I don't succeed in making Duclerc coulant about Egypt. He rather implied that it was not from Tissot that he had heard that you were going to send him a favourable communication, and that you were thinking of sending an expert to discuss details. He did not, however, say who it was that told him. Perhaps d'Aunay may have had something to do with it. Duclerc went on to hint at there being two currents in the English Cabinet, one more favourable to the French than the other, but I declined to listen to this. He talked as if he had some special source of information as to your intentions and sentiments. He seemed to take to the idea of a discussion between experts.
He was amiable about Madagascar, but we shall see what his written answer will be. He represented himself as having overwhelmed the Ambassadors with kindness, and then as having broken off the negotiation on the point of the leases being for 99 years.
In the meantime prospects at home do not brighten. Railroads and other public works have been begun, with very little system, in all kinds of places to please Deputies and their constituents. The Government dare not stop them for fear of what the workmen would do if large numbers of them found themselves out of work. To go on, is ruinous to the finances. There must be a limit to the floating debt. The Government are again negotiating with the railway companies. People are beginning to talk of Saviours of Society. The names most mentioned are those of General Chanzy and the Duc d'Aumale. Gambetta would have been everybody's man, if he had never been Minister. However, I don't think that we are very near any violent change.
Grévy is certainly not brisk, but he may grow old without things coming to an early catastrophe.
There is a not unaccredited rumour that it was in wresting the revolver from a female hand that Gambetta got wounded. The bulletins at the office of the République Française are that he is going on as well as possible.
The last paragraph refers to the wounding of Gambetta by a pistol shot. The accident (which terminated fatally) occurred at his villa outside Paris, and was surrounded by a mystery which has never been dispelled, but it may be assumed that a lady really was involved.
The allusion to Madagascar relates to the mission despatched by the Queen of the Hovas to Europe in the autumn in the vain hope of coming to some agreement with the French Government, which had raised questions ominously resembling those which had, in the previous year, formed the prelude to the Tunis expedition. The Hovas, like the Kroumirs, constituted 'a serious danger' to the French Republic, and demands were put forward which involved general French rights over the whole of Madagascar, and a protectorate over the northwest coast. The unhappy Hova envoys proceeded from Paris to London, but met with little encouragement there, and before long a semi-official announcement was made in which the stereotyped statement, with which small and defenceless states are so painfully familiar, appeared: 'The Cabinet is resolved to enforce the respect of the rights and interests of France in Madagascar, and orders in conformity with the situation have, therefore, been sent to the Commander of the French naval station.' Signs of the same ominous activity were also beginning to manifest themselves in Tonquin; and the only compensating factor was that Madagascar and Tonquin served to distract a certain amount of French attention from Egypt, although the tone of the press, and especially of the République Française, the organ of Gambetta, became increasingly hostile to England.
Lord Lyons to Lord Granville.
Paris, Dec. 19, 1882.
There are reports afloat that Gambetta's cure is not going on as steadily as it ought. At all events there is no change for the better in the tone of the République Française respecting England in Egypt. I don't like the idea of having the French there in bitter opposition to all we do. It may make it very difficult for us with safety to ourselves to give any large measure of independence to the Egyptian Government. At all events, the less we are able to sacrifice to satisfy French amour-propre, the more we must do to give security to legitimate French material interests by providing for a really good honest financial administration. If the French take the protection of their material interests exclusively into their own hands, they may go very great lengths indeed to protect them, if they are seriously threatened; and, besides, the pretext that the credit, property or persons of Frenchmen are threatened, will always be at hand to sanction interference.
At present it looks as if the Duclerc Government would be glad to back out of its expeditions to Tonquin, etc., etc. The proceedings of the Hova Ambassadors and their supporters in England may make it difficult for the French Government to be as reasonable as it might otherwise wish to be about Madagascar.
The prevalent feeling of depression and uneasiness about the general condition of France does not seem to diminish. There seems to be a profound distrust of the abilities, if not of the intentions, of the men who so rapidly succeed one another in office, and no one seems to know where to turn for something better.
It was somewhat unfortunate that French aggression in Tonquin and Madagascar was unconsciously stimulated by the English press. 'The English press is driving the French public wild on the subject of Tonquin, Madagascar, and other beyond sea questions, which the Government would probably have been glad enough to back out of if they had been let alone.'[36]
Until the end of the year private negotiations continued between Lord Granville and the French Government with reference to the abolition of the Control with completely unsuccessful results.