Ask those privileged, intimate friends who lunch en famille at the Élysée, and they will cry: “Ah, the white wine of Fallières! Ah, the Presidential grape from Loupillon! It makes one shudder to mention it.”
But, M. le Président ignores these criticisms and mockeries. After Morocco and Proportional Representation, his dear little grapes! In spite of their smallness, their sourness, how he loves them!
Six weeks of his grapes—then the Élysée, Morocco, once again; and then, in February next, nothing but holidays for the Chief of the State. For February will see the end of M. Fallières’ seven years’ Presidency, and, like his predecessor, he will not seek re-election. Like M. Loubet, too, his next Paris residence will be a comfortable, bourgeois third-floor appartement—its site, the Boulevard St Germain, within a few minutes’ walk of M. Émile Loubet’s flat in the rue Dante. No flunkeys, no detectives in plain clothes—and no telephone. Moreover, no pianolas, no gramophones, no parrots, no poodles, for M. Fallières (who owns the building of flats in which he has decided to reside) has warned his tenants that no such nuisance will be tolerated when he moves to his new quarters. The simple, the ordinary life! Morocco, etc., etc., etc.—only memories. Never ceremonious banquets, with Château Yquem, and Morton Rothschild, and Lafite, and the finest of Extra Secs. Modest luncheons and dinners en famille. And for wine, nothing but the sour, little white grape of Loupillon.
It has been said that the best rulers are those who feel an extreme disinclination to rule, and who only consent to accept authority under a strong sense of duty. If this be true, then unquestionably M. Émile Loubet and M. Armand Fallières were good and loyal presidents, who, without personal ambition and at the cost of their own tastes, as well as of their own interests, served the Republic—for seven years, each of them—to the very best of their knowledge and power. And upon this question of power one has to keep in mind that M. le Président, though he holds the title of Chief of the State, is very much in the hands of his ministers. He forms ministries? Yes; but here, too, it is not always the most competent and disinterested men, in France particularly, who are most eager for office. Nothing can be more unjust than to make admirable M. Émile Loubet, excellent M. Armand Fallières, responsible for everything that happened, and especially for everything that went wrong, during the two periods of seven years these patriotic French citizens devoted to the service of their country.
The difficulties of M. le Président, the impertinent disregard of his rank in the State shown by the very men he has called to power, is a favourite theme of playwrights and novelists. In L’Habit Vert, the brilliant, satirical comedy by MM. de Flers and de Caillavet, just produced at the Variétés theatre, a Cabinet Minister submits an important political telegram for the President’s official approbation. “Yes, that will do; send it off immediately,” says M. le Président. “That’s all right; it was sent half-an-hour ago,” replies the Minister. Then, in that famous comedy, Le Roi, which so rejoiced the heart of King Edward the Seventh, the French Premier to one of his colleagues: “Cormeau, the Minister of Commerce, has just resigned. Nearly a Ministerial Crisis, but we have escaped it. Telephone the name of Cormeau’s successor, and that all is well, to the Press, the Chamber, the Senate, the Palace of Justice, and—ah yes, I forgot—to the President of the Republic.”
On the top of all this, M. le Président, although practically in the hands of Messieurs les Ministres, is held responsible by the public for the possible blunders and follies and sins of the Cabinet. Salary, £40,000 a year, with all kinds of substantial “perquisites.” Residences: the Palace of the Élysée and the Château de Rambouillet. Ironical official title: Chief of the State. Result: Morocco, Floods, or the Dreyfus Affair, helplessness and worry, collapse of the respiratory organ. But, thank heaven! M. le Président recovereth his breath when the time comes for another to take his place: and he himself may drift into a dressing-gown and carpet slippers and exclaim of his successor, by the tranquil, unofficial fireside: “Ce pauvre——!” Successor at the Élysée. Who will he be? Of course, after the lofty and admirable statesmanship he has exhibited throughout the Balkan conflict, M. Poincaré, the Prime Minister, is hailed by the man in the street as the future Chief of the State? But elegant M. Paul Deschanel, of the French Academy, President of the Chamber of Deputies, and a would-be President of the Republic for the last fourteen years, is also mentioned; and impetuous, despotic, sallow-faced M. Georges Clemenceau, in spite of his recent delirious ups and downs, has hosts of followers. Solid M. Ribot is stated to be an eager candidate. M. Léon Bourgeois (who did such fine work at The Hague Peace Conference) would probably be elected, were there a Madame Bourgeois to “receive” officially at the Élysée. After that, M. Delcassé, M. Lépine, M. Briand, Madame Sarah Bernhardt, M. Dranem the comic singer, “Monte Carlo Wells.” But I am anticipating events. I am also in peril of appearing incoherent; so let me hasten to declare that the last-named candidates for the Presidency of the Third Republic are but the gay “selections” of that inveterate gossip in a certain boulevard newspaper. And, that made clear, let us for the moment leave the emptiness of political ambition and share in the dressing-gown and carpet-slipper mood of M. Armand Fallières.
3. M. Raymond Poincaré and the Record of M. Lépine
Last February (1913) must be accounted an important month in the history of the Third French Republic. Away, after his seven years’ official tenancy of the Élysée, went M. Armand Fallières to a comfortable bourgeois appartement, there, no doubt, to recall, in dressing-gown and carpet slippers, the rare joys and successes and the many shocks and miseries of his Septennat, and to speculate upon the destiny reserved for his successor, ninth President of the Republic, M. Raymond Poincaré.
No commonplace destiny—that was certain. M. Fallières took possession of the Élysée amidst general indifference; M. Émile Loubet assumed office amongst eggs, threats, vegetable stalks, shouts of “traitor” and “bandit”: but M. Poincaré found Paris en fête—flags flying, hats and handkerchiefs whirling, the crowd in its Sunday best—on the day that he became Chief of the State.
A vast popularity, M. Poincaré’s! Exclaimed M. le Bourgeois: “At last we have got a strong man for a President! For the first time, there will be a master at the Élysée.” On all sides, indeed, it was agreed that M. Poincaré’s election to the Presidency signified the collapse of the tradition that the Chief of the State should be a figure-head, a mere signer of documents, placed, none too ceremoniously, before him by his Ministers.