THE FRENCH PREMIER

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 14, 17 July 1923, Page 7

THE FRENCH PREMIER

A CHARACTER SKETCH.

M. Poincare has'placed himself in a •peculiar position in relation to Britain, and the present circumstances/therefore ■give additional interest to .an estimate of his character made at the time of his succession to the Premiership in January, 1922. The sketch is from the London ■"Times" :— • He is an old friend of ours. Long before the war he was constant in working for the Entente, a support which was based on a definite principle, namely that no political alliance can last unless it had behind it an intellectual kinship. Iv spite of all. differences of languages and race, there must be a communion of thought, culture, sympathy, ar/d knowledge. And no Frenchman was more'ideally fitted to promote such a -'spiritual entente than Raymond Poincare. Not only has he an admiration, the fruit of deep knowledge, for British institutions and British culture, but- he presents'in his own person that combination of the statesman with the scholar and the thinker which throughout their long political history the' British peoples have particularly valued and 'venerated.. . • '

By birth and education as -well as by temperament M. Poincare is the kind of man whom the immense majority of Frenchmen would like themselves aiidj their sons to be. A Lorrainer, born at Bar-lerDuc on 20th August, 1860, he was sent by his father, a distinguished civil engineer, to the famous Lycee 'L'ouis-le-Grand, in Paris. Literature was his first love, and some of his articles and poemsattracted the "notice, of Alphonse Dau- j det. Among his friends at that time, who included "Millerand and Hanotaux', he had tlie nickname of "Prudence-Lor-raine." But his mother—for like many other famous men lie owed much to his mothers-distrusted literature as a, profession, and decided that he should go to the Bar. There his success was rapid, as was. also his success in politics. He was' a Deputy at 23,-a Cabinet Minister at 32, and he refused to be Prime Minister at 38. He was Prime Minister from Janury, 1912, to January, 1913, arid President from 1913 to 1920.

; AH through the war years and the difficult times that followed the Armistice he showedl his steady loyalty to Britain, and, if on occasion he played the part of a candid friend, and even critic,' it is really tho measure of his respect and esteem, and of his confidence in the strength of . the ties which uiiitu the British peoples to France;

M. Poiiicare's cousin, Leon, was emiiierit as a mathematician and physicist, and his brother, Lucien, also distinguished himself in physics, electricity,and other scientific studies. M. Poiiicare himself, though the law is notoriously' a jealous mistress, has never abandoned his love of literature, as his boohs have proved. They won for him his election to the French Academy in 1909. He is an active member, of the Councils, of tile Universities of Paris, Nancy, and Strasbourg, and among all the honours' which have fallen to his lot probably' iione gave him greater pleasure than his election in 1914 to-be Rector of Glasgow University. Nothing could exceed the enthusiasm of the 'Glasgow students when he delivered his Rectorial Address iil November. 1919, speaking with- his accustomed lucidity and charm on Franco-Scottish amity." At tile end of IS2I he addressed the University of London and also the Franco-British InterUniversity Group on his favourite topic of the spiritual and intellectual Entente. Aiid how, as Prime Minister, he will have furtheropportunities of helping the realisation of that great ideal.

[The cable news in this issue accredited to "The Times" haa appeared in that Journal, but ocly where expressly stated is suoh news the tditdrUl opJdioa of "The Tunes.'"]