CANADA: Pere de Famille

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St. Laurent hesitated, then asked the advice of the late Rodrigue Cardinal Villeneuve, Archbishop pf Quebec. The cardinal urged him to take the job, pointing out that as a symbol of national unity in wartime it was important to have a prominent French Canadian in the cabinet. On the day St. Laurent accepted the post, a new granddaughter was born in a Quebec hospital. Louis St. Laurent traveled over from Ottawa to see the baby, stood over her crib and mused aloud: "For myself, I may be making a mistake, but perhaps in the long run this child will benefit."

Best Choice. St. Laurent moved into the cabinet like a veteran, applied his quick, logical and incisive lawyer's mind to every problem that came his way. As early as 1943, Mackenzie King told intimates that St. Laurent was the best choice to succeed him as head of the government. When King, after 21 years as Prime Minister, stepped down last November, St. Laurent moved into his office in the East Block of the Parliament Buildings.

As Prime Minister, St. Laurent follows a rigid routine. By 9:35 a.m. he is at his desk, once the desk of Sir Wilfrid Laurier, Canada's only other French Canadian Prime Minister (1896-1911). At lunchtime, he usually walks across the street alone (he has no bodyguard) to the staid and stark Rideau Club, where he customarily sits with other cabinet members at the "Ministers' Table." After lunch, he is in his office until about 6:30. Except on the hottest days St. Laurent works with his coat on. It is an unwritten rule that the 44 members of his staff shed theirs only when the P.M. is in shirtsleeves. He writes ten to 20 letters a day, receives an average of five visitors, places his own telephone calls, starts the conversations with a crisp: "St. Laurent here."

When Parliament is sitting, the white-haired Prime Minister is in his front-row seat every day, toying with his heavy horn-rimmed glasses or fingering his bristly mustache as he listens to the debates. His own parliamentary speeches are coldly factual, delivered in the tone of a geometry professor lecturing a dull pupil. His manner changes when he feels he is being wrongly accused or is embarrassed by an opponent's attack. Then the quick St. Laurent temper shows itself; his pink face becomes flushed, his brown eyes flash and he sputters out his reply, emphasizing his words with Gallic arm gestures and nods of his head.

After work, St. Laurent spends the evening on state papers, listening to the radio, or reading (usually newspapers and magazines). Sometimes he works crossword puzzles. In the absence of Madame St. Laurent, who spends some of her time in Quebec, his apartment is kept by Mrs. Anne Parr-Morley, a middle-aged Englishwoman. "When I ask him what he wants for a meal," she says, "he almost always says 'Oh, just fix me some eggs.' " He also likes macaroni & cheese and chicken. St. Laurent, though no teetotaler, seldom takes a drink at home, even less often entertains anyone outside his family. Says Mrs. Parr-Morley: "He lives more simply than most ordinary people. He's not at all like our Mr. Churchill was, what with all that whisky and things like that."