At the afternoon sitting of the Cabinet Council, the appointment of a "Commission de Révision" has been decided upon. Whilst Félix Faure explains all this to me, we hear shouting outside the Elysée.... I have a number of guests to dinner at home and must rush away. I do not leave the Elysée as usual through the garden and "my" little door, but by the main entrance to see what is happening. Merely a crowd shouting "Vive Brisson" or "A bas Brisson."
On the nineteenth, at an early hour, the telephone bell rings. It is the President.
"Did you read the Temps last night?" he asks.
"No. I had a holiday.... I played hide and seek with Marthe who would not go to bed, much to the amusement of my mother who has just come from Beaucourt to spend a few days with my sister and me. What was there in the Temps?"
"Listen. It said exactly what I think about Fashoda. We will consider any act threatening Marchand—that is, the flag which he guards—as carrying with it all the consequences usual in such incidents."
"Splendid!"
"No, have you read the manifesto of the Pretender?"
"Which one?"
"The Duke of Orleans."
"No, but I suppose he tells all Frenchmen that their most sacred rights are being trampled on, that the army is being ruined, and that France can rely on him. Is that it?"