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."