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

by Princess Catherine Radziwill

were instituted which resulted in the resignation of certain parties.

It was partly Mme. d’Aunay who was responsible for the English sympathies of M. Clemenceau; she had lived in London for a long time, had made many good friends, and also won still more admirers. She was ambitious to have her husband appointed to the British capital as Ambassador for the French Republic, and she did her best to persuade M. Clemenceau to set his back against the Russian alliance.

The great Radical leader did not ask anything else, but he was very well aware that to go against the popular feeling was quite useless and hopeless, and might even cause his own patriotism to be suspected. But he knew also that French people are apt to lose their illusions as quickly as they come under their influence, and so he quietly waited for the course of events to justify the words of warning he had uttered to the few friends before whom he could talk quite openly.

When he favoured the candidature of M. Loubet to the Chief Magistracy of the Republic, he had his plan quite ready, together with a programme which included an alliance with England and a rupture with the Vatican. Papal influence he dreaded the more in that he knew that in Pope Leo XIII. he had an opponent just as shrewd as he was himself, one who would consent to the greatest sacrifices in order to keep upon good terms with the Republic. To this last the Radical party was not at all agreeable, and consequently it was indispensable that he should assure himself of the sympathies of the President, whoever he might be, in order not to be thwarted secretly in his designs as earlier he had been by M. Félix Faure, whose policy had been far more personal than the world was permitted to guess.

I happened to be at Versailles on the day of the election of M. Loubet. An hour before the result became known bets were still being taken concerning the chances he had to be elected. M. Rouvier was distinctly favoured, and probabilities pointed to M. Brisson making a close run. I was lunching at the Hotel des Réservoirs with some friends, of whom Henri Rochefort was one, when suddenly M. Clemenceau came by. He was instantly surrounded by a group of journalists eager to hear his opinion as to who would win. He laughingly parried their questions, saying that the only thing he was sure of was that Clemenceau would not be President of the Republic, to which Rochefort remarked in an undertone that he would not need to be, as it would be his candidate who would occupy that post.

M. Loubet was elected, and at once the Dreyfus affair took a new turn. After a struggle, in which the government yielded almost without fighting, the unfortunate captain was brought back to France, and his re-trial took place at Rennes, with the result known to everybody, and for which M. Clemenceau deserves the thanks of his compatriots as well as of posterity, because anything more iniquitous than this affair has never disgraced a country.

Most emphatically of all the politicians who were prominent in France at the time of the election of M. Loubet, M. Clemenceau was the shrewdest and also the most far-seeing. He had perceived that even had Captain Dreyfus been guilty, it would be to the advantage of France for him to be declared innocent, and also that so long as that bone of contention was left to the enemies of the Republic, they would expend all their efforts in using it as a weapon to discredit not only the form of government they disliked, but also to shame France herself.

One cannot say that the Elysée improved as regarded its inner life under the Presidency of M. Loubet. The pomp and grandeur introduced by M. Félix Faure were reduced to a minimum, and existence began to resemble the one led by M. and Mme. Jules Grévy, with perhaps a shade more elegance, but without any luxury, save what was absolutely necessary. Madame Loubet rarely went out in anything else but a modest brougham drawn by one horse, and she avoided everything that could be construed as love of ostentation or luxury. On the other hand, she was extremely charitable, and, with the exception of the Maréchale MacMahon, no wife of a President of the Republic did more for the welfare of the poor of Paris, and by them she was literally worshipped. She was totally devoid of affectation, and never tried to pose for what she was not, or to play at being the great lady by birth as well as by position. Everyone liked and respected her. Such was not the case with M. Loubet, in whom some people saw a nonentity and others merely a puppet in the hands of M. Clemenceau and his friends.

During his tenure of office the new President paid several visits abroad, among others to St. Petersburg, London, and Rome. With the exception of the one to London, it cannot be said that his journeys were successful. In Russia people were getting just a little tired of the perpetual ovations which had been allowed to take place in favour of France and the French alliance. The Japanese question was already engrossing the public mind, and it was vaguely felt in the country, whatever one may have thought at the Foreign Office, that somehow France had failed in her friendship for her ally of the other day in the Far East, and had not sufficiently upheld her pretensions in the many entangled questions which had sprung up in consequence of the fatal policy of Admiral Alexieff and his friends.

The entire misunderstanding which had prevailed at the demonstrative Franco-Russian alliance was becoming more apparent every day; essentially it had been based on the desire of each of the signatories to get as much as possible out of the other. France had fully expected that she would be given the opportunity of recovering Alsace and Lorraine, and Russia had only seen the possibility of borrowing, under favourable conditions, the money she wanted. As time had gone by Russia had found out that French bankers were just as exacting as were German bankers, while France had discovered that her interests were dear to Russia only insomuch as they did not clash or interfere with her own. A certain coolness had sprung up between them, though in Paris as well as in St. Petersburg politicians and journalists were eagerly seizing every opportunity to declare that the alliance was stronger than ever.