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.
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.