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You are the official head of the nation that is beyond all question or comparison the chief of the neutral powers, marked out from all the rest by commanding magnitude, by modern democratic constitution, and by freedom from the complication of monarchy and its traditions, which have led Europe into the quaint absurdity of a war waged formally between the German Kaiser, the German Czar, the German King of the Belgians, the German King of England, the German Emperor of Austria, and a gentleman who shares with you the distinction of not being related to any of them, and is therefore describable monarchically as one Poincaré, a Frenchman.
It is a message of thanks from President Poincaré to those Americans who found it less easy to be neutral than to be grateful. It was my good fortune to be presented by Paul Benazet, a close personal friend of the President, and both an officer of the army and a deputy.
Two years after the end of the war R. Poincaré wrote that the League of Nations would lose its best possibility of lasting if, un jour, it did not reunite all the nations of Europe. But he added that of all the conquered nations Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria, Turkey and Germany the last-mentioned, by her conduct during the War and after the peace, justified least a near right of entry.
"So!" he exclaimed, when Hal had concluded his narrative, "they are planning to kidnap President Poincaré, eh? Well, we shall be ready for them. But first I must take steps to thwart the proposed German drive. It is to be delivered when, you say?" "Two days after to-morrow, sir," replied Hal. "And you say the Kaiser will return to the front the day after to-morrow?" "Yes, sir." "Good!
In consequence they have sought out a copy of the first edition of these memoirs, and they take pleasure in offering it to him, with the request that he will keep it among his family papers." The signatures include those of Emile Loubet, A. Carnot, d'Estournelles de Constant, Aristide Briand, Sully Prudhomme, Jean Jaures, A. Fallieres, R. Poincare, and two or three hundred others.
The announcement reached the outside world first in the form of the following telegram from the czar to President Poincaré of France: "In placing myself to-day at the head of my valiant armies I have in my heart, M. President, the most sincere wishes for the greatness of France and the victory of her glorious army.
Besides being a brilliant writer, M. Benazet is also an accomplished linguist, and as President Poincaré does not express himself readily in English, and as my French is better suited to restaurants than palaces, he acted as our interpreter.
As for himself, according to Helmholz, Ernst Mach, and Arthur Balfour, he was henceforth to be a conscious ball of vibrating motions, traversed in every direction by infinite lines of rotation or vibration, rolling at the feet of the Virgin at Chartres or of M. Poincare in an attic at Paris, a centre of supersensual chaos. The discovery did not distress him.
It was a long blue motor, polished to the last notch, deeply cushioned, luxurious, poignantly familiar, the car, in short, that I had pursued to Bleau, and that later, in flat defiance of President Poincare or the Generalissimo of France, or whoever makes army rules and regulations, I had guided through the war zone to the castle of Prezelay.
Some of these people have waited from seven in the morning until three in the afternoon to obtain tickets. If matters get worse, President Poincare and the Ministry will establish themselves at Bordeaux. Ambassador Herrick intends to remain in Paris, as Minister Elihu Washburne did in 1870. He will delegate a secretary to represent the United States Embassy at the seat of government. Perhaps Mr.