France from Behind the Veil: Fifty Years of Social and Political Life

by Princess Catherine Radziwill

It was not much, but for a man endowed with the journalistic qualities of Arthur Meyer, it was enough. He forthwith proceeded to inquire as to what Baron Reinach had done with these millions which had been so liberally put at his disposal, and he very soon discovered that the said five millions had been transferred to a banking house called Thierrie, the owner of which had for sleeping partner the same Jacques Reinach.

Once this fact was established the rest was but child’s play. Meyer very quickly secured the necessary proofs that a considerable number of deputies had received important bribes in order to vote for the issue of the Panama lottery bonds. He also discovered something else, and that was that this corruption had given birth to a huge system of blackmail, which had drained all the resources of the Panama Company. It had cruelly expiated its initial error, and had been made to pay for it dearly, in the literal sense of that word. A host of adventurers had threatened it with revelations, the divulging of which it could not risk, and the ball, once set rolling, had very soon been transformed into an avalanche which had carried away with it not only the money of the unfortunate shareholders, but also the honour and the reputation of the directors of this doomed concern.

Meyer, after holding a consultation with his faithful lieutenant, Cornély, of Figaro fame, did not hesitate one single moment as to what he had to do. He firmly believed that by raising the formidable scandal, the proofs of which in such an unexpected manner had been put within his reach, he would bring about the fall of the Republic, and thus pave the way towards the restoration of the Monarchy. Events showed that he was totally mistaken, because the Panama scandal did not kill the Republic, it only overthrew a few political men and several Cabinets, and the shame of it fell more, perhaps, upon those who had made it public than upon the miserable beings who had been responsible for it without realising the abyss into which their light-heartedness would plunge them.

The man who set the ball rolling was a deputy belonging to the Extreme Right, M. Jules Delahaye, member for the department of Maine-et-Loire. He did not hesitate to brand with disgrace many of his colleagues, whose hands he had pressed perhaps a few hours before he consigned them to ignominy. He threw as a challenge to France, and also to Europe, the names of 104 deputies whose consciences had not hesitated before submitting to the fascination of the all-powerful cheque.

I have met M. Delahaye, and in justice to him I must say that he always maintained that he had never thought his speech would have the terrible consequences which followed upon it. Not in the least had he expected that that list of 104 deputies constituted but a fraction of the people who had, under one pretext or another, received money from the coffers of the Panama Company. He had never admitted, nor even believed possible, that the directors of that company would have so entirely lost their heads as to listen to every threat, submit to every extortion, and pay, pay, without discrimination and without hesitation, the enormous sums of hush money that had been drained out of them, half of the time by people who could not have harmed them in the least degree.

The fact is that this whole disaster had fear for its foundation, and political intrigue to thank for the unexpected development that overtook it. The few officials of the Panama Company administering its affairs after they had consented to offer their first bribe, and had seen it accepted, immediately fell into the clutches of a band of blackmailers who had speculated on the impossibility of such a thing becoming public, and on the natural desire to prevent it getting to the knowledge not only of the shareholders of that unfortunate concern, but also of the venerable Ferdinand de Lesseps himself.

This last event was one which his son Charles most dreaded. He not only loved, but also respected his father, whose grey hairs he would have liked to go down honoured to the grave. He remembered the days when with the name Ferdinand de Lesseps one could attempt any kind of enterprise, could always find people ready to back it up, and to believe in it. He had not yet forgotten the praise bestowed on the “Grand Français,” not only in his own fatherland, but also everywhere in Europe, and wherever he had shown himself. He was but too well aware of the honesty of purpose that had always distinguished the brave old man who was being pilloried by the same public that had cheered him a few months before, and he would have given much to be able to take upon his own shoulders the weight of the responsibilities that were crushing his father. He directed all his efforts towards that one aim, and he partly succeeded, because Providence turned out more merciful than men; she struck old Lesseps in his advanced age, and threw the veil of oblivion on his once powerful brain.

He never knew that he had been sentenced to imprisonment, he never understood anything of the tragedy of which he was the miserable hero. He died in blissful unconsciousness of all the evil attached to his name, of all the scandal that surrounded his last hours. His wife heroically defended him against the intrusion of any stranger who might by an unguarded word have aroused his suspicions. His son remained always vigilant near his arm-chair, and spoke to him of hope and of future glories coming to pile themselves on those he had already achieved. In his affection, his filial devotion to his father, Charles de Lesseps was a hero, and even his worst detractors have bowed down before the courage with which he exposed himself to every reproach, and accepted every blame, in order to spare the old man who remained sitting in his arm-chair beside the fire, thinking of the successes of the past, and ignorant of the tragedy of the present.

One day I met Charles de Lesseps coming out of the Palais de Justice in Paris with his advocate. He shook hands, and when I asked him how things were going he smiled sadly and replied that he had lost every hope of avoiding a public trial of the directors of the Panama Company, but he hastened to add, and one could see how very much relieved he felt at the mere idea: “I have been given the assurance that my father will not in any case be implicated in the prosecution that is impending.”

He was mistaken, his father was also dragged into the dock, and also sentenced to several years’ imprisonment. Unfortunately for France her political men have not yet understood the necessity which ought to impose itself upon every nation without anyone trying to explain it to her—the duty of respecting its national glories, and shielding them from desecration.