"And how are the negotiations with England proceeding?" I ask.
"They are practically at a standstill. England will discuss nothing more until Marchand has left Fashoda.... Meanwhile, feverish activity prevails in our dockyards; our fleet is coaling and being supplied with everything necessary. Our admirals have secret instructions. We are preparing to face all contingencies. Lockroy, the Minister for the Navy, is wonderfully busy...."
A large map of the world is unfolded on the President's table. He irritably wipes out the pencil mark he made a few days ago at the spot on the Indian border where he thought Russia might perhaps attack India. There are other blue marks on either side of the Channel, in the Mediterranean, in Africa.... For a long time we bend over the map and talk. But as the probabilities become clearer, more tangible, as it were, I realise that we are almost forgetting Fashoda, and Marchand on whom our attention should be riveted. What can be done for him? How can France go to his assistance? And would a war be worth while for the sake of that spot in Africa? Is a war ever worth while? What benefits would France derive from a war with England? And would France win? Where? How?...
I beg the President to see things in their right proportions, and I advise him to avoid war. War or no war does not depend upon him, of course, but there are so many ways of precipitating events, of rousing public feeling... and so many ways of smoothing matters out and of calming a nation....
October 21st. Delcassé has received an abridged report from Marchand cabled by Captain Baratier, his brave companion across Africa, who has reached Cairo from Khartum....
October 23rd. A mounted municipal guardsman brings me a large envelope from the President. It is a copy of Punch, the famous London satirical journal. On the cover, Félix Faure has written: "Ma chère amie, please look at this shameful insult to France on the Fashoda question." I open the paper and see a cartoon by Sir John Tenniel. Yes, it makes one's blood boil. I reply to the President: "You are right. It is vulgar and despicable. The French are refined and witty; the English are blunt and have merely what they call a 'sense of humour.' Count Muravieff told you that an African swamp is not worth a war; I wish to add: 'Still less a cartoon.'"
The cartoon was indeed unbearably insolent and unworthy of an enlightened nation.... But a year later, when England was at war with the Boers, to whom the French spontaneously—and emphatically—gave their sympathy, our artists produced cartoons in which Queen Victoria was treated in an equally improper manner. This only proves that the most civilised and refined nation in the world sometimes forgets the most elementary notions of breeding, and fails to see that one degrades himself when he tries to degrade his enemies.
October 25th. Delcassé's Yellow Book has appeared. It contains most of the documents relating to the Fashoda, or rather the "White Nile" problem, from December 1897, to October 1898. It reveals beyond argument the truly remarkable powers of Delcassé as a shrewd yet "direct" diplomatist.
The tension between England and France is at breaking-point. Sir Edmund has sent, in the name of the British Government, what amounts to an ultimatum. The President says: "We may give up Fashoda, but we must have an outlet on the Nile. If there can be no longer any question of conquest, we must at least be enabled to facilitate our 'pénétration commerciale.'... Surely, some kind of compromise is possible."
In the afternoon I go to the Chambre des Députés. A storm is brewing. As I reach the Palais Bourbon by the Boulevard Saint Germain I can see, and hear, on the Place de la Concorde, an immense, and howling, crowd.