invited him to be his Chief of Staff. He accepted, and although a Ministerial crisis in the following year put his patron out of office, his own political career was well launched. In June 1887 he was sent to the Chamber of Deputies as a representative of the Meuse.

M. Louis Madelin, the brilliant historian, then a boy of sixteen, was present at the first public meeting addressed by the young candidate at that 1887 election, and he has recorded a vivid impression of the scene.

thot

ment

In

ent of

'He came forward to the front of the platform,' writes M. Madelin. He was small, thin, somewhat pale, bearded, his hair en brosse: an austere young figure in his closelyfitting frock-coat. His fashion of speaking struck his more serious listeners as excellent: every syllable was carefully articulated, every word told. No verbal flourishes, very little political jargon, not an attempt at wit. It seemed, indeed, as if this young man was incapable of smiling. He discoursed on taxation and on the Budget with wisdom and knowledge, with acuteness and common sense. When he was interrupted-for he had hecklers to right and left of him-hetor replied sharply and to the point.'

But

Te have

ate of

There was at least one attempt at wit,' according to another witness, and not too bad an attempt. A member of the audience scoffed at the speaker for his youth. 'I quite agree,' he answered. 'I am very young. listen!-I hereby make you a formal undertaking. That is a fault of which I promise to cure myself every day of my life!'

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The next twenty-five years of Raymond Poincaré's existence may be summarised in about as many lines. His Lorraine prudence kept him absolutely silent in the Chamber until he found an opportunity of revealing his mastery of economics in the Budget debates of 1890. In the short-lived Dupuy Cabinets of 1893 and 1894 he became Minister of Education and Minister of Finance respectively; then, in the Ribot Cabinet of 1895, also of brief duration, Minister of Education again. Between 1895 and 1906 he joined no Government. He disliked the compromises without which it seemed impossible for any Ministry to exist during that decade of trouble and anxiety for France. In 1898 he asserted himself courageously in regard to the Dreyfus affair, pressing

for a revision of the case; but he took no very conspicuous part in the other great questions which now agitated and so seriously divided French opinion-the Russian Alliance, for instance, or the Entente Cordiale. Instead, he resumed his practice at the Bar, becoming soon one of the two or three busiest avocats in Paris, specialising by preference as a champion of artistic and intellectual causes; societies of authors and painters and actors and journalists had recourse to him in their difficulties. Presently he became legal adviser also to the great industrialists of the North. Not until 1906, when M. Sarrien, the new Premier, offered him the portfolio of Finance, did he come back, for good, to politics, though in the mean time he had remained in Parliament, passing in 1903 from the Chamber to the Senate. In January 1912 he became Premier, in 1913 President of the Republic.

We have seen M. Madelin's description of the young candidate of 1887. Let us compare with it a portrait of the Senator of 1909. It was in December 1909 that M. Poincaré was elected a member of the French Academy. In the speech of welcome addressed to him on that occasion, M. Ernest Lavisse, editor of the great history of contemporary France, thus smilingly depicted him to his face the passage comes in a long and elaborate résumé (for the most part delicately flattering, but relieved by touches of irony and banter) of the new

Academician's career:

You fall back

'You are in the Tribune. You begin simply, calmly, in order to secure silence and attention. In due course you enumerate the main divisions of the speech you have prepared: almost always they are three in number. You pass quite naturally from one to the other by the mere sequence of ideas, not too quickly, because you wish your words to be taken in, not too slowly, for the same reason. habitually upon general ideas, but your general ideas are never lacking in precision. You look to words to have a meaning and only one meaning. You have realised that such terms as "balance," "surplus," deficit," change their meaning every year at the will of our Parliamentary financiers, and you insist upon the true and inexorable meaning which belongs to each. Then you go back to history to recall the financial doctrines of the Revolution or to describe how taxes

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have been imposed ever since the beginning of the world. All this, without playing the schoolmaster-rather in the deprecating tones of one who fears he may be dwelling upon the obvious. Every now and then, your remarks evoke, not a laugh-you speak too quietly for that-but a smile. You continue, on and on, your audience listening docilely to your tranquil and abundant flow of language. At last one or two voices will cry out, "Take a rest!" And you will answer: "I am not tired but I can quite understand that the Senate must be!" Upon which, as the official report will say, there are "lively protestations of dissent." And between ourselves, these "protestations of dissent" come as no surprise to you. It is only natural, after all, that an audience should give its sustained attention to a speaker who makes himself so well understood.'

Absolute clearness of thought, sedate dignity, the faculty of adapting his style to his subject and to his audience-these, the Academicians were reminded, had been recognised as M. Poincaré's chief characteristics as a speaker. His place in the world of politics, M. Lavisse found it less easy to define; he was a Liberal, manifestly, but not the ordinary Liberal known to France; un républicain de gouvernement,' rather, standing midway between those Liberals who expected everything and those Socialists who expected nothing from 'la liberté individuelle': a a 'moderate' but no halfhearted moderate-'un enragé de modéré,' as some one else called him; a clear-minded doctrinaire bent on certain specific and quite practicable reforms; a levelheaded idealist; a student of life, moreover, remarkable for his 'ubiquité intellectuelle.'

One other such sketch-from the pen of M. Hanotaux, writing in 1913*-will help us to visualise the newlyelected President:

'His personal appearance is most characteristic: short in stature, vigorous, alert, alive, the grey hair thinning above his very high forehead, his jaws massive and resolute, his blue eyes soft or bright according to the mood of his glance but always captivating . . . his manner of speech most simple and urbane, the words flowing easily and in abundance

the

Preface to M. Henri Girard's biography of M. Poincaré, published

in 1913.

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Fr

but with discretion: everything about him suggests a Frenchman of perfect balance, self-controlled but full of

"go."

M. Hanotaux foresaw in his old friend an almost ideal President, judging him more particularly by the tact and power which he had already displayed as Premier when working with colleagues so dissimilar in views and temperament as M. Bourgeois, M. Millerand, M. Delcassé, and M. Briand. Then, there were his personal qualities to be noted too. France needed a President who would animate and encourage and support the newly-awakened activities of the nation. She would find one after her own heart in this man of letters, scholar, artist, this lover of all the things she herself loved. In choosing Raymond Poincaré, M. Hanotaux declared, the French had for once lived up to the motto of democracy, 'Le pouvoir au meilleur!' The new President had been raised to the first place in the State 'because, among the men of his generation, he was really the first.'

The entire appreciation glows with enthusiasm and hope. It ends with a passage which must be read in the original-both its fervour and its Frenchness would be lost in a translation. M. Hanotaux, blissfully free for the moment from the apprehensions by which, in less buoyant moods, men already then were being weighed down, is envisaging the future:

'Une France rétablie dans son autorité, sa discipline, son union intérieure, son entrainement physique et moral, pourra parler à l'Europe sans faiblesse et sans jactance, réclamer son dû et sa place au soleil: elle saura attendre l'heure et, si l'heure ne se présente, la saisir. Une Europe équitable a pour pivot une France raisonnable: aussi est-il bon que le chef de l'Etat français soit connu au dehors comme un homme de raisonnement et de raison.

'Sept années de paix et d'apaisement, des réalisations précises, des réformes populaires, plus de concorde entre les citoyens, une plus grande douceur dans les mœurs, une plus grande vigueur dans l'action, de plus hautes aspirations dans la pensée, un esprit sain dans un corps sain, la démocratie écartant la secte et la République restant vraiment ce qu'elle est: la chose de tous-tel est le programme que les circonstances entourant son élection et le mouvement de l'opinion Vol. 240.-No. 476.

L

dictent au nouveau Président. Le temps et les hommes lui permettront-ils de le remplir?'

Such language may now seem to savour of extravagant partisanship and irrational optimism, but it really reflected the mood of the great majority of Frenchmen at that moment. M. Poincaré's candidature for the Presidency had not called forth much feeling of any kind except on the part of a few extremely bitter antagonists, M. Clemenceau and M. Caillaux among them; once elected, however, this unimpressive-looking little sobersides captured the imagination of the entire country by the firmness and confidence of his words and bearing. His prestige went up by leaps and bounds until at last, on the occasion of a triumphal progress in August through the regions round Toulouse, he met with 'a demonstration of popularity unparalleled in the history of France.' So says that unemotional chronicle, 'The Annual Register,' in its record of the year 1913. Beyond dispute, no French President was ever so acclaimed. But it was a popularity limited in a significant wayit was the popularity of an uncompromising Moderate. Extremists and fanatics held aloof. The Socialists and the ultramontane Catholics, from their opposite standpoints, viewed the hero of the hour with equal disfavour.

Even during those first six months, however, still more during the twelve months which followed, it almost seemed, despite his personal success, as though the fates and his fellow-men were in league to prevent the new President from fulfilling any of his high aims. Instead of achieving 'réalisations précises,' and 'réformes populaires'; instead of bringing about conciliation and tranquillity; instead of displaying greater strength in administration, the three Prime Ministers who held office during this period were pitifully weak. The first two of them, M. Briand and M. Barthou, were men of M. Poincaré's own group, Republicans of the Left, and perhaps as well fitted for their posts as any other politicians just then available, but they were both incompetent to deal with the serious difficulties and violent dissensions confronting them; their one feat was to bring in the Three Years' Military Service Law (of

* Making the period of service three years for the whole army. It was already three years for the infantry.

SOL