“Nothing could have afforded me greater satisfaction than to be able to convince myself thus of the real and frank feelings of sympathy which you express to me for my country, and to read about the good wishes which you add in it towards the prosperity of a cause common to us both and dear to us both, thus doing away with misunderstandings, and making them henceforward impossible. As you express yourself, Monsieur le Député, ‘Ne quid nimis’ ought to be the motto of us both, and as you may well believe, I have had more than one opportunity to remember it in many circumstances which I have witnessed during the long years of my public life, a life that has always been devoted to the different tasks I have been entrusted with.

“Will you kindly receive, Monsieur le Député, the assurance of my distinguished and devoted consideration.

“(Signed) Baron de Mohrenheim.”

In publishing this reply of the Russian Ambassador, the Agence Havas added that M. Clemenceau had hastened to inform it that his letter had been handed over to the secretary of the Baron, M. de Korff, on September 8th, who had given an undertaking that he should deliver it personally to the Ambassador immediately upon the latter’s return to Paris. In spite of the frantic efforts made by the Russian and French Governments to minimise the impression produced by this correspondence, the prestige of M. de Mohrenheim suffered considerably from its publication, and he had perforce to become more careful in the future.

But he was not removed from his post. Indeed, it very rarely happens that a Russian official is obliged to retire into private life by reason of his public mistakes. The Russians are an enduring people. The Baron was to witness many other triumphs, especially that of being able to welcome Nicholas II. and his consort in Paris, which event considerably added to his personal prestige, and also to his personal advantages.

To return to M. Félix Faure, he went on quietly pursuing the course he had embarked upon, and preparing the ground for the great things which he felt himself called upon to perform in the near future. He was so sure of the ultimate success of his plans that he began to make ready the Elysée for the glories that awaited it. He drew largely on the credits put at his disposal for the upkeep of the palace, he tried to give to his household the appearance of a real Court in miniature, to train not only the officers and civilians attached to his person to perform their duties according to the old etiquette that had prevailed during the Monarchy, but also to put his servants, his stables, his kitchens, and the maintenance of the state with which he liked to surround himself on the footing he considered to be necessary to the Chief Magistrate of the Republic. He also—and this effort is perhaps the most meritorious of all those he made at the time—did his best to assimilate the habits and customs prevailing in the higher classes of society, and he succeeded admirably in doing so, helped as he was by the numerous fair ladies at whose shrine he worshipped.

But where he showed the greatest tact was in avoiding incidents like the one which we have just related concerning M. de Mohrenheim. Had he been President of the Republic at the time it occurred, he would certainly have been made aware of the possibility, or rather the likelihood of its happening, and taken measures to avoid its reaching public knowledge. The alliance with Russia, which was in the air when he was elected to the Presidency, and which during the term of M. Carnot had been started in a preliminary manner by certain influential people, was in part his personal work. I have said that it was he who had first thought of sending the French fleet to Cronstadt. He was at that time only a minister, and did not dream of ever becoming Head of the State, but he saw already looming in the distance the great things which were bound to follow for France in the event of the public recognition of its Republican Government by the most powerful Monarch of Europe, and he felt that something of the glory of such an event was bound to cling to his own humble person, which might, thanks to this circumstance, come forward more brilliantly than he could have hoped for when he first entered public life.

He was to reap his reward, and he must have realised it on that lovely autumn day when he went to receive Nicholas II. and his Consort at the railway station of the Bois de Boulogne in Paris. As he drove along, sitting opposite to them in the Daumont with outriders, in which they made their State entry into the French capital, he may well be pardoned if he forgot the beginnings of his political career, and the modest villa where his early days had been spent at Havre. Can one wonder if he lost his head a little, in the presence of that unhoped for success, and that, having such an opportunity to be on equal footing with a real Sovereign, he forgot sometimes that he was not one himself?

CHAPTER XXIV
Imperial and Presidential Visits

M. Félix Faure had been but a short time President when the Emperor Alexander III. died in such an unexpected manner. This untoward event interfered with the advances France had in contemplation; indeed, already in Paris there had been talk of Russia as la nation amie et alliée. But, on the other hand, the obsequies of the Emperor gave the French Government an opportunity of manifesting its sympathies with Russia. A special military mission, headed by General Boisdeffre, at that time head of the General Staff, was sent to St. Petersburg, where it remained until the marriage of the new Tsar. It was not only made much of by those who favoured a rapprochement with France, of whom there were a considerable number in Russian society, but thanks to the ability of the French Ambassador, Comte de Montebello, was also brought into contact with leading Russian politicians.