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Outside this room we were presented to M. Sainsere, the personal secretary of the President, and without further ceremony M. Benazet opened the door, and in the smallest room of all, introduced me to M. Poincaré. His portraits have rendered his features familiar, but they do not give sufficiently the impression I received of kindness, firmness, and dignity.
The phenomena are looked upon as due to mechanical deformations or to movements governed by certain forces. The electromagnetic theory leads, as we have seen, to the employment of other images. M.H. Poincaré, and, after him, Helmholtz, have both proposed electromagnetic theories of dispersion.
Mathematics itself began by counting one two three; then imagining their continuity, which M. Poincare was still exhausting his wits to explain or defend; and this was his explanation: "In short, the mind has the faculty of creating symbols, and it is thus that it has constructed mathematical continuity which is only a particular system of symbols."
German troops were reported within 40 miles of Paris on September 3, and at 3 A. M. of that day a proclamation was issued by President Poincaré, announcing that the seat of government would be temporarily transferred from Paris to Bordeaux.
Indeed, I may say what has never before been printed, that President Poincaré summoned the "architect" of the city to the American embassy and, with tears streaming down his face, told him whence he must take his orders in the future.
He might consistently adopt it verbatim et literatim, if he would, and simply throw his peculiar absolute round it, following in this the good example of Professor Royce. Bergson in France, and his disciples, Wilbois the physicist and Leroy, are thoroughgoing humanists in the sense defined. Professor Milhaud also appears to be one; and the great Poincare misses it by only the breadth of a hair.
As I entered I said, half aloud: The thing is this, to look 'em in the eyes and keep cool whatever happens, not for the fraction of a moment forgetting that they are made of merde, that they are all of them composed entirely of merde I don't know how many inquisitors I expected to see; but I guess I was ready for at least fifteen, among them President Poincare Lui-meme.
When President Poincare and the French Cabinet decided to transfer the seat of government to Bordeaux, the Spanish Ambassador, Marquis de Villa Urrutia, was about to quit Paris with President Poincare, but the King of Spain wished his representative to remain in Paris. The marquis, however, to use an American expression, got "cold feet" and expressed a wish to go to Bordeaux.
It is a reply, and a very necessary reply, to the kites which M. Poincaré has been flying in The Times and elsewhere, suggesting that this country should sacrifice all its claims of every description in return for practically nothing at all, certainly not a permanent solution of the general problem.
After the lunch and conference, word was sent in to Colonel Wigram who endeavoured to persuade the King and M. Poincaré to pose for a short scene on the balcony. Word came back that they would do so. To fix my camera up on the balcony was the work of only a few seconds. The King came out through the French window, followed by M. Poincaré.
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