Fifteen minutes later, he was back in the drawing-room, and captivating us all by his sober, vivid, and extremely clear-sighted account of the political situation of Europe from the Russian Government's standpoint!
A pretty incident occurred one afternoon at my house, in which another distinguished Russian was concerned. He was my friend, General Eletz, who could be called "the bravest of the brave."
My uncle, General Japy, often said to him in his blunt manner: "What a pity you are a Russian. You are the very kind of officer we like in the French Army!" General Eletz had written a book on the "Hussars of the Imperial Guard," and he had hardly been in the room a few minutes, before there entered the French General de Chalandar, who had written on the "Hussards de Chamboran." Now, each had sent the other a copy of his book, and so the two had become great friends, by post, but this was their first meeting.
The two men stood face to face, both very tall and athletic.
"General de Chalandar, General Eletz," I said, introducing them.
"What... Hussar of the Guard?" asked the one.
"What... Hussar of Chamboran?" asked the other, and the two delighted giants shook hands for fully ten minutes in the most ardent and energetic manner.... Then suddenly, General Eletz turned pale, staggered, and collapsed. My mother and I attended to him, and when he had sufficiently recovered, he drove away, without telling us the cause of his collapse.
I found it out afterwards. He had stopped a runaway horse half an hour before calling on me, and had been dragged along for some distance. His shoulders and his knees had been badly injured, but he had promised to come, and after brushing off the dust, he came.... But the ten minutes hand-shaking had been too much for him.
Of all these foreigners, my sympathy went out, above all, to the Russians, because I found them brave, intelligent, and kind; to the Americans on account of their straightforwardness, and their delightful disregard of conventionalities; and to the English, because of their healthy minds and their stolidity, which was often refreshing and soothing to me in my restless life.
For over fifteen years, then, from my marriage to the fatal date of May 30th-31st, 1908, I experienced that peculiar sensation which you cannot easily do without when once you have known it, the sensation which comes from being always surrounded by many people, from having near you scores of friends (and a few enemies too), day after day, until solitude becomes unthinkable—as distant and fanciful a notion as that of life on a desert isle—from hearing every day something fresh or unexpected, from constantly renewing your little stock of knowledge, the sensation of unending giving and taking.
Whether you wish it or not, you wear your mind, your nerves, your heart and your vitality; and you receive in return thoughts, suggestions, ideas, and often genuine sympathy. You belong less and less to yourself and more and more to others, to what is called le monde.... Sometimes you receive less than you give, and you return home exhausted from a soirée at which you have talked, struggled, conquered, advised, persuaded, consoled—and also sung and played, and listened; and if you are not too tired to think about it all, you say to yourself: I am the dupe, not only of life, but of my own heart. I wear myself away for others, and when I come back and cry out to my heart for admittance, I find that I cannot enter and be alone with myself. You must be selfish to live happily—or even to live—at all....
But the next day, after all too short a night, how eagerly you take up and open the letters the maid brings you—often a whole tray full of them—and how your heart thrills once more to the world as you read....
Three invitations to dinner... and one of them says, "Please bring some songs with you, the great So and So will accompany you."... A lady friend begs me to come to tea that very afternoon, she needs my advice, something dreadful has happened.... A member of my family, a functionary, has lost his temper; will I see his Minister and save him.... Mme. Z. gambled and lost... heavily; what is she to do?... My dear mother feels lonely. Will I come to Beaucourt for a few days?... Marthe's governess is ill; will I find some one to replace her for a week or two?... I am reminded that there is a reception at the English Embassy, I must not forget to come.... My friend Mustel relies on me to come and listen to his new organ, an orchestra, a marvel.... The Duchess of Y. is impatiently waiting for those fifty children's dresses I said I would send for her "ouvroir."... My dressmaker will come at four.... Mme. C. writes she'll call at two to take me to the Geographical Society, where her husband, who has recently returned from a perilous expedition, will lecture. She'll never forgive me if I don't come.... And here are letters from poor people I know.... A mother's appeal for her starving children, an old workman who has lost his job... he hails from Beaucourt, and years ago worked on my father's estate.... Two poor girls to whom I often give some sewing to do, are dangerously ill.... And there is the rehearsal of an oratorio at the Temple, and a sale of old silver which I have promised to attend with the newly-married Countess de M. who knows nothing about old silver, and wants to learn, because her husband collects.... And here comes my darling Marthe: "Mother, do spend the whole day with your little girl... please!"...
How I would love to!
What a life! I feel like the owner and captain of a ship. I have built it; I have launched it on unknown seas, and have started upon an expedition to the land of Nowhere.... Society-life has no object since it has itself as object.... And yet I feel I cannot desert my ship, if only because I sometimes pick up a shipwrecked sister or a drowning brother, and because I have lost my bearings....
What a life! You sigh, you complain, and then comes the reaction.... I have wasted a precious half-hour dreaming, lamenting. "Quick! Clotilde! my tailor-made dress, the navy-blue one, my toque and a pair of gloves. It is already ten o'clock. I shall never manage to do all I must do to-day!"
Of course, they are not real duties these "Society" duties but you do them more or less conscientiously and always with energy—for you are in a hurry! And meanwhile you neglect the other duties, the real ones, including the duties to yourself.... That is Parisian life. And when you have tasted its exquisite poison you cannot do without it, no more than a "Society queen" (Oh! the emptiness of such a title) can do without elegance, chocolates, scent, cosmetics, compliments, and other indispensable things!
I have been criticised because I sometimes received men and women whose standard of morality was not of the highest.... But in Paris, if you were to receive only paragons of virtue, you would indeed, receive very few people.... Yes, there came to my house men whose talk went a little further than I could have wished, and ladies whose minds were not so pure as the transparent gems they wore in profusion.... There came to the villa in the Impasse Ronsin people who were ingeniously romantic, wickedly childish and recklessly unconventional; but whatever their moral shortcomings, they were never dull. And that is a great deal.
And what pleasant and brilliant conversations, even when the causeurs were too short-sighted or too far-sighted in their views. Thus I had friends who wished all music was destroyed and forgotten except the works of Richard Strauss, others who would have given their lives for Maeterlinck, and quite a number of men who wanted to save France (there is an amazing number of people in France who believe that the country is irretrievably lost unless their advice is followed). All these persons may have been rather foolish, but they never bored; their ideas were often wrong but never absurd.... And there always happened to be present some one who made them agree—with themselves.
I have been further criticised for "doing everything myself." "Everything" is an exaggeration, but I certainly did a great deal in my house, and I am proud of it. At Beaucourt my father made me do as many things as possible in our home, although he was wealthy. I then made at least half my dresses and hats, and fulfilled a thousand and one household duties. I thought my father was right, and marriage did not change my views on the matter.
Should I have given up my salons and my receptions, the pleasant and interesting relations with men and women of the world, with men of talent and men of genius, just because my husband and I had not an unlimited account at the bank? Should I have deprived myself of those intellectual and artistic joys which add so much to life because I could not entertain as lavishly as did some of my wealthier friends?
Yes, I helped with the household work in the morning, and when I thought that a room would be improved by changing the position of a piece of furniture, I helped the servants to move it.... I may here mention that all this was carefully noted, after my arrest, and the examining magistrate, M. André made the following argument in all seriousness: "A woman who is strong enough to assist in moving a cupboard or a sideboard is strong enough to strangle one or two persons with her own hands."...
Although I loved that "mundane" life, it was not on account of its "brilliant" side, but because I found there satisfactions of the mind which to some extent made up for my unfortunate married life, and also because I was able to make some use of my numberless acquaintances—those especially who held high office—to help in their careers my husband's relatives or mine, or any friend.
But there were hours of bitter dejection, when it seemed to me that of the crowd of people I knew who proclaimed themselves my devoted friends, there were not ten men and women on whom I could absolutely rely and who fully deserved the beautiful name of "friend"; hours when the compliments with which I was overwhelmed rang formal and untrue, when sympathy was hypocrisy or calculation; hours when I loathed the artificiality of Parisian life!...
I sought then a refuge in long conversations with my husband in his studio, where I helped him in his work, and in the tender love of my mother. Or I pressed my little Marthe to my heart and a fierce craving would seize me to flee with her to Beaucourt, to beautiful Beaucourt, the home of my happy youth, and lead there a modest, normal life with my child! But Paris does not let go of its victims....
CHAPTER VI
FÉLIX FAURE
BEYOND the hours of depression and the every-day troubles that fall to the lot of all human beings: disappointed dreams, thwarted ambitions, shattered illusions, financial cares and family worries, there happened nothing particularly eventful in my life until the day when I became the friend and confidante of Félix Faure, elected President of the Republic in January 1895.
The political and other events of general interest which took place in France during the years immediately preceding that date, may be summed up in a few words.
After the Panama scandal and the vanishing of the "two hundred and fifty million francs," cabinets were formed and cabinets fell with symptomatic and alarming rapidity. For instance, in January 1898, Ribot becomes Premier, but already in March Dupuy succeeds him. The general election reveals nothing... except the nation's apathy. The election of fifty Socialists as deputies, however, is worth noting. Later Casimir Périer becomes Prime Minister. He has a revered name, is capable, and he is wealthy, but his Ministry does not last six months, and in May 1894, Dupuy returns to power. The next month an Italian anarchist murders President Carnot, the noblest of men and an able statesman, worthy grandson of the victor of Wattignies, of Lazare Carnot, the "Organiser of Victory." Four days later, the Congress sitting at Versailles, elects Casimir Périer to the highest office in the Republic, but in January 1905, tired of being slandered, fettered, and insulted, and for private reasons, too, Casimir Périer resigns and Félix Faure becomes President.
He had rapidly reached the supreme rank. Under-Secretary for the Colonies from 1882 to 1885 in Jules Ferry's Cabinet, he was elected vice-president of the Chamber in 1893, became Minister for the Navy in 1894, and President of the Republic in 1895.
That very year he received the Lord Mayor of London, Sir Joseph Renals, and the following year, in October, the Czar and the Czaritza. I attended the gala performance at the Opera, the laying of the first stone of the Alexander III. bridge, which was to illustrate in stone and bronze the Franco-Russian Alliance, and even went to Châlons to see the military review held there. I had left Beaucourt for the purpose of attending these ceremonies in the company of an important official. The Czar struck me as more unassuming than the President, and the rather pathetic beauty of the Empress of all the Russians made a deep impression upon me. France went Russia mad, and Félix Faure became extremely popular.
The Alliance which had been marked by the visit of a French squadron commanded by Admiral Gervais to Kronstadt (1891), the mission of General Boisdeffre to St. Petersburg in the following year, and the visit of the Russian Admiral Avelan to Toulon and Paris in 1893, was to become a fait accompli during the return visit of Félix Faure to the Czar in August 1897.
Three months before this momentous visit there occurred in Paris the terrible catastrophe of the Bazar de la Charité which claimed some hundred and fifty victims. I miraculously escaped death that day. I was one of the ladies in charge of the buffet, and was serving tea, when I felt suddenly unwell, so much so that, reluctantly, I had to leave the Bazaar. The carriage in which I drove home had hardly turned the corner of the Rue Jean Goujon when the fire broke out.
My mother arrived at my house in a state of mad terror, for she had accompanied me a few hours before as far as the doors of the Bazaar, and when she had heard of the fire, had feared that I was one of the victims. I was safe but, alas, lost my dear friends in the catastrophe.
A few weeks later the second jubilee of Queen Victoria was celebrated, and with a few English friends staying in Paris, I attended the great garden-party given at the British Embassy by Sir Edmund Monson. Mme. Faure and her daughter, M. Hanotaux, Minister of Foreign Affairs, and the whole literary, artistic, and political élite of France were present.
I heartily congratulated an eminent English personage on the splendour of the reception and the atmosphere of pleasant mirth which permeated the Embassy.
"Of course, Madame," he remarked, "the Embassy has not always this bright animation! But you must not believe that we English are as sedate and stolid and gloomy as some people say. And I may inform you, by the way, that this house was once the residence of the notorious Pauline Borghese, whose only ambition was to be pretty and to... to be loved." He then told us a number of lively anecdotes about the ravishing sister of Napoleon—and concluded; "Don't you think there is something piquant in the fact that the Ambassador of stern and solemn Old England lives in a house which once belonged to a famous crowned courtesan!"
On July 14th—the day of the fête nationale—the usual review took place at Longchamps, and I took my six-year-old daughter to see "the soldiers," but, instead of watching them, she kept staring at the Rajah of Kapurthala, who was close to us, and asking endless questions which brought smiles to the lips of all those who overheard her, but embarrassed me very much.
I spent the rest of July and the whole month of August in the Alps, with my husband, who had to work "on the spot," for a vast "panorama of the Alpine Club," which was intended for the Exhibition of 1900. The Alpine manœuvres were in progress at the beginning of August, and President Faure, who had been to Valence and Orange, came to witness them. Just before a sham fight by the Chasseurs Alpins near the Vanoise Pass, my husband took up a position whence he could survey the coming scene, and I, further down and camera in hand, was preparing to take snap-shots from the top of a rock, when I heard some voices. There, below me, was a group of men, and one of them, wearing a red shirt, a brown suit, yellowish gaiters, and a white béret, looked up at me and said something I could not hear. I believe he asked whether he should stop to be photographed. I failed to recognise the President of the Republic and his suite. But shortly afterwards an officer came to ask whether M. and Mme. Steinheil would lunch with the President. I declined, thinking the invitation too sudden and too formal, but my husband accepted and told me he would ask the President for permission to paint the forthcoming "distribution of decorations" at La Traversette.
Needless to say, I had met the President before. For several years I had regularly attended functions at the Elysée, and had made the acquaintance of Félix Faure, as I had made that of Carnot and of Casimir Périer. I had even spoken at length with him on two or three occasions when he was Minister for the Navy.
That same day, in the village which at the time was my husband's headquarters, I saw the President once more. A group of little girls, wearing the quaint old dresses of Savoy, were offering flowers to him.... Félix Faure saw me, bowed deeply, and afterwards there came an invitation to dinner—which I declined. The next morning yet another invitation came, this time to lunch, near Bourg Saint-Maurice, at the redoubt which overlooks the Petit Saint Bernard. My husband accepted, but I declined again, under the first pretext that occurred to me.... The truth was that I was far too busy collecting native buckles, bracelets and crosses, the wooden birds in which the Savoy peasants keep salt, and all the headdresses I could buy, to care to lunch with the "first magistrate" in the land and his suite! I much preferred the milk, cheese, and brown bread of the mountaineers to all the dainties and wines of the presidential table. When at night my husband returned with his companions—a judge and a mayor—I was told the President repeatedly alluded to my absence. My husband made his sketches of the distribution by President Faure of "decorations" to Alpine soldiers at La Traversette, and joined me again. The Chief of the State left for Annecy and Paris, and later, while my husband and I were leading the simple life in the mountains of Savoy, the President was in Russia with the Czar, enjoying the banquets given in his honour at Kronstadt, St. Petersburg and Peterhof.
My husband's painting of the Traversette scene included, of course, portraits of the various members of the President's suite and they—ministers and officers—came during the autumn to the studio in the Impasse Ronsin to sit for their portraits. The President gave a sitting to M. Steinheil at the Elysée. An exchange of letters followed. Félix Faure was anxious to see the "historic" painting, and I was told that he wished to visit our house, which had been described to him by his entourage, in which I numbered several friends. I was overwhelmed with invitations to the Elysée.... At the beginning of 1898 the picture was completed, and the President called one morning to see it.
My uncle, General Japy, was with my husband and me to receive him. My garden was one huge bouquet, and as soon as he had entered, with General Bailloud and a young officer, the President expressed his delight. Marthe offered him a sheaf of flowers that was almost as big as herself, but absolutely refused to be kissed. Her obstinacy amused Félix Faure, who asked:
"What is the toy you like best?"
"A doll."
"What is your name?"
"Marthe."
"Well, little Marthe, I will give instructions for a perfect doll with a complete trousseau to be made and sent to you, exactly the same as I am sending to the Czar's daughter."
"Thank you," said Marthe quietly, but nevertheless refused to be kissed.
Félix Faure admired the drawing-room and the "winter-garden," examined closely as a connoisseur a few pieces of antique furniture, and then stopping near the piano: "Ah! It is no fun to be a President," he sighed. "I am deprived of music.... Of course the band of the Republican Guard plays at the dinner-parties at the Elysée, and there is the Opera, and... the Marseillaise, wherever I go, but I seldom, if ever, hear the music I love, chamber music, or a simple song, sung at the piano!"
He told me that he had heard about the musical parties at my house, and that his friend Massenet was also my friend, and finally asked whether I would sing, just for once, at the Elysée.
"No, M. le President," I replied. "I don't believe I could sing there.... It seems to me that everything official is necessarily inartistic, and I should not care to sing in surroundings that were uncongenial."
He walked to my husband's studio. The President was delighted with the picture.
"Do you know," he asked me, "that they are singing a song on the boulevards about the white béret I wore at the Alpine manœuvres?"
"I suppose they are comparing it to Henri IV.'s famous white plume, M. le President," a young officer suggested.
"No,... I wish they did.... There's nothing historical about the song. Still, it is an advertisement, and even Presidents need réclame.... It is a very caustic but still very jolly song."
Marthe exclaimed: "Please sing it to me!"
"I will if you will give me that kiss!"
Marthe ran away.
The President looked at the pictures in the studio. He paused before a small painting by my husband, representing a woman of Bourg Saint-Maurice, wearing the pretty mediæval cap still in use in certain parts of Savoy. It is like a round helmet of brilliantly coloured material, with a point above the forehead. The hair tightly plaited is twisted round with black tape, which forms part of the helmet (a three hours' process which the women at Bourg Saint-Maurice told me they only went through twice a month), and from that strange but becoming headgear hangs a loose chain made of black and golden beads.
Félix Faure was so delighted with this little portrait that he insisted on buying it.... Needless to say, it was gladly offered to him as a souvenir of his brief stay in the Alps.
He then insisted on inviting my husband and me to lunch at the Elysée.... "And don't refuse, this time," he added, turning to me.
From that day flowers and invitations rained upon me from the Elysée.
A month or two afterwards, the vernissage (opening day) of the Salon, which the President of the Republic attends each year, took place, and Félix Faure was present with Méline, the Premier, Hanotaux, Minister of Foreign Affairs, and a large array of prominent functionaries. My friend Bonnat, Director of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and "Painter of Presidents," conducted Félix Faure through the rooms.
Suddenly, Bonnat came to me and said gaily: "The President has been asking for you ever since he arrived here. I believe he is fond of you, as we all are, even I, your dear 'Methuselah!' Please come and meet him; I have left him with your husband; they are both expecting you."
I gave him a gentle tap with my catalogue; he ran back to fulfil his official duties, and five minutes later, the Army, in the shape of a colonel, came to fetch me.
"I am delighted," said Félix Faure, "to be at last able to congratulate you, Madame."
"You forget I did not paint the picture," I said in a low voice.
"The State," he went on, "desires to acquire it."
"You forget the picture belongs to my husband."
"You know most painters, Madame; will you consent to act as my guide?"
"Yes, with M. Bonnat's indispensable assistance."
I took the President quickly past the works of famous painters—those loaded with honours and wealth—and made him stop before the paintings of little-known and talented artists who needed—and deserved—recognition; and I had the satisfaction of seeing Félix Faure and a few members of his suite make a note of the names of certain young but promising painters....
"I am taking advantage of your kindness, Madame, but I am the President of the Republic, and I am sure you are a patriot.... You hail from the Eastern frontier?..."
"My birth-place is only half an hour from Alsace... but one may be a patriot without being attached to the Republic, M. le President. Who knows but that I am a Bonapartist?"
Félix Faure promptly replied: "I should understand if there were still a Bonaparte!"
We parted, and with a few close friends, I went round the various rooms. Just as I was about to leave, M. Roujon, Director at the Ministry of Fine Arts, rushed towards me....
"The President," he began breathlessly.
"What! Again the President."
"Yes, still the President, Madame.... He has requested me to tell you that he doesn't wish the State to buy your husband's picture. He has acquired it for himself."
Aggravated, I went to Bonnat, who had already heard the news.
"You can do nothing," he said. "How can you prevent the President from ranking above the State... in such a matter!"
I appreciated Félix Faure's kindly intentions, but thought his methods rather too impulsive and embarrassing.
My husband wrote to the President to thank him. We called on him several times at the Elysée, and a warm friendship formed.
One afternoon, I had a long conversation with Félix Faure, in his study. We had often talked of art, music, travel and politics, but never going much beyond the surface of things.... This time, he was extremely earnest and spoke to me about the hopeless political situation in France and the ever increasing difficulties he had to face. He spoke about the general elections which had just taken place.... The Socialists had polled an extraordinary number of votes; the Radical deputies elected exceeded the Moderates in number.... A new party had risen: the Nationalists. What these meant was not quite clear but they certainly meant mischief. Every one was dissatisfied.... Anarchy was rampant.... The Chambre was an incoherent assembly and there was the Dreyfus Affair to tackle.... Thank Heaven, the elections had shown that the Republican majority was against Dreyfus and his supporters.... But trouble was brewing.
"I know all this," I said, "but how can I help you? I am not a Cabinet Minister!"
"Quite so... but I am sure you could help me a great deal, if only to discover the truth...." he remarked seriously, then, changing his tone he added whimsically: "Do you know I have heard a great deal about you, of late? It appears that you have unusual powers of persuasion. In the various Ministries, when I wish to secure this or that post for a protégé, I am invariably told that it has already been promised to one of your friends. Your candidates pass before mine...."
We talked about his career and about my life.... Then he took me round the place. He showed me the hall where Napoleon had held receptions and the room where he had last slept in Paris after the battle of Waterloo, the "Hall of Sovereigns" where Napoleon had abdicated and where Queen Victoria had stayed in 1855.
After walking round the gardens we returned to the President's study.
Thenceforth, I met him almost every day, either in the Bois de Boulogne, where he rode in the morning, or at the Elysée. He would telephone to me at any hour of the day. There was always something to do, some one to sound. Félix Faure had fullest confidence in me and I went, for him, when he could not go himself, to the sittings of the Chamber of Deputies or of the Senate, to certain receptions and parties. He was surrounded by enemies, and he knew it. He made use of my intuition, of my knowledge of people. I met him after all the Cabinet Councils, and he told me what had been discussed and decided.
A new life began for me; my rôle of confidante had its difficulties and even its dangers, but it had a wonderful fascination. My salon was now more crowded than ever before. Invitations were showered upon me both from quarters friendly with the Government and from quarters in league with the Opposition. My "friends" were legion, and my enemies—you cannot possess influence or power without making enemies—were greater flatterers than the others.
Then, there were men who tried to persuade me of this, that or the other, so that I should in my turn persuade the President, and those who laid traps for me, men whose entreaties were disguised threats, who tried to know what I knew, and who did not seem to realise that their very attitude revealed quite plainly their shameless scheme....
How often I was able to warn the President in time against a dangerous mistake. How often I prevented him from appointing to some responsible position a man who perhaps had an interesting career behind him, and a stainless reputation, but under whose mask of impassiveness I had been able to detect a man without scruples or principles, an arriviste, ready to sell everything and even himself to achieve his ambition.... No man is inscrutable to a woman, especially when that woman is devoted to one whom she has decided to help, and when she is supposed to care for nothing more essential than music, flowers, dress, or success.
And I hasten to add that I sided no more with one party than with another.
At the time when the whole French nation was divided into two parties, there were among my best friends, among the men whom I most respected and admired, staunch Dreyfusards and also staunch anti-Dreyfusards.
I believed then, as I believe to-day, in tolerance, liberty, and legality. I never took part in one single political discussion, not even in my own drawing-room. What I heard I remembered, and when I thought that a piece of what I would call "psychological information" could assist the President I retold it to him.
It goes without saying that I was very much sought after, if only because I had some influence in most ministries and at the Elysée. And it was a source of real joy to me to be able to render services to so many people who seemed to need them. I remember, for instance, a Minister, who after some unlucky speculations had so many debts, just at the time when one Cabinet fell, that he was lost unless he obtained a portfolio—and the salary attached to it—in the next. His friends implored me to intercede with the President on his behalf.
"He has rendered poor services as a Minister," said Félix Faure when I approached him, "but I will see that he is appointed to a post for which he is better suited, although I am sure he is not worth bothering about. The post will be less conspicuous, but quite as lucrative... and that seems to be the great point."
Need I add that the ex-Minister became my enemy afterwards? The greater the services, as a rule, the greater the ingratitude.
The number of incidents of all kinds—strange, tragic, heroic, harrowing, comical, or revolting—which I witnessed during the year 1898, is truly amazing. I recall a leader of society, a noblewoman, who sacrificed her fortune, her reputation, and her happiness for the sake of a man implicated in the Dreyfus affair, in whom she had absolute faith, and who made a political blunder that plunged him into a tragedy for which he certainly was only indirectly responsible. I remember a prominent and really able citizen who, in a moment of patriotic frenzy, made such a fool of himself that he and all his family, for whose sake he made a daring but absurd move, was crushed under that almighty and often unjust power—Ridicule. I recall a pigmy, in size and brains, who through sheer luck and a sly use of his opportunities, became famous for a while, and made a fortune out of other men's thoughts. And I could tell the abject story of a personage of very high standing in whom Félix Faure had complete confidence. Somehow I distrusted that man, and succeeded in preventing the President from accepting his statements as "gospel" truth at a time when, owing to the electional atmosphere of the political world, the slightest errors of judgment became unpardonable faults, and even treachery.... After the death of the President, and in most unexpected circumstances, I found out that the exalted personage had had, for years, as mistress, a woman who was a spy in the service of the German Embassy. He was that woman's tool, but she loved him, and when he forsook her, Fate brought her to me, in search of a living. I discovered the whole truth about her and her friend, and realised then, and only then, how well-inspired I had been when I warned Félix Faure against the man.
A LETTER FROM FELIX FAURE TO MME. STEINHEIL
It would be only too easy to quote scores of such facts, but the others, however vaguely I might describe them would still be too transparent, and I do not write these Memoirs out of spite, ill-feeling, or revenge against any one. In this chapter I merely wish to convey some idea of the part I played in President Faure's life.
Félix Faure, having noticed that some of my letters did not reach him, we agreed that in the future when we were unable to meet freely, and when we had some important communication to make to one another, our letters would be sealed with white wax in "urgent," and with blue wax in all other cases; also that my valet would take my messages to the President, and his messages would be handed to the same man, summoned by a private telephone call.
I entered the Elysée—whither a private detective, who had been selected by the President himself, always accompanied me—by a small door in the gardens, at the corner of the Rue du Colisée and the Avenue des Champs Elysées, and through the grounds to the small "blue salon," where the President awaited me for "our task."
That task, as the reader may have already guessed, was the "Memoirs" of the President.
Félix Faure, who, in spite of the many things that satisfied his self-esteem—the brilliant side of his exalted function, the relative importance of it, and, above all, the fact that it placed him on an equal footing with kings and emperors—was looking forward to the end of his septennat and was anxious to explain some day his conduct in the political and diplomatic events in which he had been and was so intimately concerned. These "Memoirs" were to form a secret history of France since the Franco-Prussian War. To these "Memoirs" I was contributing a mass of notes and comments throwing some light on certain personalities, on certain facts. Sometimes we worked apart, sometimes together, and more than once I spent a whole afternoon examining and classifying documents whilst the President in the next room was granting audiences.
We wrote the "Memoirs" on foolscap which I brought myself, for the President knew that his stationery was counted!
Everything went into these "Memoirs," which were already assuming bulky proportions: the evolution of the internal and the foreign policy of France; the Franco-Russian Alliance; the secret story of the Dreyfus Affair; the schemes of the various Pretenders to the throne of France. There were details on financial problems, colonial expansion, armaments, electoral systems, Administration, the Army and the Navy....
Certainly, if a general and critical survey, conscientious, impartial, sober, and packed with first-hand information of all the events that made the history of the Third Republic, were worth writing—and how can one deny it?—then Félix Faure did well to spend daily long hours of his time, and of mine, in writing his "Memoirs," though had they been published, say, within ten or fifteen years a great number of so-called "prominent" men would have had to disappear in order to escape the scorn of the whole world as well as the execration of their own people.
The "Memoirs" were locked up in an iron box, which was opened only when new material had to be added to the great mass already collected. Then, one day, the President begged me to take these important and secret documents home with me for safety. The iron box was left in his study, and partly filled with blank sheets—for the box might be shaken! I took the contents home, little by little and day by day, until the box was empty.
Many times it seemed to me that I was being shadowed, but my faithful "agent" watched over me, and I was able to store all the papers safely away in my house. Félix Faure had told me to keep them (and had given me a letter which said so) and to have them published if I thought fit in the case of his death, for, as he said more than once to me: "I sometimes fear I shall end like Carnot...."
The President had a very high notion of his office, but frequently complained of his limited powers.
"And yet," I once told him, "you appoint your Ministers, the nomination of all officials rests with you, and you control the Army and the Navy...."
"Yes, but to what extent?... You say I control the Navy! But I know for a fact that nearly all the powder in the magazines of our battleships is defective, that the armour-plating of those battleships has not the thickness that was ordered—which, of course, means thousands of pounds to the swindlers!—and that the boilers are almost worthless!... I have lost my temper and more than once come down on them all like a ton of bricks, but things have not been altered. A President is but a figure-head! And yet you know with what passion I love the Navy. I was born at Le Hâvre, I have always loved all that concerns the sea, and when I entered Parliament my great ambition was to become Minister of the Navy.... Even now the Navy is one of my chief interests—my 'hobby,' if you like to call it so; and there is my note-paper with the initials 'F.F.' entwined by a symbolic anchor...."
He loved to talk of naval matters. "I share Delcassé's views," he said once (the conversation took place on the day when he heard that one of our ships had been wrecked on the coast of Madagascar). "England is the great enemy, because England is the great naval power and is so close to our shores and our harbours. Unless we make friends with England, we must find the best way to harass her, in case of war. And I can see nothing better than reviving the old right of privateering and building small but extremely fast craft, large enough to carry a great deal of fuel, so as to be able to remain a long time at sea without replenishing their bunkers. We must be able to destroy the commerce of England, to starve her. To avoid important naval engagements and vanquish the enemy in numberless skirmishes, that should be our aim. We have neither the means nor the ability England possesses of building extensively and rapidly."
"But privateering," I suggested, remembering my father's long chat on what he rightly called "the most fascinating period of French history," "was a total failure during the Revolution and the Napoleonic wars."
"Quite so," said Félix Faure; "but as my friend Admiral Fournier says, the only way to make France powerful from a naval standpoint is to supply her with an unique fleet, as regards efficiency and number, of torpedo-boats, destroyers, and submarines."
The President was quite enthusiastic about the Navy. He would explain to me for a whole hour that ships spent far too much time in harbour, that gun-practice was far too limited; he would quote off-hand the gunnery records of certain British and American battleships. And at the end of his talk he would telephone to Lockroy, the Minister of the Navy, and beg him to investigate this or that point, or perhaps suggest that he or some member of his staff should visit this or that station or dockyard.
Félix Faure was less a statesman than a business man. He greatly admired the way in which the English managed their Colonies: "Theirs pay; ours don't. We laugh, alas! at the ideas and customs of the natives. Why don't we imitate the English or the Dutch? But there, we never had any respect for other people's notions or convictions."
The various evils he complained of all came from the same source: politicians in France are not the élite of the nation. The best brains, the most able men do not care for politics, and have no ambition to be in office.
The Alliance with Russia, the first move towards which had been made under President Carnot, but for which Faure had done so much, was, naturally enough, a cause of much gratification to him. He would explain at length the utility of the Alliance, and he did so with the gusto of a business man who has made a wonderful deal, and who, in order to flatter his self-esteem, keeps on finding fresh indications, direct or indirect, of the importance of his bargain.
"Napoleon," he would say, for instance, "was never so powerful as when he was allied to Alexander the First. Again, one may safely assert that France, in 1815, would have been dismembered had it not been for Alexander. Sixty years later it was his nephew, Alexander II., who saved France from a German invasion five years after the Franco-Prussian War.
"And who knew but that that disastrous war might not have been avoided had Napoleon III. not ignored the friendly advances of Gortschakoff!" More than once President Faure showed strong leanings towards a rapprochement with England ... before the Fashoda affair, and this was chiefly due to the influence of the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII.), for whom he felt the greatest personal regard, and whose diplomatic ability he much admired. What would President Faure have said had he lived a few years longer, and seen that, in spite of the Fashoda incident and in spite of the aggressively anglophobic attitude of France during the Boer War, King Edward VII. succeeded, by reason of his charming manner, his diplomacy (so subtle and yet so simple), and his sincere love for France, in making the whole French people extend to England the warm sympathy they felt for him.
CHAPTER VII
THE DREYFUS AFFAIR—FASHODA
IT was during the Presidency of Félix Faure that the chief phase of the Dreyfus affair, and that the Fashoda "incident" took place.
Captain Alfred Dreyfus, accused of having sold military secrets to Germany, was sentenced and degraded in January 1895. Shortly afterwards the officer was conveyed to Devil's Island, north of the Guiana coast.
It was in 1896 that the head of the Intelligence Department of the War Office, Colonel Picquart—whom I had often met at the Elysée—declared that the bordereau (the famous covering letter containing a list of documents which Dreyfus had been accused of communicating to Germany) had been written by Major Esterhazy. Colonel Picquart was replaced in his delicate post by Colonel Henry. In 1897, Senator Scheurer-Kestner attempted to have the Dreyfus case reopened, but President Faure objected strongly, and Méline, then Prime Minister, declared that the Dreyfus affair was classée (ended for good and all).
From that time a bitter war between Dreyfusards and anti-Dreyfusards was raged, and the most scurrilous slanders, the worst insults, became weapons of almost universal use. My salon was neutral ground, but I was soon unable to prevent these impassioned duels of words, in which there showed hardly a sign of tolerance or of human sympathy. And these constant duels took place between men who had been the closest friends all their lives, between brothers, between husband and wife, between father and son.... I gently pushed the worst disputants away into the conservatory, but the noise of their quarrels—the word discussion would be totally inadequate—reached the drawing-room where a few friends and I tried to play, as an antidote to the raging storm, a page of calm and pure music, by Haydn or Mozart!
To give an example of the strange happenings during that troubled period, I may mention the case of Mme. Z., the wife of an eminent judge, and the high priestess of a famous salon where one met everybody and anybody, the aristocratic "Faubourg Saint-Germain," and also ladies fair and frail such as a certain Mlle. Chichette, whose claim to immortality was based on the fact that she had been the first Parisienne to display on her corsage a tiny tortoise, set with precious stones and—alive.
Mme. Z., who was a rabid Dreyfusard—her husband, of course, being a rabid Anti-Dreyfusard—wore deep mourning during all the time Dreyfus was a prisoner, and appeared in a gaudy blue gown on the day of his liberation. Her mourning had at last come to an end.... It is only fair to add that mourning weeds suited her fair hair. There are limits to the noblest heroism.
Major Esterhazy, who had been arrested, was acquitted by the court-martial. Zola, whose famous letter "I accuse..." had appeared January 13th, 1898, in the Aurore—a journal founded by Clémenceau—was condemned the next month, but the sentence was quashed by the Cour de Cassation (court of supreme appeal), which ordered a new trial. Colonel Picquart was arrested for having made himself an earnest defender of a condemned officer.
Zola went to England, and only returned to France to witness the relative cause he had so ardently supported. Zola died in 1902.
I will now briefly state what I know of the event that took place in France from June 1898 (after the general elections), to February 16th, 1899, the date of Félix Faure's death. It was during that stormy period that I assisted President Faure in gathering documents and writing his memoirs. As I have stated, all his papers were, week after week, carefully put away in my house, and the reader will perhaps agree, when I come to deal with the mysterious murder in the Impasse Ronsin, that those papers had some connection with the murder.
In June, Félix Faure began to wonder whether Captain Marchand had reached Fashoda. When Minister for the Colonies, Delcassé had decided and organised the mission of M. Liotard to the Upper Ubanghi. M. Liotard and M. Cureau had successfully fulfilled their mission and had reached the western end of the Bahr-el-Ghazal. Early in 1897 Captain Marchand had left Brazzaville in the French Congo to join the Liotard Mission, but his orders were to reach the Bahr-el-Ghazal and to go up the White Nile as far as Fashoda, which he was to occupy. The scheme was a vast and well-conceived one. If it were successfully carried out France would possess a transcontinental African Empire reaching from Senegal to the Gulf of Aden, from the Atlantic to the Red Sea. President Faure went further; he already "saw" a trans-Saharan railroad crossing that immense Empire, and France so powerful in the region of the Upper Nile that she could regain some, perhaps even the greater part, of the influence she had lost in 1882 when Egypt was occupied by the English; France having declined to co-operate in suppressing the anti-Turkish and anti-European rebellion.
The time was opportune. The Egyptian frontier had been set back as far north as Wadi-Halfa. The Bahr-el-Ghazal was in the hands of the Khalifa and the Dervishes. Belgium coveted that rich province as much as France. It would belong to whoever settled there first.... And Marchand had almost reached Fashoda. Perhaps he was there already with his few white companions and his Senegalese soldiers. At any rate, his family had received from him viâ the Congo.
The Captain had completed half of his mission, and had started down the Sueh, a tributary of the White Nile, on the boat which the "mission" had carried in sections right in the heart of Africa.
"But what if Marchand has lost most of his men during his long and difficult journey?" I ask the President. The reply comes readily: "At Fashoda, a French expedition, which includes a number of Abyssinian soldiers lent by the Emperor Menelik, will join Marchand with ammunition and provisions."
On June 15th, the Méline Cabinet resigns. The President asks Méline to form a new Cabinet.... Méline tried, but failed. Next Ribot, the able and learned statesman, who has been Premier twice before, is requested to form a Ministry. He refuses. Sarrien, in his turn, declines to attempt the difficult task.... The President now turns to Peytral, who sets to work.... The days go by. Méline and his colleagues resigned on the 15th. It is now the 25th... and still no Cabinet. The horizon is dark with threatening clouds. There is chaos everywhere.... What is needed, say some, is a Ministry of Concentration; others prefer a Cabinet of Conciliation.... Labels have a great importance in France.
On the 26th, Peytral informs the President of—his failure. Brisson, the gloomy and aged President of the Chamber of Deputies (he was born 1835) is now called by Faure.... At last, on the 28th, France possesses a Cabinet once more. Brisson is Premier and Minister of the Interior; Cavaignac, who is as strongly against a revision of the Dreyfus case as the President himself, is Minister of War, and the wily, secretive and bold Delcassé succeeds Hanotaux at the Foreign Office.
Meanwhile the Marquis de Beauchamp has arrived in Paris. He is back from Abyssinia, where, alas, he has been unable to join Captain Marchand. His men were exhausted and had run short of supplies. Where exactly is Marchand? When shall we hear from him?
On July 7th, I attended the sitting of the Chamber of Deputies. Cavaignac—whom I often met at the Elysée, and at the house of M. Bw., an intimate friend of my husband's, asserts vehemently that there is no doubt whatever about Dreyfus's guilt.
On the 12th, Hamard, Chief of the Sûreté (Criminal Investigation Department) arrests Major Esterhazy and his friend, Mme. Pays.
On the 17th, a letter from Zola to Brisson is published. The letter may be summed up in these words: France is in a hopeless way, and no Ministry will last so long as the Dreyfus affair is not legally dealt with. The President tells me: "If the affair is reopened, we shall never see the end of it; a revision would bring chaos and perhaps even civil war in its wake. Dreyfus was found guilty. If we are firm all this agitation in his favour will subside; order will be restored, and France will breathe again."
Félix Faure meant well, but lacked foresight.
July 27th, my friend Laferrière is appointed Governor-General of Algeria and replaces Lépine.... The epidemic of duels is raging through Paris.... M. de Pressensé, of the Temps, the poet Bouchor and others return their Legion of Honour to the Council of the Order because Zola has been struck off the list of Members of the Order.... The Duke of Orleans proclaims everywhere the guilt of Dreyfus and his love for the army.... Esterhazy and his lady friend are released!...
On August 14th, the President goes to Havre, where he intends to spend a few weeks. I have a villa there, where I stay with my mother and my younger sister. A naval review is held... in my honour, I am told. The President is with his suite and Lockroy, the very active Minister of the Marine, on board the Cassini. I am with Mlle. Lucie Faure on a steamer. We all spend very happy days at Havre. We make charming excursions; there are parties, concerts, a ball at the town hall.... There is one cloud, however.... Clémenceau publishes a letter sent some time ago to him by General Billot, Minister of War in the Méline Cabinet, in which the General declares Dreyfus is guilty, but that General Mercier—president of the court-martial which tried Dreyfus, bungled matters....
"Clémenceau," says the President, "is the most dangerous man in the land, and, what is worse, he knows it. I thought we should have some peace when he ceased to be a deputy, five years ago... but ever since then he has made himself a champion of Dreyfus and founded l'Aurore, and I see I am mistaken.... His pen is as sharp as his tongue."
An event far more serious, far more fraught with consequences than the most vehement attack of Clémenceau, takes place at the end of the month—the arrest of Colonel Henry, who confesses that he forged the fresh proofs of Dreyfus's guilt, which, in July, Cavaignac submitted to the Chamber.
The news of Colonel Henry's arrest and incarceration in the fortress on Mount Valerien, outside Paris, reached the President on August 30th, in the evening. The next day we hear that Colonel has committed suicide. Cavaignac, the Minister of War, resigns. The President, at his "villa de la côte," has a long conversation on the telephone with the Premier....
The blow is terrible... and in spite of his fortitude and of his optimism—Félix Faure was the luckiest and most fortunate of men—the President feels its full force. It unsettles, it crushes him. He keeps repeating, "Everything is changed!" He is disgusted and indignant. "How can I get at the truth, the real truth. I have had under my very eyes, and more than once, absolute proofs of Dreyfus's guilt. And now it appears that some of those proofs, at any rate, were forged. I can trust no one. Everywhere I stumble against contradictions, reticences, suspicious schemes, double-dealing, deceit. It is impossible to reach the truth in this maze, which is daily becoming vaster and more complicated. I feel desperate and ashamed. There is but one thing for me to do; I must resign the Presidency."
The next day he invites me, with my sister and his great friend Prince P. to a sea-trip. When far from shore he takes me aside: "It is all over, my dear friend. Even after this suicide of Henry, contradictory reports are made to me. It seems impossible to get at the entire truth. I am standing on a quagmire. Every one seems to shield some one else, or himself!
"There are supplies and coal on this vessel for many days. We are going to cruise for a week or so. Let those who are responsible for the present state of affairs extricate themselves as best they can from the disgraceful position in which they have placed themselves—and me.... When I return, I shall resign.... Honest men will understand me!"
The President is blind with anger, and will listen to no advice. Prince P. and I, greatly alarmed, spent two hours in pacifying him, in showing him what an unspeakable scandal such a move would mean. A President cannot disappear for a week.... I show him the terrible consequences to the Government, to Order and Authority, and to himself, it would entail; the cowardice of such an action.... Finally, the President yields and gives the order to return to harbour. I breathe once more, but my alarm has been great.
On September 3rd, the President has another long conversation with the Prime Minister, on the telephone, and early on the 4th he leaves for Paris, where, at the station, Delcassé, who ever keeps a cool head, and General Zurlinden, Governor of Paris, are waiting for him. At the Elysée he is joined by Brisson; President and Premier discuss together the difficult situation created by the confession and suicide of Colonel Henry.
September 5th, 6th, 7th. Momentous news from the Sudan. The victory of Omdurman! Kitchener's army (25,000 men—one-third of whom are English) has won a decisive victory over the Khalifa; the British flag flies at Khartum... and Khartum is only a few hundred miles from Fashoda, where, no doubt, Marchand is entrenched! How rapidly events have succeeded one another. In April, near the Atbara, the Sirdar had put the Dervishes to flight.... Then the railways which kept bringing up reinforcements from Cairo, was pushed on across the Atbara.... On September 1st Omdurman had been bombarded; on the 2nd the Khalifa's army cut to pieces, most of his enemies killed.... On the 4th, the Sirdar had reached Khartum.... And now the crisis is nearing. What are Kitchener's orders? If Captain Marchand is at Fashoda, and Kitchener hears of it, what will he do?...
September 7th, Félix Faure tells me he has asked General Zurlinden to be War Minister. The post is undoubtedly the most difficult in the Cabinet, but the General bravely accepts. He is convinced of Dreyfus's guilt, and as he says: "The confession of Colonel Henry and all the suspicions and equivocal manœuvres of a number of Anti-Dreyfusards do not prove that the Court Martial, in 1895, condemned an innocent man." Félix Faure nevertheless realises that the Government will have soon to decide for or against the "Revision," and I express the hope, much to his amazement, that they will decide in favour of it. It seems the only legal way to settle the question.
September the 10th, the Empress of Austria has been murdered! After sending a message of condolence to the Emperor Francis-Joseph, the President and I talk for a long time about the Fashoda problem. The other day we wondered: Would Kitchener go further South than Khartum? Now we know.
He has left Khartum and gone up the White Nile, with four gun-boats, some artillery, Sudanese troops, and Highlanders.
September 12th, doubt is no longer possible; Marchand is at Fashoda! It appears that shortly before the battle of Omdurman, the Khalifa heard of the presence of "white men" at Fashoda. The boat he sent there was riddled with bullets and returned northward. The President is highly elated. The occupation of Fashoda gives France a basis whereon to deal with the Egyptian question. Still, the Sirdar is strong and Marchand is not get-at-able....
There has been six hours of Cabinet-Council to-day. Internal affairs are growing worse every day, and there are bitter disagreements among the various Ministers.
Brisson and Sarrien are in favour of the "Revision"; but the mere mention of the word "revision" sends General Zurlinden mad with fury.
Meanwhile, the war between the various parties to whom the defence of Dreyfus or the fight against him and his supporters is a mere political pretext, a means and not an end, is daily increasing in fierceness. What a nightmare!
September 14th and 15th. A brief respite. I have followed the President to Moulins. My mother is with me. She has never witnessed military manœuvres before. I make the acquaintance of several foreign officers. General de Négrier is Director of the Manœuvres. The Duke of Connaught is present.
September 16th. The Press in France and England is already devoting long columns to Fashoda. The President has had several consultations with Delcassé and is very confident.
"And why not?" he asks. "In the Anglo-Italian agreement of '91, the Upper-Nile Valley is not even mentioned, the Khedive had nothing to do with the Anglo-Belgian arrangement of '94; Nubar Pasha abandoned the Sudan; England declared she had nothing to do there; besides, did not England promise to evacuate Egypt after the Khedive had been restored to power!... If we have taken Fashoda, we have taken it not from England or Egypt but from the Dervishes. The British Government is reasonable and not impulsive.... Lord Salisbury who is at the same time Premier and Foreign Secretary is a statesman who would not act arbitrarily, I believe.... Sir Herbert Kitchener served in the French Army during the war with Germany; he is known for his great self-control and will do nothing rash.... And then, the Duke of Connaught, at the Manœuvres, has been extremely courteous and pleasant, and the crowd enthusiastically cheered the son of Queen Victoria.... All will be well."
September 17th. General Zurlinden has sent his resignation to Brisson this morning. He is already replaced. General Chanoine becomes War Minister.
At the afternoon sitting of the Cabinet Council, the appointment of a "Commission de Révision" has been decided upon. Whilst Félix Faure explains all this to me, we hear shouting outside the Elysée.... I have a number of guests to dinner at home and must rush away. I do not leave the Elysée as usual through the garden and "my" little door, but by the main entrance to see what is happening. Merely a crowd shouting "Vive Brisson" or "A bas Brisson."
On the nineteenth, at an early hour, the telephone bell rings. It is the President.
"Did you read the Temps last night?" he asks.
"No. I had a holiday.... I played hide and seek with Marthe who would not go to bed, much to the amusement of my mother who has just come from Beaucourt to spend a few days with my sister and me. What was there in the Temps?"
"Listen. It said exactly what I think about Fashoda. We will consider any act threatening Marchand—that is, the flag which he guards—as carrying with it all the consequences usual in such incidents."
"Splendid!"
"No, have you read the manifesto of the Pretender?"
"Which one?"
"The Duke of Orleans."
"No, but I suppose he tells all Frenchmen that their most sacred rights are being trampled on, that the army is being ruined, and that France can rely on him. Is that it?"
"Yes.... You don't take him seriously?..."
"Do you?"
September 21st. The "Commission de Révision" meets. Colonel Picquart accused of forgery—he, of all men!—appears before his judges.
September 25th. At last! News from the Sudan. The Sirdar is back in Khartum from Fashoda, where he met Marchand. There has evidently been no conflict. Diplomacy will now take the matter in hand. "We have no Talleyrand," says the President, "but we have Delcassé, and he possesses both subtlety and audacity, besides a good amount of useful cynicism and sound judgment. And he is as cool-headed as he is cautious."
September 27th. After the Cabinet Council, the President tells me that yesterday Sir Edmund Monson, the British Ambassador, read to Delcassé a message from the Sirdar. It appears that the latter reached Fashoda eight days ago. Marchand has been there since July 10th with a few companions and some 120 Senegalese. From other sources come further details. Kitchener congratulated Captain Marchand on his great journey, then requested him to haul down the French flag. Marchand refused, of course, to comply with such a demand without instructions from his Government. The Sirdar quietly left him and hoisted the British flag and the Egyptian flag, side by side, south of Marchand's fortified camp. Then he returned to Khartum, leaving a strong garrison at Fashoda, in charge of a colonel.
"All we can do now," says the President, "is to await Marchand's report.... The trouble is if it comes through the Bahr-el-Ghazal and the Congo, months will elapse before it reaches us. Meanwhile Delcassé is communicating with Sir Edmund Monson. We stand firm. We will not evacuate Fashoda, come what may!"
October 1st-7th. A number of English newspapers have already sent France an ultimatum, but the English Government is calmer, so far. A most amazing event is the publication in England of a blue-book on the Fashoda question, at a time when the negotiations have already begun, but the President informs me that "Delcassé has found a very simple counter-move; we will publish a yellow-book in reply," and he adds: "The letters which Delcassé and the British Ambassador exchange already show that war is brewing.... But whatever England's hostility—and it is clear that England does not wish to negotiate until Marchand has evacuated Fashoda—we will not yield."
"And what about Marchand?"
"Delcassé has suggested that Marchand's report be sent viâ Khartum and Cairo. It will soon reach Paris that way.... By the way, I dine with Count Witte to-morrow, the 8th, at Rambouillet...."
October 10th. "Well, any result?" I ask the President.
"No. Witte spoke little about Russia. But he said France should avoid all wars, just now, and above all, a war with England; and I knew what he meant. However, we shall see whether Russia will assist us or not...."
Baratier, Marchand's companion, is on his way to Cairo with the famous report.
Fashoda does not monopolise public attention. The Dreyfus dispute waxes hotter than ever. Most of the newspapers contain nothing but scurrility and abuse. Some deliberately confuse the Fashoda affair and the Dreyfus affair.... Rochefort writes in the Intransigeant: "I should not be surprised if the English took advantage of the cowardice of our Government in order to seize Devil's Isle and free the traitor Dreyfus, whom they love so much!"
The air of Paris is thick with ominous symptoms. The various "parties" which battle together employ the same despicable methods, use the same vocabulary, a vocabulary wherein the word "traitor" is almost mild and courteous compared with some of the expressions used. There is a general orgy of vile abuse, in which Dreyfusards and Anti-Dreyfusards alike join hysterically. Alas! That worthy men—the so-called "intellectuals" and those just and clear-headed persons who advocate Revision because the law has been transgressed—are so few and far between.
October 16th. Félix Faure, during the last week, has been unusually mysterious in his ways. I know what he calls his "great scheme," but I have hardly thought him to be quite in earnest about it. Judging by his character I thought he would reconnoitre before attempting to achieve his aim. He has completely failed at the outset and he now admits it. Convinced that the French nation as a whole is thoroughly tired of the Dreyfus agitation, and that the hopelessly perturbed state of the country is a national calamity, he thought the only remedy to be a kind of coup d'état. His plan is, or rather was, this: With the assistance of the army—for he would obtain, or rely upon, the support of many prominent generals—Félix Faure wanted to make the Presidency independent of the Parliament, and establish a military Government.... A bold scheme, but one which was doomed to failure, for Félix Faure has not the necessary qualities, and there is no Augereau amongst his military friends, the present Parliament is quite unlike the Corps Legislatif of 1797, and the army cannot be compared in any way with the omnipotent soldiery of Bonaparte's days.
Indiscretions have been committed, and certain journals here and abroad are mentioning the coup, but they dismiss it as a further tale to be added to the abnormal mass of political legends, exaggerations, and gossip, which for a year past has been growing up in the overheated atmosphere that is stifling France.
And this is perhaps the best thing that could possibly happen. A coup d'état is only excusable when it succeeds.
An aged and intimate friend comes to the President and comforts him: "You are a foolhardy patriot; you mean and you meant well, and your scheme was not selfish like the plots which the 'Pretenders' are daily hatching. There is one consolation for you at least: there is no man capable of a coup d'état just now. The Duke of Orleans has the poorest of advisers, and Prince Victor has no confidence in himself!"
October 20th. Count Muravieff has been in Paris during the past few days. The Count had a long conversation with Delcassé three days ago, and dined with the President last night. Russia, it appears, thinks that war would be against the interests of France. "If there is to be a war between France and England, we cannot rely on Russia. The Government in St. Petersburg thinks that we should be ill-advised in allowing ourselves to be dragged into an absurd war with England, especially over that Sudanese swamp, Fashoda...." Moreover, Count Muravieff tactfully hinted at the lukewarmness of France towards Russia. "To-day," he remarked cheerfully, and at the same time pointedly, "Russia has only two zealous friends in France: yourself and M. Delcassé."
And it was Muravieff, the Russian Foreign Secretary, and Hanotaux, French Minister of Foreign Affairs, who before Félix Faure signed the Franco-Russian Alliance in St. Petersburg on August 24th last year!
"And how are the negotiations with England proceeding?" I ask.
"They are practically at a standstill. England will discuss nothing more until Marchand has left Fashoda.... Meanwhile, feverish activity prevails in our dockyards; our fleet is coaling and being supplied with everything necessary. Our admirals have secret instructions. We are preparing to face all contingencies. Lockroy, the Minister for the Navy, is wonderfully busy...."
A large map of the world is unfolded on the President's table. He irritably wipes out the pencil mark he made a few days ago at the spot on the Indian border where he thought Russia might perhaps attack India. There are other blue marks on either side of the Channel, in the Mediterranean, in Africa.... For a long time we bend over the map and talk. But as the probabilities become clearer, more tangible, as it were, I realise that we are almost forgetting Fashoda, and Marchand on whom our attention should be riveted. What can be done for him? How can France go to his assistance? And would a war be worth while for the sake of that spot in Africa? Is a war ever worth while? What benefits would France derive from a war with England? And would France win? Where? How?...
I beg the President to see things in their right proportions, and I advise him to avoid war. War or no war does not depend upon him, of course, but there are so many ways of precipitating events, of rousing public feeling... and so many ways of smoothing matters out and of calming a nation....
October 21st. Delcassé has received an abridged report from Marchand cabled by Captain Baratier, his brave companion across Africa, who has reached Cairo from Khartum....
October 23rd. A mounted municipal guardsman brings me a large envelope from the President. It is a copy of Punch, the famous London satirical journal. On the cover, Félix Faure has written: "Ma chère amie, please look at this shameful insult to France on the Fashoda question." I open the paper and see a cartoon by Sir John Tenniel. Yes, it makes one's blood boil. I reply to the President: "You are right. It is vulgar and despicable. The French are refined and witty; the English are blunt and have merely what they call a 'sense of humour.' Count Muravieff told you that an African swamp is not worth a war; I wish to add: 'Still less a cartoon.'"
The cartoon was indeed unbearably insolent and unworthy of an enlightened nation.... But a year later, when England was at war with the Boers, to whom the French spontaneously—and emphatically—gave their sympathy, our artists produced cartoons in which Queen Victoria was treated in an equally improper manner. This only proves that the most civilised and refined nation in the world sometimes forgets the most elementary notions of breeding, and fails to see that one degrades himself when he tries to degrade his enemies.
October 25th. Delcassé's Yellow Book has appeared. It contains most of the documents relating to the Fashoda, or rather the "White Nile" problem, from December 1897, to October 1898. It reveals beyond argument the truly remarkable powers of Delcassé as a shrewd yet "direct" diplomatist.