M. ÉMILE LOUBET, President of the Senate, followed Félix Faure as President of the Republic on February 18th, 1899. As every one knows, stones were showered upon the new President as he passed on his way from Versailles, where the "Congress" had elected him, to the station where he entrained for Paris. He was called "Panama the First"—though he had had nothing to do with the Panama frauds—insulted and besmirched as few men have been. I was only a few yards from M. Loubet at the Auteuil Steeplechase Meeting (June), when young Baron Christiani smashed the top hat of the President and almost hit with his stick the wife of the Italian Ambassador, Countess Tornielli. But M. Loubet never flinched, and he weathered the storm till it abated. Some have called this cowardice; I would rather call it heroism—of a kind.
Besides the highly important and final developments in the Dreyfus affair—which have been summed up in another chapter—and its truly amazing epilogue, that is, the complete and rapid way in which France recovered from the terrible crisis and emerged serene and vigorous, there happened little worth referring to during the year 1899. There were, however, a few amazing interludes. The poet Déroulède seized the bridle of the horse of General Roget, a staunch Anti-Dreyfusard, on the day of President Faure's funeral, and ordered him to march with his troops on to the Elysée—another coup that failed. Déroulède was arrested, but the Court of Assize acquitted him on May 31st. There were many comical conspiracies and many comical trials of conspirators; there were constant riots in Paris and elsewhere, all more noisy than alarming; there were thousands of Socialists with red button-holes in search of Royalists with white button-holes... and they never met. And there was the farce of the "Fort" Chabrol (a house in the Rue Chabrol, where the Anti-Semitic League had offices), which garrisoned by Jules Guérin, the secretary of the League, and a few friends, held five thousand soldiers at bay for nearly two months. Guérin and other heroes of the fort, and also Déroulède, were tried by the Senate transformed into "High Court," and were sentenced to ten years' banishment....
Afterwards things gradually quieted down. Dupuy had fallen and Waldeck-Rousseau had succeeded him as Premier. He was an able barrister and authoritive statesman who had held office in the strenuous days of Gambetta and Jules Ferry.
In May 1900, however, there was one more amusing incident. At the Paris Municipal Elections a huge majority of Nationalists and "Anti-Semites" were returned.... But then Paris was ever "in the opposition" and Parisians have ever been frondeurs.
The 1900 Exhibition brilliantly terminated the century. La Belle France, who was thoroughly tired of riots, "leagues," and agitations, had once more become quite peaceful and "respectable," as befitted a lady who was about to receive a number of sovereigns (including the Czar and his Empress, who came in 1901).
France is logical, although fond of Paradox—and practical—although, hasty, violent, quixotic, and ever in search of the truth.... And France respects Authority, although she tries to call herself socialistic, whereas she is merely democratic.
King Edward VII. came to France at the beginning of May 1908, that is, not quite a year after the end of the Boer War, and he was greeted in such a way that he might have been entitled to say: "I am the most popular man in France."
This was partly due to his almost abnormal gift of sympathy and partly to the well-known French readiness to swing round to a new opinion. Boer victories had been hailed with shouts of mad exultation, and English successes with groans of agony and fury, but the French became pro-English the instant King Edward landed in France. There was a dinner at the British Embassy, and President Loubet and several celebrities, including my friend Bonnat, attended. The Entente Cordiale was already talked of.
King Edward came to France exactly two years later, in May 1905, and for the first time there were cries in Paris of "Vive l'Angleterre" and "Vive le Roi." To shout "Long live the King" is just the sort of thing that Republicans of France love to do!
In March 1906 King Edward came once more to France, incognito this time, and travelling as the Duke of Lancaster. Fallières had then succeeded Loubet as President of the Republic. That year Paris received visits from a number of Members of Parliament, from members of the London County Council, and from the Lord Mayor, whose gilded coach and portly coachman took the Parisians by storm.... And the Entente Cordiale gradually increased in vitality and sincerity until it became an important factor in the equilibrium of Europe.