"Our Socialists chuckled when Poincaré fell finally, beaten only by health. He specialized, they said, in upsetting apple-carts. Seemingly they were happier with Laval. I should have felt mean in joining the chorus of relief from the doughty little fellow. At least he was Someone—not to be called blind because he was resolute. In my boyhood the French seemed to cry vive everything but a government; Poincaré at moments looked durable. "The eternal and to me most repugnant Poincaré", Curzon called him; "when firmly handled he is amenable", Curzon added, forgetting his own tears. Poincaré was three or four things—not more—and amenable was the fourth. He died in 1934 respected by over half of his compatriots—an unusual proportion—because he always knew his own mind—an unusual attribute. He just was not our idea of a Frog. We supposed that Germans shout less than the French, so we entered the thirties unable to measure Sieg Heils as Frenchmen could."