ipo 



REVIEW OF REVIEWS. 



April 1, 1913. 



by his knowledge that new France ap- 

 proves the new President. 



HIS CAREER. 



Monsieur Poincare has had a remark- 

 ably rapid and brilliant career. A true 

 son of Lorraine, he possesses all the 

 characteristics of this country — tena- 

 cious will, methodical thought, perse- 

 verence in work, precise realism, reject- 

 ing vague ideals, smiling irony and 

 good-natured malice, born of exact 

 observation His tastes and aptitudes 

 are catholic, and his career has proved 

 that he was equally competent in science 

 or letters, in philosophy and artistic 

 sense. His philosophy of life is worthy 

 of quotation. He says: — 



" Our youth is passed in continuing 

 the education of our childhood ; our 

 mature age in perfecting that of our 

 youth ; our old age in regretting the im- 

 possibility of concluding the education 

 of our maturitv. 



" But we leave behind us a little of 

 this education never wholly completed, 

 and this little enters into the common 

 fund of humanity, for the well-being 

 of future generations." 



AN INTIMATE SKETCH. 



Ernest W. Smith, Paris correspondent 

 of the London Daily News, whose per- 

 sonal recollections of M. Poincare date 

 back fifteen or sixteen years, tells this 

 intimate story of his political career: — 



"He v/as then, if I remember rightly, 

 Minister of Public Instruction in M. 

 Dupuy's first Cabinet, a scholar, a 

 charming speaker, and the nominee of 

 his Government to deliver learned and 

 non-committal orations which always 

 had a fund of knowledge and a delicacy 

 of touch about them which would 

 not disgrace Lord Rosebery. He 

 has changed since in appearance, 

 and even more in character. With- 

 in the past few weeks I was pass- 

 ing along the Faubourg St. Honore 

 when a sturdily-built man, a little over 

 middle height, with closely cut beard 

 and eyes that scrutinised even a stranger 

 with interest, leapt from a motor-car 

 and bustled into the Elysee. ' Tiens,' 

 remarked my companion, ' voila Poin- 

 care.' One might easily have mistaken 

 him for M. Daneff. 



A STRONG MAN. 



" Now, as everyone knows, M. Poin- 

 care talks to Europe instead of deliver- 

 ing panegyrics at the pedestals of 

 monuments to local celebrities. He has 

 done well in a democracy where to raise 

 your head above the shoulders of the 

 dead level was to invite the hurling of 

 half a brick. He has had to withstand 

 in this brief electoral campaign the 

 odium of being a ' strong man ' who 

 dared say that he coveted the highest 

 honour his fellow citizens could confer 

 upon him. He is accused of being the 

 new Boulanger. There is no doubt he 

 is going to the Presidency determined 

 to make the office more than a name ; 

 whether he will prove more successful 

 than M. Casimir-Perier remains to be 

 seen. I think he will. 



" xA.lthough a well-known public man 

 in France for nearly a quarter of a cen- 

 tury, M. Poincare earned an interna- 

 tional name just twelve months ago. 

 His great grasp of European politics 

 shown upon the Senate committee on 

 the Franco-German Treaty brought him 

 to the forefront, and indicated him as 

 the statesman to take control of French 

 policy when M. Caillaux's Ministry fell 

 last January. His career since then 

 needs not a word. His early life is less 

 well known. 



HIS EARLY LIFE. 



" M. Poincare was born in 1 860. His 

 father was an inspector of roads and 

 bridges — quite a modest civil appoint- 

 ment, but he was able to send young 

 Raymond Nicholas Landry to a public 

 school, from which he passed to the Col- 

 lege at Nancy. He was called to the 

 bar in 1880, and two years later took 

 his degree as Doctor of Laws. Making 

 a specialty of pleading commercial af- 

 fairs, he was doing very well in the 

 Courts, when his aspirations turned to 

 politics, and he joined the staff of poli- 

 tical writers, first on the Voltaire, and 

 afterwards on the Re-publique Fran- 

 ^aise. In 1886 he became principal clerk 

 at the Ministry of Agriculture. The 

 following year saw him elected deputy 

 at the early age of 27, and the 'baby' 

 of the Chamber. He proved himself a 

 hard worker, and was appointed secre- 

 tary of several important commissions, 



