RAYMOND

See also:

• RAYMOND POINCARE (186o— )

POINCARE (186o— )  , French statesman, was born at Bar-le-duc on the loth of August i86o, the son of Nicolas Antoinin Helene Poincare, a distinguished civil servant and meteorologist . Educated at the university of Paris, Raymond was called to the Paris bar, and was for some time law editor of the Voltaire . He had served for over a year in the department of agriculture when in 1887 he was elected deputy for the Meuse . He made a great reputation in the Chamber as an economist, and sat on the budget commissions of r89o–1891 and 1892 . He was minister of education, fine arts and religion in the first cabinet (April–Nov . 1893) of Charles Dupuy, and minister of finance in the second and third (May 1894–Jan . 1895) . In the succeeding Ribot cabinet Poincare became minister of public instruction . Although he was excluded from the Radical cabinet which followed, the revised scheme of death duties proposed by the new ministry was based upon his proposals of the previous year . He became vice-president of the chamber in the autumn of 1895, and in spite of the bitter hostility of the Radicals retained his position in 1896 and 1897 . In 1go6 he returned to the ministry of finance in the short-lived Sarrien ministry . Poincare had retained his practice at the bar during his political career, and he published several volumes of essays on literary and political subjects .

His

brother, Lucien Poincare (b . 1862), famous as a physicist, became inspector-general of public instruction in 1902 . He is the author of La Physique modern (1906) and L'Electricite (1907) . Jules Henri Poincare (b . 1854), also a distinguished physicist, belongs to another branch of the same family .