"I really must look after my health," he said, "and give up this 'poison.'... And then, I must try to be fit for the great ball we are so soon to have here."
I asked him how he had used his time that day, and he told me that he had received a few important personages... and also a lady friend who had done her utmost to influence him in regard to the Dreyfus affair. I knew her well, and the President had told me more than once that this lady was most anxious that her husband should become a Minister.
Suddenly the President exclaimed: "I am stifling.... I feel dizzy." I called Blondel. After a while the President said: "It will be all right.... I shall be all right in a minute."
Blondel and I helped him to walk to the door of his study. The President looked a little better now. Turning to me he said: "The trouble is over; I am going to rest a little.... I'll take no more of that wretched drug, I promise you—I swear it.... Make yourself beautiful for the ball; I have sent you the tickets you asked for. I'll telephone to you to-morrow morning. Promise me to come to-morrow morning to the Bois with Marthe if the weather is as splendid as it is to-day." Then, seeing I was not carrying the bundle of documents he had asked me to take home, he added: "Don't forget the parcel... au revoir...."
Thereupon he entered his study, unassisted.
I walked to the little waiting-room with Blondel and took the parcel of papers. Blondel accompanied me to the door. But as I did not wish the President to remain alone on account of his ill-health, and because M. Le Gall was not there, I said to Blondel: "Don't trouble to let me out. I will leave the Elysée by the main door. Please hurry back to the President, for he seems far from well. It would be wise, perhaps, to send for a doctor...."
I left the Palace by the main gate in the Rue Saint Honoré. As soon as I was outside I realised that I was being shadowed as I had been so often before. But my faithful "agent" was there. I walked along the Avenue Marigny, reached the Champs Elysée, and called a fiacre. It was about six o'clock when I reached the Impasse Ronsin.
Towards midnight (I had been in bed for some time), I was awakened by the bell of the telephone in my room. It was M. Bordelongue, a director in the Ministry of Postes et Telegraphes, and an old friend.
"What's the matter?" I asked.
And then I heard the news, the dreadful news: "The President is dead."