Editing Georges Clemenceau (section)

==Political activism and American experience==
[[Image:Georges Clemenceau vers 1865.jpg|thumb|left|Clemenceau at age 24, {{circa}}&nbsp;1865]]
In Paris, the young Clemenceau became a political activist and writer. In December 1861, he and some friends co-founded a weekly newsletter, ''Le Travail''. On 23 February 1862, he was arrested by the imperial police for having placed posters summoning a demonstration. He spent 77 days in the [[Mazas Prison]]. Around the same time, Clemenceau also visited the old French revolutionary [[Auguste Blanqui]] and another Republican activist, [[Auguste Scheurer-Kestner]], in jail, further deepening his hatred of the [[Napoleon III]] regime and advancing his fervent [[republicanism]].<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|last=Winock|first=Michel|title=Clemenceau|date=2013|publisher=Éditions Perrin|isbn=978-2-262-03878-6|pages=73–90|doi=10.3917/perri.wino.2013.01}}</ref>

He was graduated as a doctor of medicine on 13 May 1865, founded several literary magazines, and wrote many articles, most of which attacked the imperial regime of [[Napoleon III]]. After a failed love affair, Clemenceau left France for the [[United States]] as the imperial agents began cracking down on dissidents and sending most of them to the ''bagne de Cayennes'' ([[Devil's Island]] Penal System) in [[French Guiana]].

Clemenceau worked in [[New York City]] during the years 1865–1869, following the [[American Civil War]]. He maintained a medical practice, but spent much of his time on political journalism for a Parisian newspaper, ''Le Temps''. He taught French in [[Great Barrington, Massachusetts]], and also taught and rode horseback at a private girls' school in [[Stamford, Connecticut]], where he would meet his future wife. During this time, he joined French exile clubs in New York that were opposing the imperial regime.

As part of his journalistic activity, Clemenceau covered the country's recovery following the [[American Civil War|Civil War]], the workings of American democracy, and the racial questions related to the end of [[slavery]]. From his time in America, he retained a strong faith in American democratic ideals as opposed to France's imperial regime, as well as a sense of political compromise that later would become a hallmark of his political career.<ref name=":0" />