Mary Elizabeth Plummer (18 March 1849 – 13 September 1922)[1] was an American-born pupil of and later the wife of Georges Clemenceau,[2] Prime Minister of France during Third Republic. Plummer was a native of Springfield, Massachusetts.[3] Clemenceau arrived in the United States in 1865 after fleeing France due to involvement in radical political activism during the regime of Napoleon III. He eventually taught at a girls school in Stamford, Connecticut, which Plummer attended. The two wed in 1869 and moved to France a year later. Together they had three children.[4] Plummer and Clemenceau separated in 1876 and divorced in 1891.

Mary Plummer, by
Ferdinand Roybet

Though Clemenceau had many mistresses, when his wife took as her lover a tutor of their children, he had her put in jail for two weeks and sent her back to the United States on a steamer in third class. He divorced her, obtained custody of their children and had her stripped of her French nationality.[citation needed]

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  1. ^ Clemenceau: A Life at War, David S. Newhall, 1991, pp. xiii, 669
  2. ^ Devlin, Phil (27 September 2012). "The French Prime Minister Who Married a Connecticut Schoolgirl". Guilford, Connecticut. Retrieved 3 March 2016.
  3. ^ Notable Kin: An Anthology of Columns First Published in the NEHGS Nexus, 1986-1995, Volume 1, ed. D. C. Dearborn, J. A. Brayton, R. E. Brenneman, New England Historic Genealogical Society, 1998, p. 92
  4. ^ "Georges Clemenceau At Versailles: Part I". Retrieved 3 March 2016.