I could not believe what I heard. "It's impossible," I exclaimed. "I saw him to-day. He was tired, weak, upset, but there seemed to be nothing particularly wrong with his health." I asked Bordelongue all kinds of questions, but he merely replied: "Nothing is known. They say the President died of an apoplectic stroke."

The next morning at six o'clock I was told that my faithful "agent" wished to see me on a matter of importance. This "agent" did not belong to the Sûreté, or to the Ministry of the Interior, but was a private detective who had been specially selected and appointed by Félix Faure to keep guard over me wherever I went, and see that no harm befell me. (It should be remembered that during the Dreyfus affair Paris was in such a state of blind excitement and mad passion that in order to know the doings of certain persons, detectives were everywhere engaged. Indeed, before Félix Faure's mysterious death, France lived in conditions which reminded one to some extent of those that prevailed in Venice in the dreaded days of the Council of Ten.)

I guessed what the man came about, so I hastily dressed and met him.

"Ah! Madame, I see you know the news.... There's some mystery in the President's death. They say he died of congestion of the brain, but I hear his agony lasted several hours. Madame Faure and her daughter only came at the last moment.... I am myself being shadowed, and it will be better if I do not call again.... But you know my address and if at any time I can be of some use to you I beseech you to apply to me."

The man was deeply moved, and so was I. I had lost my best friend; he had lost a good master.... I never saw him again except on one occasion. That was ten years later, a few days after the murder of my husband and my mother. I was lying dangerously ill in bed at Count d'Arlon's house, when a card was brought to me with a name which I did not know, and I was about to refuse to see the person who had sent up the card when I recognised the handwriting of a few hastily scribbled words which begged me to receive the writer. The "agent" of Félix Faure's days entered my room, but I almost failed to recognise him, so cleverly had he disguised himself.

"Forgive me for intruding, Madame," he muttered, "but I thought it was my duty to tell you this. As soon as you are well enough to travel, leave Paris. Go anywhere in the country and try to forget the awful tragedy. At any rate, move not a finger, whatever happens. Somehow, I think the murderers will never be found. I daresay you will have no peace until they are arrested. But I beseech you to do nothing ... for, whatever you may do, those who killed your mother and your husband will not be arrested. The death of M. Steinheil and Mme. Japy will remain as mysterious as that of President Faure."

CHAPTER IX
AFTER PRESIDENT FAURE'S DEATH: THE
DOCUMENTS—THE NECKLACE

I HAD been seriously ill for six weeks and had only just recovered when the death of Félix Faure occurred. The shock caused a relapse, and I was unable to attend the President's funeral, which took place on Thursday, February 23rd.

I had lost a great friend, and France a great patriot. It was said that President Faure was a lighthearted optimist, that he had no control worth speaking of over the various political parties striving around him, and finally that he was a mere figure-head, a chief of State, but not a statesman—an ornamental President rather than a man of great ideas or a man of action.

It cannot be denied that Félix Faure was astoundingly fortunate and that when he saw that things always "went well" with him, he became almost irritatingly self-confident and was perhaps inclined to be fastidious in the performance of his Presidential duties. He loved pageantry, and he revelled in the pomp and circumstance of his office, especially when he came in close contest with a King or an Emperor. He looked the part of "The First Magistrate of the Country" to perfection, being tall, handsome, refined in manner, and dignified to the verge of aloofness. But he had many worthy qualities: he was endowed with much common sense—a quality which too many lacked in France during the time of the Affaire Dreyfus—and he was an ardent—a zealous, patriot. He had a rare gift of sympathy, and there can be no doubt that he considerably increased the prestige of France during his Presidency, in spite of his inexplicable attitude in the Dreyfus affair, in spite of the Fashoda humiliation, and in spite of Zola's letter, "I accuse," and the fierce attacks of Clémenceau, Reinach, Jaurès, and many others. He had more enemies than any President ever had, including Declassé, himself another staunch Dreyfusard, in whose talents as a diplomatist he had such confidence. Félix Faure had bitter enemies not only in the Cabinets which succeeded one another with such "eloquent" rapidity during his Presidency, but even in his own entourage at the Elysée.