M. Poincaré is a native of Lorraine, and loses no opportunity of telling people so. He was M. Millerand's colleague, and the instigator of his militarist policy. Finally, the first word that he uttered at the very moment when he learned that he was elected President of the Republic, was a promise that he would watch over and maintain all the means of national defence. M. Poincaré had not been in office two months when he recalled the French Ambassador at Petersburg, M. Georges Louis, and appointed in his stead M. Delcassé. Concerning this stupendous move, Baron Guillaume reported 21 February, 1913, to the Belgian Foreign Office thus: The news that M. Delcassé is shortly to be appointed Ambassador at Petersburg burst like a bomb here yesterday afternoon.... He was one of the architects of the Franco-Russian alliance, and still more so of the Anglo-French _entente_. Baron Guillaume goes on to say that he does not think that M. Delcassé's appointment should be interpreted as a demonstration against Germany; but he adds: I do think, however, that M. Poincaré, a Lorrainer, was not sorry to show, from the first day of entering on his high office, how anxious he is to stand firm and hold aloft the national flag. That is the danger involved in having M. Poincaré at the Elysée in these anxious days through which Europe is passing. It was under his Ministry that the militarist, slightly bellicose instincts of the French woke up again. He has been thought to have a measure of responsibility for this change of mood. M. Georges Louis, who had represented the French Government at Petersburg for three years, was a resolute opponent of the militarist faction in France, and was therefore distinctly _persona non grata_ to the corresponding faction in Russia. At the head of this faction stood Isvolsky, who was a friend of M. Poincaré and a kindred spirit; hence when M. Poincaré became Premier, an attempt was made to oust M. Louis, but it was unsuccessful. M. Delcassé, on the other hand, is described by Mr. Morel as "the man identified more than any other man in French public life with the anti-German war-party." Mr. Morel, in commenting on the appointment of M. Delcassé quotes the following from a report sent by the Russian Ambassador in London to the Foreign Office in Petersburg. It was written four days after the appointment of M. Delcassé, and quite bears out the impression made upon the Belgian agents.[10] When I recall his [M. Cambon, the French Ambassador in London] conversations with me, and the attitude of Poincaré, the thought comes to me as a conviction, that of all the powers France is the only one which, not to say that it wishes war, would yet look upon it without great regret.... She [France] has, either rightly or wrongly, complete trust in her army; the old effervescing minority has again shown itself.