My Memoirs Part 10

Everything went into these "Memoirs," which were already a.s.suming 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 Felix 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 ma.s.s already collected. Then, one day, the President begged me to take these important and secret doc.u.ments 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. Felix 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 pa.s.sion I love the Navy. I was born at Le Havre, 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 Delca.s.se'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 sh.o.r.es and our harbours. Unless we make friends with England, we must find the best way to hara.s.s 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 Felix 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.

Felix 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 _elite_ of the nation. The best brains, the most able men do not care for politics, and have no ambition to be in office.

[Ill.u.s.tration: THE FELIX FAURE "TALISMAN"]

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 a.s.sert 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 att.i.tude 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 Felix 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 Elysee--declared that the _bordereau_ (the famous covering letter containing a list of doc.u.ments 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 Meline, then Prime Minister, declared that the Dreyfus affair was _cla.s.see_ (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 impa.s.sioned 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 n.o.blest 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 Clemenceau--was condemned the next month, but the sentence was quashed by the Cour de Ca.s.sation (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 Felix Faure's death. It was during that stormy period that I a.s.sisted President Faure in gathering doc.u.ments 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 Impa.s.se Ronsin, that those papers had some connection with the murder.

In June, Felix Faure began to wonder whether Captain Marchand had reached Fashoda. When Minister for the Colonies, Delca.s.se 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 _via_ 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 Meline Cabinet resigns. The President asks Meline to form a new Cabinet.... Meline 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. Meline 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 Delca.s.se 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 Elysee, and at the house of M. Bw., an intimate friend of my husband's, a.s.serts vehemently that there is no doubt whatever about Dreyfus's guilt.

On the 12th, Hamard, Chief of the Surete (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."

Felix Faure meant well, but lacked foresight.

July 27th, my friend Laferriere is appointed Governor-General of Algeria and replaces Lepine.... The epidemic of duels is raging through Paris.... M. de Pressense, 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 _Ca.s.sini_. 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.... Clemenceau publishes a letter sent some time ago to him by General Billot, Minister of War in the Meline Cabinet, in which the General declares Dreyfus is guilty, but that General Mercier--president of the court-martial which tried Dreyfus, bungled matters....

"Clemenceau," 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."