"Have you ever heard of anything more arrogant, more improper, than Monson's speech? The Fashoda incident is closed, but because the Government intend organising some schools in the Sudan, Monson gives it an impudent lesson, and tells our Ministers what they must do.... And that... on French soil, in Paris! And he is an Ambassador!..."
"Yes, the Marquis of Dufferin was a different man."
We then talked about the political situation. Félix Faure still repudiates the thought of "Revision," though far less strongly than before the Henry tragedy.
In the evening we meet at the Opéra Comique. 'A spectacle de gala is given, as this was the opening night of the new building (the former Opéra Comique had been burned down several years before). The programme entirely devoted to French music, includes one act of Gounod's "Mireille," one of "Carmen," and one of Massenet's "Manon."
December 15th-31st. The news has come that Marchand left Fashoda on the eleventh. So the last scene of that poignant drama has been played....
The "Revision" is being discussed in the Chamber. The Cour de Cassation has telegraphed to a magistrate at Cayenne a list of questions which he is to put to Dreyfus.
January 1st, 1899-February 10th. The President puts in order a number of documents and notes relating to the Dreyfus and Fashoda affairs and sends them to me. I am laid up with peritonitis. My mother is staying with me. The Beaucourt estate was sold nearly two years ago, and she came to live in Paris, but I have had a villa built for my mother, close to the old home, and when I am better she will go back there and live once more in her dear Beaucourt. The President telephones to me two or three times a day.
Delcassé, on January 23rd, makes a remarkable speech in the Chamber on the Fashoda affair, in which he accepted full responsibility for all that took place, explaining that the Marchand "Mission" was the direct outcome of the Liotard expedition which he had himself organised when Minister of the colonies. The chief points of the speech are: Marchand started on his mission long before the Anglo-Egyptian army entered upon the conquest of the Sudan—France years before had made it clear that she did not recognise the "White Nile" valley as being in the sphere of British influence—France could not expose her fleet, army and prestige, in what would appear to the majority of nations as an "inexplicable adventure."
At the beginning of February, my younger sister marries. I am still very weak, but manage to attend the wedding. A day or two afterwards, I drive to the Elysée, where I remain a few minutes with Félix Faure. He shows me a letter from the Czar which Prince Urusoff handed to him an hour ago, and two paintings representing the arrival of the President at Kronstadt, also sent by the Russian Emperor.
The Dreyfus affair is proceeding in the same more or less illegal manner. The great struggle, however, is no longer between Dreyfusards and Anti-Dreyfusards, but between the Republic and the enemies of the Republic, between Radicals and Socialists on the one hand, and the "reactionaries, Royalists" and "Anti-Semites" on the other. All kinds of leagues are springing up. Early in January, François Coppée with Brunetière, the editor of La Revue des Deux Mondes, and others, found the Patrie Française league, which staunchly upholds the Army against all Dreyfusards.... There are constant rumours of military plots....