his usual "hand-to-mouth policy" and moved closer to
2756-468: A diplomat to publish fiction. The Anabase was widely ignored upon publication, but was praised by various poets such as T. S. Eliot , Giuseppe Ungaretti , Hugo von Hofmannsthal and Rainer Maria Rilke as a poem of much visionary power. Though St. Léger wrote only in French, the critical reception of his poems tended to be more positive abroad than in France. St. Léger's style of poetry, though modernist,
2968-524: A dismissive view of France's allies in Eastern Europe as he told Phipps: "These governments would decide their attitude in accordance with the intentions of France and Great Britain. In any case, they were only what he called 'corollaries'". Starting on 18 March 1939, St. Léger took to cultivating American public opinion by using 25, 000 francs to cover the travel expense to send out various English-speaking French cultural figures such as André Maurois , Ève Curie , Jules Romains , and Georges Duhamel to tour
3180-467: A four-year term. The municipality of San Juan is the oldest, founded in 1521; the next earliest settlements are San Germán in 1570, Coamo in 1579, Arecibo in 1614, Aguada in 1692 and Ponce in 1692. Increased settlement in the 18th century saw 30 more communities established, following 34 in the 19th century. Six were founded in the 20th century, the most recent being Florida in 1971. Since 1952, Puerto Rico has had three main political parties:
3392-525: A general basis and usual plane for peace" and to "not get involved in political matters which it should leave to the Chancelleries". French decision-makers were far more keen on having the Soviet Union join the "peace front" to protect Poland than British decision-makers, and St. Léger was annoyed with the attitude of Chamberlain who continued to insist that Britain would never sign a military alliance with
3604-554: A hold on my thoughts, a fascination which approaches hallucination.” The American poet Archibald MacLeish wrote that in China St. Léger "learned the art by which a man defends his life from others and even himself". During his time in China, St. Léger wrote his epic poem Anabase . The Anabase ostensibly concerns an expedition from Beijing through the Gobi desert to reach the sea, which serves as
3816-549: A hundred" that the Anglo-French-Soviet talks "would be successfully concluded in the near-future". On 30 June 1939, St. Léger told Bullitt that the best hope of stopping the Danzig crisis from turning into a war were an alliance with the Soviet Union and American military aid to France, especially aircraft. St. Léger warned Bullitt that Hitler seemed very intent on invading Poland and that the only way to stop him would be to amend
4028-804: A key part of the Spanish Empire from the early years of the exploration, conquest and colonization of the New World . The island was a major military post during many wars between Spain and other European powers for control of the region in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries. In 1593, Portuguese soldiers, sent from Lisbon by order of Phillip II, composed the first garrison of the San Felipe del Morro fortress in Puerto Rico. Some brought their wives, while others married Puerto Rican women, and today there are many Puerto Rican families with Portuguese last names. The smallest of
4240-752: A long history of service in the U.S. Armed Forces and, since 1917, they have been included in the U.S. compulsory draft when it has been in effect. Though the Commonwealth government has its own tax laws, residents of Puerto Rico, contrary to a popular misconception, do pay U.S. federal taxes: customs taxes (which are subsequently returned to the Puerto Rico Treasury), import/export taxes, federal commodity taxes, social security taxes, etc. Residents pay federal payroll taxes , such as Social Security and Medicare , as well as Commonwealth of Puerto Rico income taxes. All federal employees, those who do business with
4452-655: A long letter to both the British Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax and the prime minister Neville Chamberlain that denounced Colonel Beck as a ruthless, unscrupulous and devious opportunist whose word was not to be trusted and who was about to ally Poland to the Reich . At a meeting with Phipps, St. Léger expressed the hope that Britain would not "put the cart before the horse" by subordinating decision-making to King Carol II of Romania, whom St. Léger distrusted almost as much as he distrusted Beck. St. Léger had
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#17328454087924664-882: A low voice". Chauvel described St. Léger as a dilettante who talked about Chinese philosophy and poetry just as much as current events. St. Léger normally arrived at work at 11 am, would leave for lunch at noon and only return to the Quai d'Orsay at 4 pm. Despite his diplomatic duties, St. Léger was often at the Café Procope , where he spoke about the latest in the cultural avant-garde with Jean Cocteau , Paul Morand , and Jean Giraudoux . Morand wrote: "I admire his modesty, his broad sweeping views, his elevated and active mind, his playful imagination and mature wisdom like that of an elderly man, his selflessness, his secret life, his unfurnished apartments filled with trunks and his nomadic childhood". The columnist André Géraud who wrote under
4876-417: A metaphor, as Little phrased it, “an expedition beyond human boundaries, symbolizing man’s march through time and space and consciousness.” In a letter to André Gide in 1921, he described Beijing as "the astronomical capital of the world, outside of space, outside of time, and ruled by the absolute". When ordered to return to France, St. Léger took the longest and most convoluted route as he travelled over
5088-554: A military force to evict the Wehrmacht from the Rhineland as he noted the remiliziation placed France in grave long-term danger. General Maurice Gamelin insisted that only a general mobilization would provide the sufficient force to expel the Wehrmacht from the Rhineland, which as a considerable surprise who thought of a "police operation" to expel the Wehrmacht from the Rhineland. Cameron wrote: "Even severe critics recognize that Léger and
5300-408: A negative reply. At that point, Bonnet took the phone from St. Léger to tell Coulondre that the expiry of the ultimatum was to be moved up to 5 pm on 3 September 1939. On 13 September 1939, Daladier finally fired Bonnet as Foreign Minister as he stated that Bonnet's foreign policy was not his foreign policy. As Daladier was also the premier, he did not have much time for diplomacy and St. Léger
5512-476: A person. Both Phipps and François-Poncet believed it was possible to "detach" Fascist Italy from alignment with Nazi Germany, and both felt that St. Léger was the principle man blocking rapprochement with Italy. Cameron wrote that events proved St. Léger correct about Italy as even though the French did not make the concessions to the Italians that Bonnet and François-Poncet favored, Italy still remained neutral when
5724-446: A rather mysterious character whose most important belief was that France could not afford to be estranged from Britain. St. Léger had a dark complexion and a popular rumor had it that he was of partially African descent, hence his nickname " le mulâtre du quai d’Orsay " ("the mulatto of the Quai d'Orsay"), which he hated. The French historian Jean-Baptiste Duroselle described St. Léger as a "strange diplomat". The eccentric St. Leger
5936-481: A retreat on the part of the Allies and under the threat of German force, the democracies would soon find themselves faced with wholly unacceptable Axis terms. There would be war anyway and under especially unfavorable conditions. No, the trap is too obvious". In an unusual move, Bonnet denounced St. Léger in a press conference for having sabotaged his policy as he contended that Mussolini's peace conference would have ended
6148-520: A secondary but strategically significant role compared to larger and wealthier colonies like Peru and New Spain . By the late 19th century, a distinct Puerto Rican identity began to emerge, centered around a fusion of European , African , and indigenous elements. In 1898, following the Spanish–American War , Puerto Rico was acquired by the United States . Puerto Ricans have been U.S. citizens since 1917 and can move freely between
6360-578: A sign of solidarity. The two delegations boarded a slow-moving ship, the City of Exeter , that moved at only 13 knots per hour to take them to Leningrad (modern St. Petersburg) and hence to Moscow. In common with other French officials, St. Léger was very much enraged at Colonel Beck who was completely against allowing the Red Army to enter Poland if Germany should invade while the Soviets insisted on such transit rights as
6572-588: A significant degree of federal control involved in its establishment and operations. In particular, the authority to establish the control board derives from the federal government's constitutional power to "make all needful rules and regulations" regarding U.S. territories; The president would appoint all seven voting members of the board; and the board would have broad sovereign powers to effectively overrule decisions by Puerto Rico's legislature, governor, and other public authorities. There would be another referendum in 2017 in Puerto Rico, in favor of statehood although it
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6784-454: A state of panic as it was believed that the capital would fall within hours. St. Léger oversaw the burning of the records of the Quai d'Orsay which were thrown into a giant bonfire in the garden of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Reynaud reshuffled his cabinet on 18 May 1940 and appointed Daladier as the new foreign minister. Portes lobbied Reynaud to dismiss St. Léger before Daladier arrived at
6996-594: A strong hand at the helm of French foreign policy and they didn't like it. Thus, the incident added another black mark to their dossier on Léger as a public enemy of the Reich ". On 5 April 1938, St. Léger attended a conference at the Quai d'Orsay concerning Eastern Europe alongside Joseph Paul-Boncour the Foreign Minister; Robert Coulondre , the ambassador in Moscow; Léon Noël , the ambassador in Warsaw; Victor de Lacroix,
7208-543: A time limit on Mussolini's proposed conference, saying that otherwise the Germans would stall and the war would continue. This message to Corbin was the precise opposite of what Bonnet had wanted Corbin to tell Lord Halifax. Faced with a choice between obeying the foreign minister and the secretary-general, Corbin chose the latter. At a crucial meeting of the French cabinet, Bonnet argued that France should not declare war on Germany and instead embrace Mussolini's conference. Before
7420-412: A translation of Pindar . He published his first book of poetry, Éloges , in 1910. The Éloges ( Praises ) reflected St. Léger's nostalgia for Guadeloupe. The Éloges concern a quest by the narrator for the "other shores", namely outre-mer (a place beyond the sea) and outre-songe (a place beyond dreams). Much of the Éloges are concerned with the lieux de mémoire ("sites of memory") that capture
7632-410: A tribute in the fourth volume of À la recherche du temps perdu , the ominously titled Sodom et Gomorrah , where two servants, Marie Gineste and Céleste Albart, find the Éloges by St. Léger in the bedroom of the narrator. After reading some of his poems, Céleste states that St. Léger has written riddles instead of poems and tosses the book down in disgust. Despite the apparently unflattering nature of
7844-490: A vote in the U.S. Congress , which oversees it under the Puerto Rico Federal Relations Act of 1950 . Congress approved a territorial constitution in 1952, allowing residents of the archipelago to elect a governor in addition to a senate and house of representatives . The political status of Puerto Rico is an ongoing debate . Beginning in the mid-20th century, the U.S. government , together with
8056-695: A war. St. Léger advocated that France should vote for sanctions against Japan at the League General Assembly as he argued that this was the best way of stopping a war in Asia. St. Léger wrote that the colony of French Indochina, France's other colonies in the Pacific, and its special rights in China, especially the French Concession in Shanghai, were profitable and worth defending against Japan. St. Léger wrote
8268-498: A world not much frequented by other diplomats. But he was also capable of their world, experienced in many worlds, and not least in the worldly society of the French capital. His courtesy was famous, though not always comfortable, and of a kind to put him out of reach. Many and most of all the worldly and the ambitious, were made uneasy by his aloofness, the subtleties of his language, and the sinuous progressions of his thought". The British historian Julien Jackson described St. Léger as
8480-461: Is Spanish for "rich port". Puerto Ricans often call the island Borinquen , a derivation of Borikén , its Indigenous Taíno name, which is popularly said to mean "Land of the Valiant Lord". The terms boricua , borinqueño , and borincano are commonly used to identify someone of Puerto Rican heritage, and derive from Borikén and Borinquen respectively. The island
8692-510: Is also popularly known in Spanish as La Isla del Encanto , meaning "the island of enchantment". Columbus named the island San Juan Bautista , in honor of Saint John the Baptist , while the capital city was named Ciudad de Puerto Rico ("Rich Port City"). Eventually traders and other maritime visitors came to refer to the entire island as Puerto Rico, while San Juan became the name used for
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8904-573: Is headed by the governor , currently Pedro Pierluisi Urrutia . The legislative branch consists of the bicameral Legislative Assembly , made up of a Senate as its upper chamber and a House of Representatives as its lower chamber; the Senate is headed by a president , currently José Luis Dalmau , while the House is headed by the speaker of the House , currently Tatito Hernández . The governor and legislators are elected by popular vote every four years, with
9116-474: Is land and 1,900 sq mi (4,900 km ) is water. Puerto Rico is larger than Delaware and Rhode Island but smaller than Connecticut . The maximum length of the main island from east to west is 110 mi (180 km), and the maximum width from north to south is 40 mi (64 km). Puerto Rico is the smallest of the Greater Antilles . It is 80% of the size of Jamaica , just over 18% of
9328-607: Is located in this range. Another important peak is El Yunque , one of the highest in the Sierra de Luquillo at the El Yunque National Forest , with an elevation of 3,494 ft (1,065 m). Puerto Rico has 17 lakes, all man-made, and more than 50 rivers , most of which originate in the Cordillera Central. Rivers in the northern region of the island are typically longer and of higher water flow rates than those of
9540-545: Is lost. France is alone against three dictators. Great Britain is not ready and the United States has not even amended the neutrality act. Once again, the democracies have arrived too late". It is unlikely that this statement represented St. Léger's real feelings and was more likely a gambit to try to force the Roosevelt administration to provide more aid to France. Welles wrote he was struck by "magnificent clarity and logic" shown by St. Léger just as he had "as always shown" and by
9752-481: Is the coquí , a small frog easily identified by the sound of its call, from which it gets its name. Most coquí species (13 of 17) live in the El Yunque National Forest , the only tropical rainforest in the U.S. Forest Service system, located in the northeast of the island. It was previously known as the Caribbean National Forest. El Yunque is home to more than 240 plants, 26 of which are endemic to
9964-608: The A. W. Mellon lectures at the National Gallery of Art . In 1948, the foundation donated $ 10,000 to the Library of Congress to be used toward a $ 1,000 Bollingen Prize for the best poetry each year. The Library of Congress fellows, who in that year included T. S. Eliot , W. H. Auden and Conrad Aiken , gave the 1949 prize to Ezra Pound for his 1948 Pisan Cantos . Their choice was highly controversial, in particular because of Pound's fascist and anti-Semitic politics. Following
10176-855: The Abyssinia Crisis , St. Léger proposed in November 1935 a meeting between the British Foreign Secretary Sir Samuel Hoare with Laval. On 7–8 December 1935, Hoare met with Laval in Paris where the two agreed to the Hoare–Laval Pact under which Italy would receive two-thirds of Ethiopia in exchange for ending the war. St. Leger was opposed to the Hoare-Laval Pact that essentially rewarded Italy for invading Ethiopia. He saw Laval's policy of seeking to improve relations with Italy at
10388-544: The American model , with separation of powers subject to the jurisdiction and sovereignty of the United States. All governmental powers are delegated by the United States Congress , with the head of state being the president of the United States . As an unincorporated territory , Puerto Rico lacks full protection under the U.S. Constitution. The government of Puerto Rico is composed of three branches. The executive
10600-509: The Anabase . Leger was warm to classical music and knew Igor Stravinsky , Nadia Boulanger , and Les Six . In Parisian intellectual and artistic circles, St. Léger was considered to be rising poet, and he maintained a close friendship with Marcel Proust , whose work he in turn much admired. As Proust worked on the later volumes of his magnum opus À la recherche du temps perdu , St. Léger offered him advice and encouragement. Proust paid St. Léger
10812-640: The Cabo Rojo , Desecheo , Culebra and Vieques National Wildlife Refuges , and in the Caja de Muertos and Mona and Monito Islands Nature Reserves . Examples of endemic species found in this ecoregion are the higo chumbo ( Harrisia portoricensis ), the Puerto Rican crested toad ( Peltophryne lemur ), and the Mona ground iguana ( Cyclura stejnegeri ), the largest land animal native to Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico has three of
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#173284540879211024-540: The Department of War . A U.S. Supreme Court ruling, Ortega v. Lara , 202 U.S. 339, 342 (1906), involving the Foraker Act and referring to the island as "the acquired country", soon affirmed that the U.S. Constitution applied within its territory and that any domestic Puerto Rican laws which did not conflict with it remained in force. The Jones Act of 1917, which made Puerto Ricans U.S. citizens , paved
11236-576: The Dominican Republic in the Greater Antilles and the U.S. Virgin Islands in the Lesser Antilles , it consists of the eponymous main island and numerous smaller islands, including Vieques , Culebra , and Mona . With approximately 3.2 million residents , it is divided into 78 municipalities , of which the most populous is the capital municipality of San Juan , followed by those within
11448-451: The Greater Antilles , Puerto Rico was a stepping-stone in the passage from Europe to Cuba, Mexico, Central America, and the northern territories of South America. Throughout most of the 19th century until the conclusion of the Spanish–American War , Puerto Rico and Cuba were the last two Spanish colonies in the New World; they served as Spain's final outposts in a strategy to regain control of
11660-467: The Köppen climate classification is mostly tropical rainforest . Temperatures are warm to hot year round, averaging near 85 °F (29 °C) in lower elevations and 70 °F (21 °C) in the mountains. Easterly trade winds pass across the island year round. Puerto Rico has a rainy season , which stretches from April into November, and a dry season stretching from December to March. The mountains of
11872-813: The Popular Democratic Party (PPD in Spanish), the New Progressive Party (PNP in Spanish) and the Puerto Rican Independence Party (PIP). The three parties stand for different political status. The PPD, for example, seeks to maintain the island's status with the U.S. as a commonwealth , while the PNP seeks to make Puerto Rico a U.S. state . Meanwhile, the PIP seeks to make Puerto Rico a sovereign nation free from U.S. authority. In terms of party strength,
12084-622: The Puerto Rico Department of Natural Resources . There are many other even smaller islets , like Monito , located near Mona, and Isla de Cabras and La Isleta de San Juan , both located on the San Juan Bay . The latter is the only inhabited islet with communities like Old San Juan and Puerta de Tierra , which are connected to the main island by bridges. The Commonwealth of Puerto Rico has an area of 5,320 square miles (13,800 km ), of which 3,420 sq mi (8,900 km )
12296-744: The Puerto Rico Industrial Development Company , launched a series of economic projects to develop Puerto Rico into an industrial high-income economy. It is classified by the International Monetary Fund as a developed jurisdiction with an advanced, high-income economy ; it ranks 40th on the Human Development Index . The major sectors of Puerto Rico's economy are manufacturing , primarily pharmaceuticals , petrochemicals , and electronics, followed by services , namely tourism and hospitality. Puerto Rico
12508-576: The Reich when the Chamberlain government refused to "undertake a definite commitment" to defend Poland. Regarding the United Kingdom, St. Léger predicated that "France and Great Britain were at the turning of the road". During the Danzig crisis , St. Léger very much favored Daladier's plans for a "peace front" of the Soviet Union, France and the United Kingdom to deter Germany from invading Poland. During
12720-560: The San Juan metropolitan area . Spanish and English are the official languages of the government , though Spanish predominates. Puerto Rico was settled by a succession of Amerindian peoples beginning 2,000 to 4,000 years ago; these included the Ortoiroid , Saladoid , and Taíno . It was claimed by Spain following the arrival of Christopher Columbus in 1493 and subsequently colonized by Juan Ponce de León in 1508. Puerto Rico
12932-773: The Strait of Gibraltar that linked the Mediterranean Sea to the Atlantic Ocean led the possibility of a German military presence in Spanish Morocco to be considered unacceptable in both Paris and London. As the Foreign Minister Yvon Delbos was out of Paris, St. Léger was in charge of the Quai d'Orsay and he acted with dispatch, having meeting with the German ambassador Count Johannes von Welczeck , where he protested in
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#173284540879213144-452: The U.S. Treasury . Residents of Puerto Rico pay into Social Security, and are thus eligible for Social Security benefits upon retirement. They are excluded from the Supplemental Security Income , and the island receives a smaller fraction of the Medicaid funding it would receive if it were a U.S. state. Also, Medicare providers receive less-than-full state-like reimbursements for services rendered to beneficiaries in Puerto Rico, even though
13356-424: The UNESCO Man and the Biosphere Programme : Luquillo Biosphere Reserve represented by El Yunque National Forest and the Guánica Biosphere Reserve . Species endemic to the archipelago number 239 plants, 16 birds and 39 amphibians / reptiles , recognized as of 1998. Most of these (234, 12 and 33 respectively) are found on the main island. The most recognizable endemic species and a symbol of Puerto Rican pride
13568-408: The archipelago and the mainland . However, residents of Puerto Rico are disenfranchised from federal elections and generally do not pay federal income tax . In common with four other territories , Puerto Rico sends a nonvoting representative to the U.S. Congress , called a Resident Commissioner , and participates in presidential primaries ; as it is not a state, Puerto Rico does not have
13780-422: The Éloges is one where his family's plantation exists in an idealized world severed from any sense of history, which reflected St Léger's discomfort with the fact that his family owned slaves in the past (slavery was abolished in France in 1848). Several passages in the Éloges imply an incestuous relationship between the father and the sister of the narrator, such as the line "a man is hard, his daughter tender";
13992-402: The "innately liberal nature of his political philosophy". Relations between France and Britain were often strained during the winter of 1939–1940 and in March 1940 Daladier told St. Léger "that what had really taken the stuffing out of him was his loss of faith in his ability ever to induce the British government to take prompt action or a firm line". St. Léger was close to Daladier, and after
14204-448: The "peace front" to be created in one form or another, and the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact came as a shocking and most unpleasant surprise in Paris. In desperation, Daladier ordered General Joseph Doumenc to tell the lie that Beck had finally granted the transit rights. Because such hopes had been invested in the "peace front" in France, the debate over who was responsible for its failure was especially bitter. Reynaud accused St. Léger of being
14416-470: The 17th century. The Léger family were well off and Léger had a happy boyhood. Léger was closer to his warm and loving mother than his cold and distant father. The French scholar Marie-Noëlle Little wrote: "Growing up surrounded by the luxurious fauna and flora of the West Indies, Alexis perhaps could not but develop an interest in nature...". After the Spanish-American War that saw the United States annex Puerto Rico and occupy Cuba, rumors were rampant in
14628-432: The 1950 prize to Wallace Stevens . In 1968, the Foundation became inactive. It was largely subsumed into the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation , which continued funding of the Bollingen Prize. The Bollingen Series was given to Princeton University Press to carry on and complete. Over its lifetime, the Bollingen Foundation had expended about $ 20 million. Thomas Bender has written, When Paul Mellon decided in 1963 to dissolve
14840-497: The 2008 general election. Four years later, the 2012 election saw the emergence of the Movimiento Unión Soberanista (English: Sovereign Union Movement) and the Partido del Pueblo Trabajador (English: Working People's Party) but none obtained more than 1% of the vote. Other non-registered parties include the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party , the Socialist Workers Movement , and the Hostosian National Independence Movement . The nature of Puerto Rico's political relationship with
15052-416: The 2024 general election, with nearly 40% of the vote, who is pro-statehood. Puerto Rico consists of the main island of Puerto Rico and various smaller islands, including Vieques , Culebra , Mona , Desecheo , and Caja de Muertos . Of these five, only Culebra and Vieques are inhabited year-round. Mona, which has played a key role in maritime history, is uninhabited most of the year except for employees of
15264-541: The 3 November 2020 general elections; the ballot asked one question: "Should Puerto Rico be admitted immediately into the Union as a State ?" The results showed that 52 percent of Puerto Rico voters answered yes. In the United States in the early 2020s, the Puerto Rico Status Act was being worked on by Congress, and H.R. 8393 passed the House in 2022- though it has not passed the Senate; this bill would support PR making
15476-592: The American continents. Realizing that it was in danger of losing its two remaining Caribbean territories, the Spanish Crown revived the Royal Decree of Graces of 1815 . The decree was printed in Spanish, English and French in order to attract Europeans, with the hope that the independence movements would lose their popularity and strength with the arrival of new settlers. Free land was offered to those who wanted to populate
15688-511: The American neutrality acts to allow France to buy modern American aircraft and for a "peace front" of the Soviet Union, France and Great Britain. Ever since the Abyssinia crisis of 1935–1936, it had been French policy to repair relations with Italy, which St. Léger disliked. French plans for a war with Germany required bringing over soldiers from Algeria and the rest of the Maghreb to compensate for
15900-832: The Atlantic, is located about 71 mi (114 km) north of Puerto Rico at the boundary between the Caribbean and North American plates. It is 170 mi (270 km) long. At its deepest point, named the Milwaukee Deep , it is almost 27,600 ft (8,400 m) deep. The Mona Canyon , located in the Mona Passage between Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic, is another prominent oceanic landform with steep walls measuring between 1.25 and 2.17 miles (2.01 and 3.49 km) in height from bottom to top. The climate of Puerto Rico in
16112-439: The Atlantic. His best subjects as a student were the natural sciences. St Léger always felt very close to nature in general, and he had a special interest in ornithology as birds fascinated him. St. Léger had a strong sense of being an outsider in France and called himself a "man of the Atlantic" who was equally at home on both sides of the Atlantic. Throughout his life, St Léger had a preference for islands and peninsulas over
16324-513: The Bollingen Foundation, he said that the founding generation was reaching the age of retirement, and it would be hard for others to maintain the original mission and standards. What he might have said was that the Bollingen Foundation was the work of a single generation. For two decades its concerns had been at the center of Western intellectual life, but the 1960s saw a shift in the cultural preoccupations and critical concerns of intellect in
16536-507: The British ambassador in Berlin between 1933 and 1937 where he became a close friend of François-Poncet, who served as the French ambassador in Berlin between 1931 and 1938. All through the spring and summer of 1939, Phipps wrote letters to François-Poncet that accused St. Léger of "Italophobia" and of being rigidly hostile towards the Fascist regime as Phipps noted that St. Léger disliked Mussolini as
16748-432: The British and the French drove Mussolini into an alliance with Hitler. Ironically, Mussolini responded to Germany, Britain and France in inverse proportion to their degree of dishonesty and their threat to Italy: Germany, which consistently treated Italy worse than did the other two countries, was rewarded with Mussolini's friendship; France, which generally offered Italy the highest level of co-operation and true partnership,
16960-419: The British negotiating tactics for the mission to Moscow, which as defined by Lord Halifax stated: "The British delegation is to conduct negotiations very slowly, keeping abreast of the political discussions". By contrast, the French favored the negotiations for the "peace front" to be completed as soon as possible. The two differing tempo of negotiations favored by the British and French reflected their views on
17172-651: The British policy during the Sudetenland crisis of seeking concessions from Beneš out of the belief that ultimately the Chamberlain government would come to see that Adolf Hitler was the problem in Czechoslovak-German relations after Beneš made enough concessions, and then swing around to the support of Czechoslovakia. He accompanied the French Premier Édouard Daladier at the Munich Conference in 1938, where
17384-554: The Caribbean Sea and North Atlantic Ocean. On average, a quarter of its annual rainfall is contributed from tropical cyclones , which are more prevalent during periods of La Niña than El Niño . A cyclone of tropical storm strength passes near Puerto Rico, on average, every five years. A hurricane passes in the vicinity of the island, on average, every seven years. Since 1851, the Lake Okeechobee Hurricane (also known as
17596-606: The Catholic Church hierarchy were closeted gay men who had been blackmailed into working for the Fascist regime. St. Léger called the Pope's mediation offer a power play by Mussolini, and stated that Cardinal Maglione, the right-hand man of the Pontiff, was acting as an Italian rather as an agent of the Vatican. St. Léger ended by saying the Vatican should restrict itself to appeals for peace "on
17808-414: The Cordillera Central create a rain shadow and are the main cause of the variations in the temperature and rainfall that occur over very short distances. The mountains can also cause wide variation in local wind speed and direction due to their sheltering and channeling effects, adding to the climatic variation. Daily temperature changes seasonally are quite small in the lowlands and coastal areas. Between
18020-519: The Franco-German border. As long as the Rhineland was demilitarized, western Germany was open to a French offensive, which protected France's allies in Eastern Europe such as Czechoslovakia and Poland from German aggression. In his "political testament" written after his return from London, St. Léger wrote that war was "inevitable" as he predicated that Germany would refortify the Franco-German border and invade France's allies in Eastern Europe, secure in
18232-521: The French Army should have marched into the Rhineland as he maintained that the British would have forced to follow suit. St. Léger noted that Britain had signed both the Treaty of Versailles and the Treaty of Locarno and argued that British honor would have forced the United Kingdom to follow the lead of France in enforcing both treaties with regard to the Rhineland. St. Léger that it was the remiliziation of
18444-646: The French West Indies that the United States would seize the French colonies in the Caribbean . The year 1899, known as the "year of all dangers", was a period of racial tension on Guadeloupe, with both blacks and whites committing arson in the belief that French rule would soon be ending. The Leger family returned to metropolitan France in 1899 and settled in Pau . The young Alexis felt like an expatriate and spent much of his time hiking, fencing, riding horses, and sailing in
18656-644: The French alliance system in Eastern Europe was over and that France now recognized Eastern Europe as being within Germany's exclusive sphere of influence. St. Léger who was present during the walk in the Tuileries Garden denied that Bonnet made that claim and instead stated that Bonnet had actually said was that France now recognized Czecho-Slovakia as being in the German sphere of influence. Regardless of what Bonnet actually said, Ribbentrop upon his return to Berlin told Hitler that France now accepted that Eastern Europe
18868-579: The French alliance system in Eastern Europe, in November 1938, St. Léger played a key role in sending out a French mission to Yugoslavia, Romania and Bulgaria to increase French economic influence in the Balkans. On 6 December 1938, St. Léger was present in the Clock Room of the Quai d'Orsay standing alongside Count von Welczeck as he watched the Declaration of Franco-German Friendship that was signed by Bonnet and
19080-576: The French ambassador in Rome, was opposed to St. Léger's policy and felt it was still possible to "detach" the Italians from an alliance with Germany. St. Léger ordered François-Poncet to stick to his "day-to-day business", which led François-Poncet to lash out against him as he told the Italian Foreign Minister Count Galeazzo Ciano that St. Léger was a "sinister man" opposed to better Franco-Italian relations. Phipps had served as
19292-483: The French cabinet that France should issue a threatening démarche in Warsaw to force Beck to allow the Red Army transit rights as he argued that the issue was on the verge of causing the proposed "peace front" to collapse. The Ribbentrop-Molotov non-aggression pact of 23 August 1939 stunned French decision-makers and is known in France as "the diplomatic Waterloo of French history" as the French never saw it coming. The executive decision-makers in Paris had always expected
19504-433: The French, the "peace front" was felt to be the only way of deterring Germany from invading Poland, and both Daladier and St. Léger, though not Bonnet, had little hope of the same sort of understanding with Germany that the British favored. The French delegation to Moscow headed by General Joseph Doumenc first went to London to join the British delegation led by Admiral Reginald Plunkett-Ernle-Erle-Drax to travel together in
19716-534: The German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop . St. Léger was shocked that Ribbentrop brought along with him to Paris 600 academic experts, who played no role during the Franco-German summit, and whose only purpose was to show the power of Ribbentrop. During the visit of Ribbentrop, he and Bonnet went out for a walk in the Tuileries Garden where Bonnet was said to have told Ribbentrop that
19928-456: The Germans "the seriousness of the situation". In an unusual move, he met privately with Daladier to complain about "the weak attitude and hesitancy of M. Bonnet, and against his being himself 'surrounded with reticence'" as he charged that Bonnet kept him in the dark about what he was doing. When Bonnet went to London to see Chamberlain and Lord Halifax four days later, St. Léger was ordered to stay in Paris as Bonnet felt that St. Léger would take
20140-522: The Japanese state, St. Léger wrote that even more disturbing were the claims of an "Asian Monroe Doctrine" in which all of Asia was considered to be Japan's sphere of influence. St. Léger wrote that Japan was steadily moving away from "integration into the entente between the great world powers" and "from the contractual system of the League". He concluded that Japan was conducting "a systematic program of wild imperialism", which he predicated might one day cause
20352-544: The John Donne Club of London, which sought to encourage innovation in poetry. During a visit to London to celebrate his election to the John Donne Club, St. Léger met the Anglo-Polish writer Joseph Conrad , which greatly encouraged him to pursue a career in poetry. Little wrote about his style: "The poet’s task, he thought, like the scientist's, was to capture the universe and human consciousness while remaining outside of
20564-509: The League General Assembly "approve" and "adopt" the Lytton report, but then leave the resolution of the Sino-Japanese dispute to the mediation by the powers that had signed the 9-Power Treaty of 1922 plus Germany and the Soviet Union. In a report St. Léger wrote about the crisis in Asia, he described both Japan and China as both hostile towards France's special rights in China, but wrote that Japan
20776-411: The League of Nations in protest. St. Léger's advocacy of closer ties with Britain and if possible, the United States as well, were much as motivated by fear of Japan as fear of Germany. Of the all foreign ministers St. Léger served after 1932, only Louis Barthou he respected as he wrote that he had the vision to achieve "the great rules of French diplomacy". St. Léger wrote that he wanted to maintain
20988-605: The Locarno system as he stated: "The structure of Locarno was for a decade our only cornerstone in Europe; the only one which inspired the respect of Hitler by the precision and strictness of its mechanism, the only one which felt obliged to acknowledge officially and repeatedly until the moment which he discerned the inner weaknesses of the beneficiaries of the system". In 1934, Barthou initially considered sacking St. Léger as he believed him to be opposed to his policy of seeking an alliance with
21200-524: The Munich Conference, much to Hitler's annoyance. In October 1938, the pro-appeasement Foreign Minister Georges Bonnet carried out a purge of the Quai d'Orsay , sidelining a number of officials opposed to his policy. In the aftermath of the purge, Bonnet was congratulated by the equally pro-appeasement British ambassador Sir Eric Phipps for removing the "warmongers" René Massigli and Pierre Comert from
21412-724: The Navy minister César Campinchi , the Interior minister Albert Sarraut , and the Colonial Minister Georges Mandel . Bonnet further stated that his enemies within the Quai d'Orsay were St. Léger (whom Bonnet accused of being very disloyal to him) along with Robert Coulondre , the ambassador in Berlin and Charles Corbin , the ambassador in London as he noted that both Coulondre and Corbin were friends of St. Léger. On 3 August 1939, St. Léger learned from French intelligence sources about
21624-520: The PPD and PNP usually hold about 47% of the vote each while the PIP holds about 5%. After 2007, other parties emerged on the island. The first, the Puerto Ricans for Puerto Rico Party was registered that same year. The party claims that it seeks to address the islands' problems from a status-neutral platform. But it ceased to remain as a registered party when it failed to obtain the required number of votes in
21836-514: The Puerto Rican broad-winged hawk ( Buteo platypterus brunnescens ) and the elfin woods warbler ( Setophaga angelae ). The Northern Karst country of Puerto Rico is also home to one of the remaining rainforest tracts in the island, with the Río Abajo State Forest being the first focus for the reintroduction of the highly endangered Puerto Rican parrot outside of the Sierra de Luquillo. In
22048-469: The Puerto Rican people to exercise fully their inalienable right to self-determination and independence. In November 2012, a two-question referendum took place, simultaneous with the general elections. The first question, voted on in August, asked voters whether they wanted to maintain the current status under the territorial clause of the U.S. Constitution. 54% voted against the status quo, effectively approving
22260-430: The Quai d'Orsay, but he went on to complain that Bonnet should have sacked Secretary-General St. Léger as well. In response, Bonnet claimed that he and St. Léger saw "eye to eye" about the policy to be pursued towards Germany and Italy. Phipps, who knew about the true state of relations between the two, drily noted that "in that case the eyes must be astigmatic". In fact, Bonnet had very much wanted to sack St. Léger, but
22472-406: The Quai d'Orsay, saying that the "Léger scalp" was worth 70 votes in the chambre des députés . On the morning of 19 May 1940 St. Léger learned from reading the morning newspaper that he had just been fired as secretary-general. Georges Mandel , the minister of colonies, was opposed to St. Léger's sacking, telling Reynaud that firing a senior diplomat well known for his anti-Nazi views, was sending
22684-597: The Red Army transit rights across Romania to aid Czechoslovakia in the event of a German invasion, which in turn led to Coulondre and Thierry being assigned to find a way to end the Bessarabia dispute as Carol would not allow the Red Army to enter his kingdom as long as the Soviet Union continued to claim Bessarabia. Much anger was expressed during the conference at the Polish Foreign Minister Colonel Józef Beck , whose attitude towards Czechoslovakia
22896-508: The Rhine" by announcing in the House of Commons the famous British "guarantee" of Poland. In the Danzig crisis, relations between Bonnet and Daladier became increasing strained and hostile as the two men held diametrically opposed views about whatever France should go to war for Poland. Starting in April 1939, Daladier worked to marginalise Bonnet by dealing directly with St. Léger and entirely by-passing
23108-514: The Rhineland, not the Munich Agreement, that was the turning point in France's fortunes. St. Léger wrote: "It was the London conference of March 1936, not Munich, which must bear the responsibility for Hitler's flooding over the banks". St. Léger noted the remiliziation of the Rhineland altered the balance of power decisively in favor of the Reich by exposing France once again to the threat of German invasion and by allowing Germany to refortify
23320-632: The San Felipe Segundo hurricane in Puerto Rico) of September 1928 is the only hurricane to make landfall as a Category 5 hurricane. In 2017, Puerto Rico was affected by Category 5 Hurricane Irma and Category 4 Hurricane Maria , causing widespread and devastating impacts , particularly to the electric grid. Puerto Rico is home to three terrestrial ecoregions: Puerto Rican moist forests , Puerto Rican dry forests , and Greater Antilles mangroves . Puerto Rico has two biosphere reserves recognized by
23532-585: The Shandong question, as the Japanese had laid claim to the former German rights on the Shandong peninsula, claims that were strongly resisted by China. As an expert on China, St. Léger was ordered by his superiors to attend the conference as part of the French delegation. In 1921 in Washington, DC, while taking part in a world disarmament conference, he was noticed by Aristide Briand , Prime Minister of France, who recruited him as his assistant. In Paris, he got to know
23744-657: The Soviet Union were absent from Hitler's list). In the aftermath of Hitler's speech, St. Léger told Bullitt that Hitler in his speech had responded to Roosevelt's request to settle the Danzig crisis peacefully by renouncing the German-Polish nonaggression pact; that the tone of Hitler's speech was notably bellicose; and that Hitler had no notion of justice as proven by his "enslavement" of the Czech people. For all reasons, St. Léger predicated that Hitler wanted war over Danzig and asked Bullitt to use his influence with Roosevelt to persuade
23956-653: The Soviet Union, but changed his mind after he discovered St. Léger was the ideal man to conduct the talks with the Soviets. Barthou's plans for an "Eastern Locarno"-which were intended as a cover for an alliance with the Soviet Union-created much opposition in Britain. Between 9–10 July 1934 a French delegation consisting of Barthou; St. Léger; Charles Corbin , the ambassador in London; the Political Director René Massigli ; and Roland de Margerie held
24168-409: The Soviet Union. On 20 May 1939, Lord Halifax stopped by in Paris on his way to Geneva to attend the spring session of the League of Nations. During his stop-over in Paris, Halifax was confronted by Daladier, Bonnet and St. Léger who told him very firmly that only a military alliance with the Soviet Union could stop Germany from invading Poland, and warned him if Chamberlain continued his foot-dragging,
24380-690: The Tilea Affair of March 1939 when France's ally Romania appeared to be on the brink of a German invasion to seize its oil wells, St. Léger was furious with Colonel Beck, whose statements implied that Poland would not assist Romania as Beck noted that the Romanian-Polish alliance only applied against the Soviet Union, not Germany. At a meeting with Juliusz Łukasiewicz , the Polish ambassador in Paris, St. Léger expressed his rage, saying: "Poland refuses to join France and England in protecting Romania". St. Léger sent
24592-515: The U.S. Atlantic fleet to the Pacific to dissuade the Japanese from taking advantage of the Danzig crisis, a request that Roosevelt had refused. Knowing that the British would be more active in Europe if the Americans were more involved in Asia, St. Léger met with William Christian Bullitt Jr. , the American ambassador in Paris and a close friend of Roosevelt's, to tell him that the Deuxième Bureau
24804-450: The U.S. Constitution . Laws enacted at the federal level in the U.S. apply to Puerto Rico as well, regardless of its political status. Their residents do not have voting representation in the U.S. Congress . Puerto Rico lacks "the full sovereignty of an independent nation", for example, the power to manage its "external relations with other nations", which is held by the U.S. federal government. The U.S. Supreme Court has indicated that once
25016-693: The U.S. Constitution has been extended to an area (by Congress or the courts), its coverage is irrevocable. To hold that the political branches may switch the Constitution on or off at will would lead to a regime in which they, not this Court, say "what the law is". Puerto Ricans "were collectively made U.S. citizens" in 1917 as a result of the Jones–Shafroth Act . U.S. citizens residing in Puerto Rico cannot vote in U.S. presidential elections, though both major parties, Republican and Democratic, hold primary elections in Puerto Rico to choose delegates to vote on
25228-465: The U.S. is the subject of ongoing debate in Puerto Rico, the U.S. Congress, and the United Nations . Specifically, the basic question is whether Puerto Rico should remain an unincorporated territory of the U.S., become a U.S. state, or become an independent country. Constitutionally, Puerto Rico is subject to the plenary powers of the U.S. Congress under the territorial clause of Article IV of
25440-469: The United States and Europe. A great many texts that were issued in the original Pantheon Books version of the Bollingen Series and in early editions by Princeton University Press are now out of print. The Princeton Press site does not provide a comprehensive list, and is missing some of the key texts in the series and some of the grandest in vision, e.g. The Egyptian Religious Texts series. A list of
25652-495: The United States. St. Léger believed that the promise of American support would be essential to allow France to face the Reich in the Danzig crisis, and he felt that such cultural diplomacy using the historical relationship between France and the United States as well their shared democratic values would win the American public over to a more favorable view of France. Much to St. Léger's surprise, on 31 March 1939, Chamberlain reversed his long-standing policy of "no commitments beyond
25864-644: The commissioner's power to vote in the Committee of the Whole , but the commissioner can vote in committee. Puerto Rican elections are governed by the Federal Election Commission and the State Elections Commission of Puerto Rico . Residents of Puerto Rico, including other U.S. citizens, cannot vote in U.S. presidential elections, but can vote in primaries . Puerto Ricans who become residents of
26076-484: The conference followed the politique de complaisance and proved all too willing to accept the remiliziation. St. Léger wrote that the British Foreign Secretary Sir Anthony Eden at the conference rolled "a velvet carpet for retreat" by making vague promises of Anglo-French staff talks in return for French acceptance of the remiliziation, an offer which Flandin accepted. St. Léger wrote that
26288-509: The course of three months across the Yellow Sea, the Pacific Ocean, and the Atlantic Ocean in seven different ships. Shortly after his return to France, St. Léger was ordered to go to Washington D.C. to attend the naval disarmament conference intended to end the naval arms race between the United States, the United Kingdom, Japan, France, and Italy. The conference was also intended to resolve
26500-484: The crisis in Europe. On 14 April 1939, Roosevelt had written Hitler a letter asking him to promise not to attack any more countries. On 28 April 1939, Hitler in an address to the Reichstag mocked Roosevelt by reading out the response of 34 world leaders who provided the polite answer to requests from German diplomats that their nations did not feel threatened by Germany (though notably the United Kingdom, France, Poland and
26712-463: The dry and wet seasons, there is a temperature change of around 6 °F (3.3 °C). This change is due mainly to the warm waters of the tropical Atlantic Ocean , which significantly modify cooler air moving in from the north and northwest. Coastal water temperatures during the year are about 75 °F (24 °C) in February and 85 °F (29 °C) in August. The highest temperature ever recorded
26924-702: The effort to improve relations with Rome as he argued that Mussolini was set about an anti-French alliance with Germany, and there was nothing that French diplomacy could do to change Mussolini's foreign policy choices. St. Léger was willing to serve the Front Populaire government of Léon Blum . He described as "a man of the Left, an opponent of everything antirepublican". During the Spanish Civil War, St. Léger argued very forcefully to Blum that France needed an alliance with Great Britain and that France could not afford
27136-488: The entity in Spanish is Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico ("Free Associated State of Puerto Rico"), while its official English name is Commonwealth of Puerto Rico . The Spanish official name was suggested by its architect Luis Muñoz Marín and adopted by a constitutional assembly on July 25 1952. Some authorities have called it a euphemism and have charged that the official name in English of "Commonwealth" constitutes
27348-455: The expense of Ethiopia as amoral and sabotaged the Hoare-Laval pact by leaking it to the French press. On 13 December 1935, the columnist Geneviève Tabouis in L'Œuvre and the columnist André Géraud who wrote under the pen-name Pertinax in L'Echo de Paris both broke the story of the Hoare-Laval pact, which led to highly negative reactions in both France and the United Kingdom. In London,
27560-696: The fall of the Daladier government in March 1940, he was out of favor with the new premier Paul Reynaud . Reynaud's mistress, the Comtesse Hélène de Portes had a particular dislike of St. Léger and lobbied her lover very strongly to dismiss him as the secretary-general of the Quai d'Orsay. On 16 May 1940, the Wehrmacht won the Second Battle of Sedan and broke through the French lines along the Meuse river, throwing Paris into
27772-399: The federal government, Puerto Rico-based corporations that intend to send funds to the U.S., and some others, such as Puerto Rican residents that are members of the U.S. military, and Puerto Rico residents who earned income from sources outside Puerto Rico also pay federal income taxes. In addition, because the cutoff point for income taxation is lower than that of the U.S. IRS code, and because
27984-414: The fellow intellectual poet Larbaud, who used his influence to get the poem Anabase [ fr ] published, written during Leger's stay in China. Gide, who was serving as the editor of La Nouvelle Revue Française , visited St. Léger and asked him if he had any poems to publish. St. Léger pointed to his trunk and stated: "You may find something in there. Look". Upon opening the trunk, Gide found
28196-426: The foreign minister. St. Léger knew from the reports of the Deuxième Bureau that the Chamberlain government was deeply worried about the prospect of Japan taking advantage of a war in Europe to seize Britain's Asian colonies and threaten Australia and New Zealand, and wanted American support in the Pacific. On 11 April 1939, Lord Halifax had written a letter to U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt asking him to move
28408-415: The government to move rapidly to provide for the general welfare contributed to political activism by opponents and eventually to the rise of the Puerto Rican Nationalist Party . On 7 January 2020, the country experienced its largest earthquake since 1918, estimated at magnitude 6.4. Economic losses were estimated to be more than $ 3.1 billion. The Puerto Rico Trench , the largest and deepest trench in
28620-414: The highest price for their assets and making them value even more highly the benefits the Axis could offer them". St. Léger complained that allies of Bonnet in his "peace lobby" such as the Public Works minister Anatole de Monzie were holding unofficial talks with Italian diplomats on their own, which he felt was Bonnet's way of cutting out the Quai d'Orsay from his foreign policy. André François-Poncet ,
28832-460: The island. It is also home to 50 bird species, including the critically endangered Puerto Rican amazon . In addition to El Yunque National Forest, the Puerto Rican moist forest ecoregion is represented by protected areas such as the Maricao and Toro Negro state forests . These areas are home to endangered endemic species such as the Puerto Rican boa ( Chilabothrus inornatus ), the Puerto Rican sharp-shinned hawk ( Accipiter striatus venator ),
29044-454: The islands on the condition that they swear their loyalty to the Spanish Crown and allegiance to the Catholic Church . In 1898, during the Spanish–American War , Puerto Rico was invaded and subsequently became a possession of the U.S. The first years of the 20th century were marked by the struggle to obtain greater democratic rights from the U.S. The Foraker Act of 1900 established a civil government, ending rule by American generals and
29256-548: The knowledge that the Rhineland would be protected from a French offensive. Despite his belief that war was "inevitable", St. Léger followed a policy he called " irréductible dans l'irrédutiblité " of seeking to best prepare France for the coming conflict. After the League of Nations sanctions against Italy ended in July 1936, the French tried hard to revive the Stresa Front, displaying "...an almost humiliating determination to retain Italy as an ally". The American historian Barry Sullivan wrote "A.J.P. Taylor erred in asserting that
29468-478: The last election held in November 2020 . The judicial branch is headed by the chief justice of the Supreme Court of Puerto Rico , currently Maite Oronoz Rodríguez . Members of the judiciary are appointed by the governor with the advice and consent of the Senate. Puerto Rico is represented in the U.S. Congress by a nonvoting delegate to the House of Representatives, the resident commissioner , currently Jenniffer González . Current congressional rules have removed
29680-500: The latter was protected by his friendship with Daladier. Phipps-who believed that appeasement was the only way to save Western civilization-greatly disliked St. Léger for his anti-appeasement views. On 24 October 1938, Phipps reported to Lord Halifax: "I saw him [St. Léger] this afternoon and found him convinced as ever that no arrangement could be reached between France and Germany or Italy. In fact, his point of view remains entirely sterile". Contrary to Bonnet's policy of seeking to end
29892-438: The latter, he was just using her for obtaining information from Peking high society. During his time in Beijing, he lived in a former Taoist temple and “sat with the philosophers and sages” as he phrased it. Using Beijing as his base, he took trips across the Gobi desert and out to France's Pacific island colonies. St. Léger was fascinated by the Gobi desert, writing to a friend in France that these “desert expanses have exerted
30104-420: The lightest arms and fished with the finest lines...He brought the refinement of the artist". St. Léger supported Briand's "Locarno policy" of seeking better relations with Germany. As a senior aide to Briand, St. Léger was involved in the talks that led to the Treaty of Locarno in 1925 and the Kellogg-Briand Pact of 1928. In 1930, St. Léger wrote up a memo for Briand that called upon him to use his attendance at
30316-419: The literacy currents of the time". In 1914, he joined the French diplomatic service, and spent some of his first years in Spain, Germany and the United Kingdom. When World War I broke out, he was a press corps attaché for the government. From 1916 to 1921, he was secretary to the French embassy in Peking. He had a secret relationship with Madame Dan Pao Tchao (née Nellie Yu Roung Ling), although according to
30528-540: The long-time Secretary-General all through the 1920s, and when Berthelot was forced to retire in the spring of 1932 due to ill health, St. Léger was his chosen successor. Like Briand and Berthelot, St. Léger was in the words of the French historian Marguerite Bastid-Bruguiere a strong believe in international "law and justice" to be enforced by the League of Nations, which he saw as a forum where various international problems could be resolved peacefully via negotiation. Like his mentor Berthelot who also lived in China, St. Léger
30740-437: The main danger was to French Indochina was the "reorganization on its border, with or against Japan, of an united and disciplined China". St. Léger argued that French diplomacy had to be careful to not appear to be offering "unqualified approval of Chinese claims and methods" and to avoid a solution that "would push Japan towards extreme methods". As it was, when the Lytton commission report was presented in March 1933, Japan left
30952-436: The main trading/shipping port and the capital city. The island's name was changed to Porto Rico by the United States after the Treaty of Paris of 1898 . The anglicized name was used by the U.S. government and private enterprises (also Porto in Italian, French, and Portuguese). The name was changed back to Puerto Rico in 1931 by a joint resolution in Congress introduced by Félix Córdova Dávila . The official name of
31164-415: The mainland, which reflected his sense of being an outsider; his sense of a Guadeloupan identity made him feel that he was very different from other French people. He enrolled at Lycée Louis-Barthou , passed the baccalauréat with honours, and began studying law at the University of Bordeaux . As a university student, St Léger worked as the music critic for the Pau-Gazette . When his father died in 1907,
31376-441: The majority of the French cabinet to Daladier's position. After Germany invaded Poland on 1 September 1939, Mussolini proposed a peace conference to stop the war. Bonnet, who wanted to avoid declaring war on Germany, saw Mussolini's proposal as a way to avoid war. In an effort to sabotage Bonnet's plans, St. Léger had Corbin tell Lord Halifax later on the afternoon of 1 September that the British and French governments should place
31588-460: The man responsible for the failure to create the "peace front" as he accused St. Léger of moving too slowly and of not doing enough to pressure Colonel Beck to grant transit rights to the Red Army. On 25 August 1939, Daladier told Łukasiewicz that he was not to talk to Bonnet under any conditions, saying the views of the Foreign Minister regarding the Danzig crisis were not his own, and told the Polish ambassador to only talk to himself or St. Léger. At
31800-480: The meeting, St. Léger had briefed Daladier and warned him that the conference was merely a trick to prevent France and Britain from declaring war as Germany would continue the war against Poland while the preparations for the conference continued, quite possibly for months. In a memo to Daladier, St. Léger wrote that it was unacceptable to be holding a peace conference while the Reich was waging war on Poland as he concluded: "If such negotiations were to be started by
32012-420: The memories of a lost world. The front page of the Éloges features the phrase in capital letters " ÉCRIT SUR LA PORTE " ("Written on the door") and the first poem begins with a description of the door to the plantation house under which the same phrase is written. The door serves literally as an entrance to the house and metaphorically as the entrance to the lost world of St Léger's childhood. The chronotope of
32224-414: The memories of a past world that no longer exists. At one point, St Léger asks in the Éloges : "Other than childhood, what was there in those days that is here no longer?" The tone in the Éloges is both dreamy and melancholic as the narrator reflects on his longing for the plantation of his childhood, which is depicted as a paradise lost. The house that St. Léger grew up in is depicted in the Éloges as
32436-408: The minister in Prague; Raymond Brugère , the minister in Belgrade; and Adrien Thierry, the minister in Bucharest. The principle conclusion of the conference was that as long as France's allies in Eastern Europe continued to feud with each other, no resistance to Nazi Germany was possible. The conference ended with a plan being adopted to see it if was possible for King Carol II of Romania to allow
32648-470: The ministers he served. The first great crisis faced by St. Léger as secretary-general was the Lytton Report , which had concluded that Japan had committed aggression by seizing Manchuria from China in 1931. In 1931, the Chinese delegation at the League of Nations had accused Japan of aggression by conquering Manchuria, which led the League to appoint a commission under Lord Lytton to determine if Japan had committed aggression or not. St. Léger favored having
32860-467: The modernization of the Polish military "...at once in order to convince the Germans that France and England are determined to support Poland if Poland should become involved in a war with Germany". On 21 July 1939, St. Léger told Philps that Daladier was "firmly convinced of the necessity of showing an irreducible refusal to treat with a regime [Nazi Germany] in whose word no confidence could be placed and with which any treaty must be valueless...so convinced
33072-534: The most dangerous geologic hazards in the island and in the northeastern Caribbean. The 1918 San Fermín earthquake occurred on 11 October , 1918 and had an estimated magnitude of 7.5 on the Richter scale . It originated off the coast of Aguadilla , several kilometers off the northern coast, and was accompanied by a tsunami . It caused extensive property damage and widespread losses, damaging infrastructure, especially bridges. It resulted in an estimated 116 deaths and $ 4 million in property damage. The failure of
33284-423: The most strongest terms, saying he regarded a German military presence in Spanish Morocco as a threat to French interests. St. Léger was close to the French ambassador in London, Charles Corbin , and had him secure a promise of British support from Robert Vansittart, the Permeant Undersecretary at the Foreign Office. Cameron noted that the Germans were outraged by St. Léger's démarche as she wrote: "They had felt
33496-488: The most tougher French politicians dismissed the British objections while St. Léger and Corbin were more conciliatory. St. Léger spoke of: "the fundamental importance that France attached to her friendship with England. She does not want to do anything against Great Britain. Better still, the French government does not wish to get into anything without Great Britain". St. Léger wrote the assassination of Barthou in Marseilles while greeting King Alexander of Yugoslavia who
33708-443: The new American ambassador to Paris, William Christian Bullitt Jr. who arrived together with his right-hand man Carmel Offie . St. Léger told Bullitt that the French were greatly pleased that the American president, Franklin D. Roosevelt , had appointed one of his best friends as ambassador to France, saying he regarded this as a sign that Roosevelt placed much great value on Franco-American relations. St. Léger told Bullitt that he
33920-444: The news of the Hoare-Laval pact came very close to bringing down the government of Stanley Baldwin and Hoare was forced to resign in disgrace, being made the "fall guy" as Baldwin lied to the House of Commons by claiming that Hoare was acting on his initiative. On 7 March 1936, Germany violated both the Treaty of Versailles and the Treaty of Locarno by the remiliziation of the Rhineland. St. Léger called for France to respond by sending
34132-414: The next session of the League of Nations to speak for a "Federal European Union". That same year Eliot translated the Anabase into English, which first introduced St. Léger to an English-speaking audience. After Briand's death in 1932, Leger served as the General Secretary (number one civil servant) of the French Foreign Office (Quai d'Orsay) until 1940. St. Léger was a protégé of Philippe Berthelot ,
34344-426: The numerical superiority of the Wehrmacht, and the possibility of the Regia Marina cutting France off from the Maghreb was considered very concerning in Paris. In a memo, St. Léger wrote that Benito Mussolini had evidently decided upon alignment with Germany and that: "Every effort to bring them [the Italians] back to us is destined to fail; it will only encourage them in their two-faced policy, leading them to name
34556-445: The parties' presidential candidates. Since Puerto Rico is an unincorporated territory and not a U.S. state, the U.S. Constitution does not fully enfranchise U.S. citizens residing in Puerto Rico. Only fundamental rights under the American federal constitution and adjudications are applied to Puerto Ricans. Various other U.S. Supreme Court decisions have held which rights apply in Puerto Rico and which ones do not. Puerto Ricans have
34768-548: The penname Pertinax wrote that: "He had a deep feeling for the dignity of France, something shared by all the great servants of the State. He was a man of absolute moral and intellectual integrity...Contrary to the accusations that are being leveled, Alexis Léger never took the liberty of trying to impose his own views." Géraud noted that St. Léger had difficult relations with some of the foreign ministers he served, most notably Pierre Laval , Pierre-Étienne Flandin and especially Georges Bonnet , but that he saw his duty to "educate"
34980-427: The per-capita income in Puerto Rico is much lower than the average per-capita income on the mainland, more Puerto Rico residents pay income taxes to the local taxation authority than if the IRS code were applied to the island. This occurs because "the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico government has a wider set of responsibilities than do U.S. State and local governments." In 2009, Puerto Rico paid $ 3.742 billion into
35192-421: The permanent services were determined to preserve demilitarization at whatever cost. Unfortunately, they did not succeed in overcoming the confusions and hesitations which prevailed at the top level". To discuss the crisis, a meeting of the League Council was called in London. Flandin, who replaced Laval as foreign minister, attended the conference along with St. Léger. St. Léger wrote with disgust that Flandin at
35404-459: The political accord was not ready to be signed as the staff of he Quai d'Orsay needed more time for the text, but Gamelin discovered that claim was a lie as he phoned St. Léger who stated that he and the rest of the Quai d'Orsay staff had prepared the political accord several weeks before the Polish delegation arrived. Daladier was on holiday in the south of France, and by the time Gamelin and St. Léger were able to contact him via phone, Kasprzycki and
35616-443: The population applying for assistance after the storms. See also Effects of Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico It is thought that a combination of the debt crisis and two major hurricanes in the late 2010s, caused further departures from the island. Overall the population has decreased by about half a million in the 21st century, with many seeking better opportunities on the mainland. Puerto Rico held its statehood referendum during
35828-451: The precondition for the "peace front". In Moscow, Marshal Kliment Voroshilov , the Soviet defense commissar, had told General Doumenc that his government regarded the issue of transit rights as of paramount importance as he insisted that if the French could not pressure the Poles into granting transit rights for the Red Army, then as far as he was concerned France was not serious about the "peace front". On 22 August 1939, St. Léger advised
36040-534: The premier, Vyacheslav Molotov and the foreign commissar Maxim Litvinov . As was normally the case, Stalin said little and instead phlegmatically smoked his pipe while Molotov and Litvinov did most of the talking. As Litvinov was fluent in French and was more charming than the "hard man" Molotov, St. Léger spoke to him the most. On the return trip to Paris, St. Léger attended the funeral of Poland's de facto leader, Marshal Józef Piłsudski in Warsaw and in Berlin attended Laval's meeting with Hermann Göring . During
36252-469: The president to ask Congress to amend the American Neutrality acts. On 29 April 1939, Bonnet met the Soviet ambassador Jakob Suritz who complained about the "absence of reciprocity in obligations" in Bonnet's draft treaty of an Anglo-Soviet-French alliance. Bonnet quite causally claimed to be ignorant of what the draft treaty stated and blamed St. Léger, whom he stated was incompetent and not capable of writing treaties properly. Between 16 and 19 May 1939,
36464-410: The publication of two highly negative articles by Robert Hillyer in the Saturday Review of Literature , the United States Congress passed a resolution that effectively discontinued the involvement of the Library of Congress with the prize. The remaining funds were returned to the Foundation. In 1950, the Bollingen Prize was continued under the auspices of the Yale University Library, which awarded
36676-421: The rest of the Polish delegation had left Paris. Gamelin was stunned by the lengths that Bonnet was prepared to go to find a way to end the alliance with Poland, but St. Léger informed him that this was the norm with Bonnet. St. Léger had an anti-clerical views and was strongly opposed to the offer of Pope Piux XII to mediate an end to the Danzig crisis. St. Léger told Phipps that most of the senior officials of
36888-414: The result would be war in 1939. Halifax came away from his meeting in Paris converted to the French point-of-view and upon his return to London stated that Britain should start talks for an alliance with Moscow. St. Léger very much expected the Anglo-French-Soviet talks for an alliance to be successful. In a meeting with Bullitt on 28 June 1939 St. Léger stated he believed that "there were eighty chances in
37100-429: The resulting strain on his family's finances led Leger to temporarily interrupt his studies, but he eventually completed his degree in 1910. In 1904, he met the poet Francis Jammes at Orthez , who became a close friend. He frequented cultural clubs and met Paul Claudel , Odilon Redon , Valery Larbaud , and André Gide . He wrote short poems inspired by the story of Robinson Crusoe ( Images à Crusoe ) and undertook
37312-411: The scene, it was a tribute as the message was that only a gifted few could really appreciate St. Léger's poetry. While in China, Leger had written his first extended poem Anabase , publishing it in 1924 under the pseudonym "Saint-John Perse", which he employed for the rest of his life. He then published nothing for two decades, not even a re-edition of his debut book, as he believed it inappropriate for
37524-418: The second question to be voted on in November. The second question posed three alternate status options: statehood, independence, or free association . 61.16% voted for statehood, 33.34% for a sovereign free-associated state, and 5.49% for independence. In 2016, President Barack Obama signed into law H.R. 5278: PROMESA , establishing a Control Board over the Puerto Rican government. This board will have
37736-444: The settlement of the Ortoiroid people before 430 BC. At the time of Christopher Columbus 's arrival in the New World in 1493, the dominant indigenous culture was that of the Taínos . The Taíno people's numbers went dangerously low during the later half of the 16th century because of new infectious diseases carried by Europeans, exploitation by Spanish settlers, and warfare. Located in the northeastern Caribbean, Puerto Rico formed
37948-434: The seven year-long bioluminescent bays in the Caribbean: Laguna Grande in Fajardo , La Parguera in Lajas and Puerto Mosquito in Vieques . These are unique bodies of water surrounded by mangroves that are inhabited by the dinoflagellate Pyrodinium bahamense . However, tourism, pollution, and hurricanes have highly threatened these unique ecosystems. Puerto Rico has a republican form of government based on
38160-441: The size of Hispaniola and 8% of the size of Cuba, the largest of the Greater Antilles. The topography of the island is mostly mountainous with large flat areas in the northern and southern coasts. The main mountain range that crosses the island from east to west is called the Cordillera Central (also known as the Central Mountain Range in English). The highest elevation in Puerto Rico, Cerro de Punta 4,390 feet (1,340 m),
38372-465: The south, since the south receives less rain than the central and northern regions. Puerto Rico is composed of Cretaceous to Eocene volcanic and plutonic rocks, overlain by younger Oligocene and more recent carbonates and other sedimentary rocks . Most of the caverns and karst topography on the island occurs in the northern region. The oldest rocks are approximately 190 million years old ( Jurassic ) and are located at Sierra Bermeja in
38584-422: The southwest part of the island. They may represent part of the oceanic crust and are believed to come from the Pacific Ocean realm. Puerto Rico lies at the boundary between the Caribbean and North American Plates and is being deformed by the tectonic stresses caused by their interaction. These stresses may cause earthquakes and tsunamis . These seismic events, along with landslides , represent some of
38796-442: The southwest, the Guánica State Forest and Biosphere Reserve contain over 600 uncommon species of plants and animals, including 48 endangered species and 16 that are endemic to Puerto Rico, and is considered a prime example of the Puerto Rican dry forest ecoregion and the best-preserved dry forest in the Caribbean. Other protected dry forests in Puerto Rico can be formed within the Caribbean Islands National Wildlife Refuge complex at
39008-475: The telephone on a daily basis with Roosevelt-accordingly passed on these claims to Roosevelt, who reversed himself and ordered much of the U.S. Atlantic fleet transferred over the Pacific fleet. St. Léger himself was concerned about the Japanese as he noted that in February 1939 the Japanese had occupied the Spratly Islands in the South China Sea, which placed Japanese forces very close to French Indochina while France could spare no naval forces for Asia because of
39220-526: The timetable of the cession of the Sudetenland region of Czechoslovakia to Germany was agreed to. The British historian Robert Payne wrote: "The hero of the Munich conference was Alexis St. Léger, the permanent secretary of the French Foreign Office , who kept urging Daladier to resist Hitler's demands , but Daladier was too stunned , too sunk in melancholy , to pay much him attention". Paul Schmidt, who served as Hitler's interpreter (Hitler did not speak French), recalled that St. Léger kept raising objections at
39432-401: The ultimate desirability of reaching an understanding with the Reich or not. For Chamberlain and Lord Halifax, the mere act of engaging in negotiations with the Soviet Union was felt to be sufficient to deter Germany from invading Poland, and to actually create the "peace front" was felt to be counterproductive as it would make it more difficult to reach a "general settlement" with Germany. For
39644-439: The war began and only entered the war on 10 June 1940 when it was already clear that France was defeated. St. Léger very much welcomed the change in British policy during the Danzig crisis, as he noted the lack of British support in 1938 had made it "impossible" for France to face Germany on its own. Despite his dislike of Colonel Beck, St. Léger favored a policy of Britain and France making generous loans to Poland to assist with
39856-547: The war. When the declaration of war was finally drafted by Bonnet, it evaded the expression la guerre and instead spoke in convoluted terms that France "would fulfil those obligations contracted towards Poland, which the German government is aware of". Even then, Bonnet in an attempt to avoid war ordered Coulondre to set the expiry of the ultimatum for 5: 00 am on 4 September 1939. Coulondre phoned St. Léger in Paris to ask what he should if Ribbentrop should try to stall him, which led St. Léger to order him to treat any stalling as
40068-409: The way for the drafting of Puerto Rico's Constitution and its approval by Congress and Puerto Rican voters in 1952. Puerto Rico is one of five territories with less representation in the Federal government, along with the Federal District. In 2009, the United Nations Special Committee on Decolonization approved a draft resolution calling on the U.S. government to expedite a process that would allow
40280-450: The way that the sister displaces her mother as the principal lady of the household; and references to a deeply shameful family secret that the narrator cannot bring himself to name. The Éloges was almost completely ignored at the time; one of the few writers who paid it any attention was Marcel Proust , who praised St. Léger as a creative young poet. An early success for St Léger occurred in 1912 when he, Larbaud, and Gide were elected to
40492-589: The works in the series, complete to 1982, appears as an appendix to William McGuire's book, pp. 295–309. The list below is based on McGuire's list and information appearing in the individual volumes, with help from the Princeton site and from The Library Congress Online Catalog . This is the only part of the Bollingen Series that continues to produce new volumes. Alexis Leger Alexis Leger ( French: [ləʒe] ; 31 May 1887 – 20 September 1975), better known by his pseudonym Saint-John Perse ( [sɛ̃ d͜ʒɔn pɛʁs] ; also Saint-Leger Leger ),
40704-482: The wrong message. In mid-July 1940, Leger began a long exile in Washington, DC. Puerto Rico Puerto Rico ( Spanish for 'rich port'; abbreviated PR ), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico , is a self-governing Caribbean archipelago and island organized as an unincorporated territory of the United States under the designation of commonwealth . Located about 1,000 miles (1,600 km) southeast of Miami , Florida , between
40916-410: Was 110 °F (43 °C) at Arecibo , while the lowest temperature ever recorded was 40 °F (4 °C) in the mountains at Adjuntas , Aibonito , and Corozal . The average yearly precipitation is 66 in (1,676 mm). Climate change in Puerto Rico has had a large impact on the ecosystems and landscapes. Puerto Rico experiences the Atlantic hurricane season , similar to the rest of
41128-426: Was Daladier of the wisdom of an attitude of determined reserve that he had even given orders against any manifestations of friendship towards Germany such as mutual visits for athletic contests and such like: it was better for the time being to renounce the natural instinct to act en gentleman ". On 2 August 1939, Bonnet told Philps that his main enemies in the cabinet were Daladier, the Finance minister Paul Reynaud ,
41340-426: Was a French poet, writer and diplomat, awarded the 1960 Nobel Prize in Literature "for the soaring flight and the evocative imagery of his poetry which in a visionary fashion reflects the conditions of our time" Alexis Leger was born in Pointe-à-Pitre , Guadeloupe. His great-grandfather, Prosper Louis Léger, a solicitor, had settled in Guadeloupe in 1815. His grandfather and father were also solicitors; his father
41552-450: Was a Sinophile and had a strong interest in Chinese culture. St. Léger's great hope as secretary-general was to see the Soviet Union and the United States both join the League. St. Léger was described by the British historian D.C. Watt as the "cold genius" of the Quai d'Orsay, a brilliant diplomat whose intelligence and ruthlessness made him invaluable to successive French foreign ministers over an eight-year period. Watt wrote that St. Léger
41764-492: Was also a member of the city council. The Leger family owned two plantations, one of coffee (La Joséphine) and the other of sugar (Bois-Debout). St. Léger described his childhood on Guadeloupe as "the son of a family French as only the colonials are French". Later on, Léger greatly embellished his family origins by changing his surname to the more aristocratic sounding St Léger-Léger and by claiming that his ancestors were an ancienne noblesse family who had settled in Guadeloupe in
41976-456: Was also killed was a great blow to French diplomacy as he considered Barthou to be the only effective foreign minister he served. Barthou's successor, Pierre Laval sough an alliance with Italy and was prepared to cede the Aouzou Strip of French Equatorial Africa to the Italian colony of Libya to win the friendship of Benito Mussolini . St. Léger felt that Laval was far too keen for an agreement with Mussolini as he wrote that he only wanted
42188-411: Was an excellent diplomat whose talents were negated by the mostly mediocre foreign ministers he served, but that St. Léger promoted a talented cadre of ambassadors that included René Massigli , Charles Corbin , Robert Coulondre , Émile Naggiar and François Charles-Roux . The American historian Elizabeth Cameron wrote: "From the start he was no ordinary diplomat. He was a poet, and as a poet, lived in
42400-436: Was aware of a secret German-Japanese plan that Japan would attack the European colonies in Asia the moment Germany invaded Poland. Prying on American stereotypes of Britain, St. Léger told Bullitt that pressure from the city had led Chamberlain to decide to send the main part of the Royal Navy to Singapore (the major British naval base in Asia) and accordingly the Danzig crisis was more likely to end in war. Bullitt-who talked on
42612-545: Was boycotted by some political opponents of it. (see 2017 Puerto Rican status referendum ) In 2017, Puerto Rico suffered back-to-back large hurricanes: the Category 5 Hurricane Irma (September 7, 2017) and the Category 4 Hurricane Maria (September 20, 2017). The storms caused an extreme amount of damage to the island, causing the following effects: all power was knocked out, 95% cell service, 43% of waste water treatment plants, 40 thousand land slides, 97% of roads blocked, 28% of health facilities damaged, leading to over 90% of
42824-431: Was by far the most dangerous of the two. St. Léger wrote that ever since the mid-1920s Japan had been "regressing" towards "Asian particularism". St. Léger used as an example of Japan's "regression" the rather violent police campaign against "western decadence" such as young couples kissing in public (traditionally considered to be disgusting behavior in Japan). Besides for a general hostility towards western values shown by
43036-405: Was contested by other European powers into the 18th century but remained a Spanish possession for the next 400 years. The decline of the indigenous population , followed by an influx of Spanish settlers, primarily from the Canary Islands and Andalusia , and African slaves vastly changed the cultural and demographic landscape of the archipelago. Within the Spanish Empire , Puerto Rico played
43248-426: Was especially noted for his obsession with writing long erotic poems which circulated as manuscripts among his friends celebrating the beauty and sensuality of women and the joys of sex, on which he spent a disproportionate amount of time. The diplomat Jean Chauvel wrote that he would appear at the Quai d'Orsay "wearing a narrow black tie, with a pasty face, a veiled look in his eyes, using elegant and refined language in
43460-437: Was for him was merely a voyage de cabotin . When St. Léger objected that more time was needed to prepare for the Franco-Soviet alliance, Laval replied: " Vous couchez avec les affaires ". St. Léger was a close friend of Edvard Beneš , the long-time foreign minister of Czechoslovakia who became president in 1935, and he tended to take a strong pro-Czechoslovak line. The Canadian historian John Cairns described as St. Leger as
43672-453: Was hostile at best and who was utterly against granting the Red Army transit rights across Poland to aid Czechoslovakia in the event of a German invasion. On 10 April 1938, a new government under Édouard Daladier was formed. Joseph Paul-Boncour , a foreign minister whom St. Léger felt was well meaning, but ineffectual did not retain his portfolio in the new cabinet. Paul-Boncour was replaced with Georges Bonnet , whom St. Léger later wrote
43884-467: Was personally happy that Roosevelt had appointed a man fluent in French as ambassador as he observed for the last 16 years no American ambassador had spoken French, which he took as a sign that Roosevelt valued France, and while also telling the openly gay Offie that homosexuality was legal in France. In January 1937, rumors started to appear in the French newspapers that stated the Wehrmacht was operating in Spanish Morocco. The closeness of Spanish Morocco to
44096-422: Was rewarded with rebuffs and abuse. British policy and Mussolini's reaction to it, fell between these extremes" Both the British and the French very much wanted a rapprochement with Italy to undo the damage caused by the League of Nations sanctions, and Sullivan wrote: "That Mussolini chose to ally with Hitler, rather than being forced.". St. Léger had a very strong dislike of Fascist Italy and consistently opposed
44308-422: Was the de facto French foreign minister until May 1940. Daladier usually met daily with St. Léger and Coulondre, who was regarded as the German expert within the Quai d'Orsay, and tended to follow their advice. In February 1940, Sumner Welles , the undersecretary of state, visited the major European capitals on a peace mission for President Roosevelt. During Welles's visit to Paris, St. Léger told him: "The game
44520-430: Was the worse of the many foreign ministers he served. St. Léger described Bonnet as very intelligent, but secretive, scheming, duplicitous and committed to a policy of ending the French alliance system in Eastern Europe that he was opposed to. One diplomat recalled that Bonnet and St. Léger had "no rapport". St. Léger favored " la ligne anglaise " ("the English line") of seeking closer ties with Britain. St. Léger favored
44732-495: Was too idiosyncratic to fit into the main currents of poetry in France at the time. In 1925, he became the chef de cabinet to Briand. St. Léger wrote that Briand had "the boldness of the dream...tempered...by the dictates of common sense" while having the ability to think quickly with the "indifference to the exploitation of success". St. Léger wrote Briand "had no need of duplicity or violence to win...He hated equally stupidity, cowardice, clumsiness and vulgarity...He hunted with
44944-407: Was within the sphere of influence of the Reich and there was no danger of France going to war for Poland. When Germany violated the Munich Agreement on 15 March 1939 by occupying the Czech half of Czecho-Slovakia which was turned into the Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia , St. Léger was outraged and argued that Robert Coulondre , the ambassador in Berlin, should be recalled in protest to show
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