There is an important reason for the popularity of M. le Président: there is Madame la Présidente.
Less than a month ago Madame Raymond Poincaré, wife of the President of the French Republic, was the hostess, in Paris, of King George and Queen Mary; to-day, as I write, she is helping to entertain, with almost similar brilliancy, their Majesties Christian and Alexandrine of Denmark. In the interval between these two Royal visits, Madame Poincaré has spent a few days on the Riviera, but it wasn’t a holiday. Madame la Présidente was accompanied to the south of France by the most punctilious, the most rigid, the most terrible of all tutors—a high official of the French Protocol. And instead of enjoying the drowsy charms or the worldly delights of the Riviera, it was Madame Poincaré’s duty to master a few elegant phrases from the difficult Danish language; to acquaint herself with the brightest episodes in Danish history; to discern the subtleties and intricacies of Danish etiquette; and incidentally (and always under the respectful but intense eye of the high Protocol official) to discover which kinds of flowers grow in Denmark; what the climate is like; at what hours the Danes rise and retire; and whether they are particularly fond of music, literature, the drama, pictures, sculpture, dancing, needlework, and so on, and so forth.
Although an extremely clever and accomplished woman, it is probable that Madame Poincaré experienced hardships and even miseries in “getting up” her Denmark: for it is a country—and a language—that does not easily accommodate itself to an emergency. (You, reader, could you gossip, here and now, glibly and elegantly, even in your own language, about Danish national characteristics?) Moreover, it must be remembered that, when she left for the Riviera to acquaint herself with Denmark, Madame Poincaré had only recently finished “getting up” her England: the latter, of course, a less arduous, but nevertheless a strenuous, task. Two languages, two countries; two Kings and two Queens; banquets, gala opera performances, military reviews, special race-meetings, drives in State carriages across Paris, ceremonious greetings and adieux at the gaily decorated Royal railway station—decorations, illuminations, soldiers and soldiers, the National Anthems of England, Denmark and France—all this brilliancy, and excitement, and hard labour in the short space of one month! Such, nevertheless, has been the duty of Madame Raymond Poincaré as hostess of the Presidential Palace of the Élysée: and yet even here in England, and even there in Denmark, one hears scarcely a word about the personality or the functions of Madame la Présidente!
An ungrateful, even an ironical position, that of a French President’s wife. She is the hostess of foreign Royalty: but never, in her turn, their guest. The rigid French Protocol forbids, for some reason or other, that Madame la Présidente shall accompany her husband on his State visits abroad. She may drive through the streets of Paris by the side of Queen Mary: but she must not drive, officially, through the streets of London, or Copenhagen, or St Petersburg. In a word, Madame la Présidente must suffer all the anxieties and responsibilities of the arduous, proud position of hostess to Royalty: and is left behind in Paris when her husband goes away on visits of State to receive almost Royal honours. Yes: an ungrateful, an ironical position, that of Madame la Présidente. Particularly so, when one remembers that, upon social occasions at all events, she is almost invariably more tactful, sympathique and ornamental than M. le Président.
Well, the French Chief of the State goes almost royally abroad. In his own country, when he opens exhibitions or “inaugurates” monuments and statues and lycées at Lyons and Marseilles, he is very nearly a king—and Madame la Présidente stays at home. She “counts” only in Paris; her powers are confined within the walls of the Élysée, where she is for ever dispensing all kinds of hospitalities—hospitalities that demand infinite skill and tact. For instance, one of those dinners upon other occasions—“eminent” Academicians, leading barristers, men of letters, and clericals, and anti-clericals, and militarists, and pacifists, and ambiguities, enigmas, and “dark horses” (so far as their political opinions are concerned)—many of whom are the bitterest of enemies, and all of whom Madame la Présidente has “placed” around the dinner-table, with such incomparable tact and discretion that not a guest can see more than the nose or the chin of his particular foe. Also, Madame la Présidente has often reconciled enemies—to the advantage of M. le Président—whose own endeavours to obtain the same reconciliation have proved vain. Furthermore, it is on record that, during an acute Cabinet crisis, Madame la Présidente stopped one of France’s leading statesmen, as he flung out of the Élysée, by grasping his arm and putting a rose in his button-hole, and the Cabinet Minister, exclaiming: “Ah, madame, vous êtes exquise!” allowed himself to be led by Madame la Présidente back to the Council Chamber.
Has Madame la Présidente been once again working miracles? What is this we hear in the month of June, 1913? A reconciliation, an alliance, even, between M. Raymond Poincaré and M. Georges Clemenceau.
When, in February last, M. Raymond Poincaré was elected President of the French Republic, Parisians exclaimed excitedly, with one voice: “This means the end of Clemenceau. He is dying; he is dead; he is already buried.” For it will be remembered that M. Georges Clemenceau, the “Smasher of Cabinets,” also “The Tiger,” had savagely attacked M. Poincaré’s candidature; had even called upon him to withdraw in favour of an obscure Minister of Agriculture, in business life a maker of cigarette papers, of the unfortunate name of Pams. Cried M. Clemenceau here, there and everywhere: “I vote for Pams.” In the lobbies of the two Chambers he ordered his followers to “vote solidly for Pams.” The “Tiger” had sent M. Loubet to the Élysée; he would do the same for his dear Pams. The manufacturer of cigarette papers was a true democrat—M. Poincaré was a despot. Pams, indeed, had all the virtues; Pams at the Élysée would raise the prestige of the Republic, but heaven help the poor Republic if M. Poincaré were elected.
So fierce was the “Tiger’s” antagonism that, on the very day of the Presidential election, and in the Palace of Versailles, M. Poincaré appointed “seconds” to demand an explanation from M. Clemenceau. The affair was “arranged.” But up to the last moment the “Tiger” canvassed and canvassed for M. Pams in the lobbies of the Versailles palace. And he was sallower than ever; he did not attempt to conceal his anger and indignation when M. Poincaré was proclaimed Chief of the State by a handsome majority. Said a Deputy: “Versailles has been Clemenceau’s Waterloo. In Poincaré he met his Wellington.” But the “Tiger” wasn’t tamed. A few weeks later he “smashed” the Briand Cabinet. Then he started a paper—L’Homme Libre—and therein, as in the lobbies of the two Chambers, he renewed his attacks upon the new President. So has Paris been amazed, staggered, almost petrified to read in the newspapers the following official announcement:
“Sur le désir que le président de la République lui en avait fait exprimer par son secrétaire général civil, M. Clemenceau s’est rendu aujourd’hui à l’Élysée, pour conférer avec M. Poincaré.” Or: “At the desire of the President of the Republic, expressed through his principal private secretary, M. Clemenceau has called at the Élysée and conferred with M. Poincaré.”
Mortal enemies—nearly a duel—three months ago: but now is M. Clemenceau invited most politely to call at the Élysée, where he remains shut up with President Poincaré for a whole hour! Never such gesticulations on the boulevards, such excitement in the French Press. “Even the weather has been bouleversé by the interview at the Élysée,” writes a Paris journalist. “M. Clemenceau’s visit to M. Poincaré is undoubtedly responsible for the sudden heat wave.” Asks another journalist, somewhat cruelly: “What does M. Pams think of it? Also, where is M. Pams? We have sought for M. Pams at both his Paris and country residences, but in vain. No news of M. Pams either at the cigarette paper manufactory. We are becoming uneasy about M. Pams.” And declares a third journalist: “Versailles is forgotten and forgiven. Behold the President and Clemenceau hand-in-hand. But it is the triumph of the ‘Tiger.’”
And so, most indisputably, it is. It was M. Poincaré who “desired” the famous interview, and this was made clear (at M. Clemenceau’s request) in the official communication to the Press. Why did he “desire” it? What induced M. Poincaré to forget all about M. Clemenceau, M. Pams and Versailles? The truth is, M. Poincaré has need of the “Tiger’s” support, not only in the Chambers, but in his new paper. It is also a fact that, in spite of the Pams episode, M. Clemenceau is far and away the most powerful journalist and politician in France. If M. Clemenceau doesn’t agree with you, he “smashes.” “He assassinates you in the Chamber and then buries you in his newspaper,” once said a Deputy. To come to the point: the President of the French Republic, disturbed by the hostility to the Three Years Army Service Bill, sees in the “Tiger” the only statesman powerful enough to cope successfully with the situation. In other words, the next French Premier will be M. Georges Clemenceau.
And, according to many a reliable French politician, the fall of M. Barthou, the actual Prime Minister, is near. A kindly, admirable man, M. Barthou: but no “leader.” I remember him, as Minister of the Interior, attending the funeral of the victims of the Courrières mining catastrophe—eleven hundred lives lost. Tears ran down his face; he was literally a wreck, pale, red-eyed, almost inarticulate, when the special train took him back to Paris. Six weeks later, during the subsequent strike, down to Courrières came M. Georges Clemenceau, the new Minister of the Interior. Not a trace of emotion about the “Tiger” as he visited the stricken mining villages. He spoke sharply to the strikers. He promised that, if order were preserved, the troops would be withdrawn. Next day three—precisely three—windows of an engineer’s house were broken. Then trainful after trainful of troops, until there were ten soldiers to every striker—and that broke the strike.
A man of iron, M. Clemenceau—when in power. No pen so eloquent, so stirring as his in French journalism, and his pen he has now taken up in favour of M. Poincaré and the new Army Service Bill. Throbbing, thrilling phrases, as always. Here is a passage of his appeal to the French Army: “Athens, Rome, the greatest things of the past were swept off the face of the earth on the day that the sentinels hesitated as you are beginning to do. And you—your France, your Paris, your village, your field, your road, your stream—all that tumult of history out of which you come, since it is the work of your forerunners—is all this nothing to you?”
All this may be very sound, very lofty, very noble. But all this, by arrangement with President Poincaré, will lead to the next Premiership. And all this leaves me unhappy, for the reason that I can’t help thinking and worrying about M. Pams.
What is the “Tiger,” the future Premier, going to do for him?
There’s a cynical, sinister rumour on the boulevards that M. Clemenceau has shrugged his shoulders and said: “Don’t speak to me about Pams. I’ve had enough of him. Let him go on making cigarette papers.” So things stand at the Élysée on the 2nd of June 1913.