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

by Princess Catherine Radziwill

It was dating from this famous visit that M. Faure assumed the semi-royal manners which considerably displeased many of his former friends, and caused him to be ridiculed more than he deserved in the popular cafés chantants of Paris. And, strange though it may appear, the real popularity which M. Faure had enjoyed until the period of his return from Russia began to wane. The public reproached him for not having made the most of his opportunities and for having forgotten, in his childish joy at the grandeur and magnificence of the reception awarded to him, the real object of his visit. Disappointment at the failure to convince Nicholas II. of the necessity of immediately declaring war on Germany began to make itself felt among the French nation, and, little by little, both the influence of M. Faure and the sympathy for Russia began to disappear among the public, which realised that all the fuss proceeded from the simple desire on the part of Russia to get the money she wanted at a cheap rate.

I had been away on leave for a few months when I returned to France, and on the very day I reached Paris I happened to meet the person from whom I had received a year before the letter which I have reproduced. I could not help asking him whether he still was of the opinion which he had professed when he had written to me that enthusiastic anticipation of the establishment of a solid alliance between France and Russia for the special purpose of a joint attack against Germany.

I found him furious against M. Faure, to whom he attributed the delay. Another President, he asserted, would have laid down positive conditions before he had consented to pay a visit to Peterhof, and made it subservient to a promise of immediately beginning hostilities against Germany. When I objected that, in common courtesy, M. Faure could not have excused himself from accepting the invitation that he had received personally from the Russian Emperor, my friend replied in those characteristic words: “Je ne vois pas la nécessité de cela, au contraire, M. Faure aurait souligné la dignité de la France, en prouvant qu’elle ne se dérange pas pour rien” (“I do not see the necessity for it; on the contrary, M. Faure would have given a proof of the dignity which prevails in France if he had shown that she does not put herself out for nothing”).

This phrase, coming as it did from a man who was at the period playing an important part in French politics, will give an idea as to the opinions which began to prevail against M. Faure.

The Dreyfus affair, which began at that period, intensified it. He did not, however, live to realise this. He seriously believed himself to be the right man in the right place, which, in a certain sense, he was, because of all the Presidents who have held office during the forty odd years of the existence of the Third Republic in France, he was, perhaps, the only one that contrived to give it the illusion of a monarchy.

A great deal has been written concerning the sudden death of M. Félix Faure. It is unfortunately certain that it took place under much to be deplored circumstances. It is also certain that the manner of his death has thrown upon his memory an unpleasant shade.

Alas! alas! poor Yorick. In a Republican country the abuses of monarchy can but too often be met with, and in the case of M. Félix Faure these came very prominently to the front. He played at being a small King, even so far as to allow, in a Republican country, the establishment of the old custom of there being always “une favorite de roi” at his side.

But I must say once I am touching on that subject that I do not believe for a moment the assertions of the lady in question, that M. Faure used to consult her in political matters, and that she had great influence over him in that respect. M. Faure was an exceedingly shrewd politician, and knew perfectly well what he was about. He was also perfectly aware that he had numerous enemies who, if they had been able once to prove that he was confiding gravest matters of State to the discretion of another, would not have hesitated to make use of this fact to overthrow him, or at least to put him in such a position that he would have been obliged to send in his resignation. And M. Faure cared for his position as President of the French Republic, and would not have jeopardised it for anything in the world, least of all for a woman.

Perhaps it was as well for his own sake that death removed him from the political scene, before the curtain fell on the final act in the Dreyfus drama. What he would have done had he seen all that ensued after the discovery of the forgery of Colonel Henry, the knowledge of which made him so unhappy, and after the second condemnation of Captain Dreyfus at Rennes, it is difficult to say. Those who have known him well, told me that he had been very much troubled at the development this miserable business took so unexpectedly, and that he often regretted that he had not interfered and pardoned Dreyfus at the time of this first condemnation.

It seems that he had been very much tempted to do so, having always had some doubts in his own mind as to the Captain’s culpability, but the President was also aware that his own popularity was on the wane, and that voices had already accused him of trying to make up to the German Emperor.