Georges Clemenceau was twice the prime minister of France, and played a major role in the treaties that concluded WWI. At the Versailles conference, Clemenceau was on his way to a meeting with President Woodrow Wilson’s adviser when he was shot at by a young anarchist named Emile Cottin. As Clemenceaus’s car sped away Cottin fired at least six more shots, one of which struck Clemenceau near his heart.

Cottin was captured and the death penalty demanded, but Clemenceau asked for leniency, recommending eight years in prison “with intensive training in a shooting gallery.”

Today in the Word, February, 1991, p. 11