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BEYOND the hours of depression and the every-day troubles that fall to the lot of all human beings: disappointed dreams, thwarted ambitions, shattered illusions, financial cares and family worries, there happened nothing particularly eventful in my life until the day when I became the friend and confidante of Félix Faure, elected President of the Republic in January 1895.

The political and other events of general interest which took place in France during the years immediately preceding that date, may be summed up in a few words.

After the Panama scandal and the vanishing of the "two hundred and fifty million francs," cabinets were formed and cabinets fell with symptomatic and alarming rapidity. For instance, in January 1898, Ribot becomes Premier, but already in March Dupuy succeeds him. The general election reveals nothing... except the nation's apathy. The election of fifty Socialists as deputies, however, is worth noting. Later Casimir Périer becomes Prime Minister. He has a revered name, is capable, and he is wealthy, but his Ministry does not last six months, and in May 1894, Dupuy returns to power. The next month an Italian anarchist murders President Carnot, the noblest of men and an able statesman, worthy grandson of the victor of Wattignies, of Lazare Carnot, the "Organiser of Victory." Four days later, the Congress sitting at Versailles, elects Casimir Périer to the highest office in the Republic, but in January 1905, tired of being slandered, fettered, and insulted, and for private reasons, too, Casimir Périer resigns and Félix Faure becomes President.

He had rapidly reached the supreme rank. Under-Secretary for the Colonies from 1882 to 1885 in Jules Ferry's Cabinet, he was elected vice-president of the Chamber in 1893, became Minister for the Navy in 1894, and President of the Republic in 1895.

That very year he received the Lord Mayor of London, Sir Joseph Renals, and the following year, in October, the Czar and the Czaritza. I attended the gala performance at the Opera, the laying of the first stone of the Alexander III. bridge, which was to illustrate in stone and bronze the Franco-Russian Alliance, and even went to Châlons to see the military review held there. I had left Beaucourt for the purpose of attending these ceremonies in the company of an important official. The Czar struck me as more unassuming than the President, and the rather pathetic beauty of the Empress of all the Russians made a deep impression upon me. France went Russia mad, and Félix Faure became extremely popular.

The Alliance which had been marked by the visit of a French squadron commanded by Admiral Gervais to Kronstadt (1891), the mission of General Boisdeffre to St. Petersburg in the following year, and the visit of the Russian Admiral Avelan to Toulon and Paris in 1893, was to become a fait accompli during the return visit of Félix Faure to the Czar in August 1897.

Three months before this momentous visit there occurred in Paris the terrible catastrophe of the Bazar de la Charité which claimed some hundred and fifty victims. I miraculously escaped death that day. I was one of the ladies in charge of the buffet, and was serving tea, when I felt suddenly unwell, so much so that, reluctantly, I had to leave the Bazaar. The carriage in which I drove home had hardly turned the corner of the Rue Jean Goujon when the fire broke out.

My mother arrived at my house in a state of mad terror, for she had accompanied me a few hours before as far as the doors of the Bazaar, and when she had heard of the fire, had feared that I was one of the victims. I was safe but, alas, lost my dear friends in the catastrophe.

A few weeks later the second jubilee of Queen Victoria was celebrated, and with a few English friends staying in Paris, I attended the great garden-party given at the British Embassy by Sir Edmund Monson. Mme. Faure and her daughter, M. Hanotaux, Minister of Foreign Affairs, and the whole literary, artistic, and political élite of France were present.

I heartily congratulated an eminent English personage on the splendour of the reception and the atmosphere of pleasant mirth which permeated the Embassy.

"Of course, Madame," he remarked, "the Embassy has not always this bright animation! But you must not believe that we English are as sedate and stolid and gloomy as some people say. And I may inform you, by the way, that this house was once the residence of the notorious Pauline Borghese, whose only ambition was to be pretty and to... to be loved." He then told us a number of lively anecdotes about the ravishing sister of Napoleon—and concluded; "Don't you think there is something piquant in the fact that the Ambassador of stern and solemn Old England lives in a house which once belonged to a famous crowned courtesan!"

On July 14th—the day of the fête nationale—the usual review took place at Longchamps, and I took my six-year-old daughter to see "the soldiers," but, instead of watching them, she kept staring at the Rajah of Kapurthala, who was close to us, and asking endless questions which brought smiles to the lips of all those who overheard her, but embarrassed me very much.

I spent the rest of July and the whole month of August in the Alps, with my husband, who had to work "on the spot," for a vast "panorama of the Alpine Club," which was intended for the Exhibition of 1900. The Alpine manœuvres were in progress at the beginning of August, and President Faure, who had been to Valence and Orange, came to witness them. Just before a sham fight by the Chasseurs Alpins near the Vanoise Pass, my husband took up a position whence he could survey the coming scene, and I, further down and camera in hand, was preparing to take snap-shots from the top of a rock, when I heard some voices. There, below me, was a group of men, and one of them, wearing a red shirt, a brown suit, yellowish gaiters, and a white béret, looked up at me and said something I could not hear. I believe he asked whether he should stop to be photographed. I failed to recognise the President of the Republic and his suite. But shortly afterwards an officer came to ask whether M. and Mme. Steinheil would lunch with the President. I declined, thinking the invitation too sudden and too formal, but my husband accepted and told me he would ask the President for permission to paint the forthcoming "distribution of decorations" at La Traversette.

Needless to say, I had met the President before. For several years I had regularly attended functions at the Elysée, and had made the acquaintance of Félix Faure, as I had made that of Carnot and of Casimir Périer. I had even spoken at length with him on two or three occasions when he was Minister for the Navy.

That same day, in the village which at the time was my husband's headquarters, I saw the President once more. A group of little girls, wearing the quaint old dresses of Savoy, were offering flowers to him.... Félix Faure saw me, bowed deeply, and afterwards there came an invitation to dinner—which I declined. The next morning yet another invitation came, this time to lunch, near Bourg Saint-Maurice, at the redoubt which overlooks the Petit Saint Bernard. My husband accepted, but I declined again, under the first pretext that occurred to me.... The truth was that I was far too busy collecting native buckles, bracelets and crosses, the wooden birds in which the Savoy peasants keep salt, and all the headdresses I could buy, to care to lunch with the "first magistrate" in the land and his suite! I much preferred the milk, cheese, and brown bread of the mountaineers to all the dainties and wines of the presidential table. When at night my husband returned with his companions—a judge and a mayor—I was told the President repeatedly alluded to my absence. My husband made his sketches of the distribution by President Faure of "decorations" to Alpine soldiers at La Traversette, and joined me again. The Chief of the State left for Annecy and Paris, and later, while my husband and I were leading the simple life in the mountains of Savoy, the President was in Russia with the Czar, enjoying the banquets given in his honour at Kronstadt, St. Petersburg and Peterhof.

My husband's painting of the Traversette scene included, of course, portraits of the various members of the President's suite and they—ministers and officers—came during the autumn to the studio in the Impasse Ronsin to sit for their portraits. The President gave a sitting to M. Steinheil at the Elysée. An exchange of letters followed. Félix Faure was anxious to see the "historic" painting, and I was told that he wished to visit our house, which had been described to him by his entourage, in which I numbered several friends. I was overwhelmed with invitations to the Elysée.... At the beginning of 1898 the picture was completed, and the President called one morning to see it.

My uncle, General Japy, was with my husband and me to receive him. My garden was one huge bouquet, and as soon as he had entered, with General Bailloud and a young officer, the President expressed his delight. Marthe offered him a sheaf of flowers that was almost as big as herself, but absolutely refused to be kissed. Her obstinacy amused Félix Faure, who asked:

"What is the toy you like best?"

"A doll."

"What is your name?"

"Marthe."

"Well, little Marthe, I will give instructions for a perfect doll with a complete trousseau to be made and sent to you, exactly the same as I am sending to the Czar's daughter."

"Thank you," said Marthe quietly, but nevertheless refused to be kissed.

PRESIDENT FELIX FAURE

Félix Faure admired the drawing-room and the "winter-garden," examined closely as a connoisseur a few pieces of antique furniture, and then stopping near the piano: "Ah! It is no fun to be a President," he sighed. "I am deprived of music.... Of course the band of the Republican Guard plays at the dinner-parties at the Elysée, and there is the Opera, and... the Marseillaise, wherever I go, but I seldom, if ever, hear the music I love, chamber music, or a simple song, sung at the piano!"

He told me that he had heard about the musical parties at my house, and that his friend Massenet was also my friend, and finally asked whether I would sing, just for once, at the Elysée.

"No, M. le President," I replied. "I don't believe I could sing there.... It seems to me that everything official is necessarily inartistic, and I should not care to sing in surroundings that were uncongenial."

He walked to my husband's studio. The President was delighted with the picture.

"Do you know," he asked me, "that they are singing a song on the boulevards about the white béret I wore at the Alpine manœuvres?"

"I suppose they are comparing it to Henri IV.'s famous white plume, M. le President," a young officer suggested.

"No,... I wish they did.... There's nothing historical about the song. Still, it is an advertisement, and even Presidents need réclame.... It is a very caustic but still very jolly song."

Marthe exclaimed: "Please sing it to me!"

"I will if you will give me that kiss!"

Marthe ran away.

The President looked at the pictures in the studio. He paused before a small painting by my husband, representing a woman of Bourg Saint-Maurice, wearing the pretty mediæval cap still in use in certain parts of Savoy. It is like a round helmet of brilliantly coloured material, with a point above the forehead. The hair tightly plaited is twisted round with black tape, which forms part of the helmet (a three hours' process which the women at Bourg Saint-Maurice told me they only went through twice a month), and from that strange but becoming headgear hangs a loose chain made of black and golden beads.

Félix Faure was so delighted with this little portrait that he insisted on buying it.... Needless to say, it was gladly offered to him as a souvenir of his brief stay in the Alps.

He then insisted on inviting my husband and me to lunch at the Elysée.... "And don't refuse, this time," he added, turning to me.

From that day flowers and invitations rained upon me from the Elysée.

A month or two afterwards, the vernissage (opening day) of the Salon, which the President of the Republic attends each year, took place, and Félix Faure was present with Méline, the Premier, Hanotaux, Minister of Foreign Affairs, and a large array of prominent functionaries. My friend Bonnat, Director of the Ecole des Beaux-Arts and "Painter of Presidents," conducted Félix Faure through the rooms.

Suddenly, Bonnat came to me and said gaily: "The President has been asking for you ever since he arrived here. I believe he is fond of you, as we all are, even I, your dear 'Methuselah!' Please come and meet him; I have left him with your husband; they are both expecting you."

I gave him a gentle tap with my catalogue; he ran back to fulfil his official duties, and five minutes later, the Army, in the shape of a colonel, came to fetch me.

"I am delighted," said Félix Faure, "to be at last able to congratulate you, Madame."

"You forget I did not paint the picture," I said in a low voice.

"The State," he went on, "desires to acquire it."

"You forget the picture belongs to my husband."

"You know most painters, Madame; will you consent to act as my guide?"

"Yes, with M. Bonnat's indispensable assistance."

I took the President quickly past the works of famous painters—those loaded with honours and wealth—and made him stop before the paintings of little-known and talented artists who needed—and deserved—recognition; and I had the satisfaction of seeing Félix Faure and a few members of his suite make a note of the names of certain young but promising painters....

"I am taking advantage of your kindness, Madame, but I am the President of the Republic, and I am sure you are a patriot.... You hail from the Eastern frontier?..."

"My birth-place is only half an hour from Alsace... but one may be a patriot without being attached to the Republic, M. le President. Who knows but that I am a Bonapartist?"

Félix Faure promptly replied: "I should understand if there were still a Bonaparte!"

We parted, and with a few close friends, I went round the various rooms. Just as I was about to leave, M. Roujon, Director at the Ministry of Fine Arts, rushed towards me....

"The President," he began breathlessly.

"What! Again the President."

"Yes, still the President, Madame.... He has requested me to tell you that he doesn't wish the State to buy your husband's picture. He has acquired it for himself."

Aggravated, I went to Bonnat, who had already heard the news.

"You can do nothing," he said. "How can you prevent the President from ranking above the State... in such a matter!"

I appreciated Félix Faure's kindly intentions, but thought his methods rather too impulsive and embarrassing.

My husband wrote to the President to thank him. We called on him several times at the Elysée, and a warm friendship formed.

One afternoon, I had a long conversation with Félix Faure, in his study. We had often talked of art, music, travel and politics, but never going much beyond the surface of things.... This time, he was extremely earnest and spoke to me about the hopeless political situation in France and the ever increasing difficulties he had to face. He spoke about the general elections which had just taken place.... The Socialists had polled an extraordinary number of votes; the Radical deputies elected exceeded the Moderates in number.... A new party had risen: the Nationalists. What these meant was not quite clear but they certainly meant mischief. Every one was dissatisfied.... Anarchy was rampant.... The Chambre was an incoherent assembly and there was the Dreyfus Affair to tackle.... Thank Heaven, the elections had shown that the Republican majority was against Dreyfus and his supporters.... But trouble was brewing.

"I know all this," I said, "but how can I help you? I am not a Cabinet Minister!"

"Quite so... but I am sure you could help me a great deal, if only to discover the truth...." he remarked seriously, then, changing his tone he added whimsically: "Do you know I have heard a great deal about you, of late? It appears that you have unusual powers of persuasion. In the various Ministries, when I wish to secure this or that post for a protégé, I am invariably told that it has already been promised to one of your friends. Your candidates pass before mine...."

We talked about his career and about my life.... Then he took me round the place. He showed me the hall where Napoleon had held receptions and the room where he had last slept in Paris after the battle of Waterloo, the "Hall of Sovereigns" where Napoleon had abdicated and where Queen Victoria had stayed in 1855.

After walking round the gardens we returned to the President's study.

Thenceforth, I met him almost every day, either in the Bois de Boulogne, where he rode in the morning, or at the Elysée. He would telephone to me at any hour of the day. There was always something to do, some one to sound. Félix Faure had fullest confidence in me and I went, for him, when he could not go himself, to the sittings of the Chamber of Deputies or of the Senate, to certain receptions and parties. He was surrounded by enemies, and he knew it. He made use of my intuition, of my knowledge of people. I met him after all the Cabinet Councils, and he told me what had been discussed and decided.

A new life began for me; my rôle of confidante had its difficulties and even its dangers, but it had a wonderful fascination. My salon was now more crowded than ever before. Invitations were showered upon me both from quarters friendly with the Government and from quarters in league with the Opposition. My "friends" were legion, and my enemies—you cannot possess influence or power without making enemies—were greater flatterers than the others.

Then, there were men who tried to persuade me of this, that or the other, so that I should in my turn persuade the President, and those who laid traps for me, men whose entreaties were disguised threats, who tried to know what I knew, and who did not seem to realise that their very attitude revealed quite plainly their shameless scheme....

How often I was able to warn the President in time against a dangerous mistake. How often I prevented him from appointing to some responsible position a man who perhaps had an interesting career behind him, and a stainless reputation, but under whose mask of impassiveness I had been able to detect a man without scruples or principles, an arriviste, ready to sell everything and even himself to achieve his ambition.... No man is inscrutable to a woman, especially when that woman is devoted to one whom she has decided to help, and when she is supposed to care for nothing more essential than music, flowers, dress, or success.

And I hasten to add that I sided no more with one party than with another.

At the time when the whole French nation was divided into two parties, there were among my best friends, among the men whom I most respected and admired, staunch Dreyfusards and also staunch anti-Dreyfusards.

I believed then, as I believe to-day, in tolerance, liberty, and legality. I never took part in one single political discussion, not even in my own drawing-room. What I heard I remembered, and when I thought that a piece of what I would call "psychological information" could assist the President I retold it to him.

It goes without saying that I was very much sought after, if only because I had some influence in most ministries and at the Elysée. And it was a source of real joy to me to be able to render services to so many people who seemed to need them. I remember, for instance, a Minister, who after some unlucky speculations had so many debts, just at the time when one Cabinet fell, that he was lost unless he obtained a portfolio—and the salary attached to it—in the next. His friends implored me to intercede with the President on his behalf.

"He has rendered poor services as a Minister," said Félix Faure when I approached him, "but I will see that he is appointed to a post for which he is better suited, although I am sure he is not worth bothering about. The post will be less conspicuous, but quite as lucrative... and that seems to be the great point."

Need I add that the ex-Minister became my enemy afterwards? The greater the services, as a rule, the greater the ingratitude.

The number of incidents of all kinds—strange, tragic, heroic, harrowing, comical, or revolting—which I witnessed during the year 1898, is truly amazing. I recall a leader of society, a noblewoman, who sacrificed her fortune, her reputation, and her happiness for the sake of a man implicated in the Dreyfus affair, in whom she had absolute faith, and who made a political blunder that plunged him into a tragedy for which he certainly was only indirectly responsible. I remember a prominent and really able citizen who, in a moment of patriotic frenzy, made such a fool of himself that he and all his family, for whose sake he made a daring but absurd move, was crushed under that almighty and often unjust power—Ridicule. I recall a pigmy, in size and brains, who through sheer luck and a sly use of his opportunities, became famous for a while, and made a fortune out of other men's thoughts. And I could tell the abject story of a personage of very high standing in whom Félix Faure had complete confidence. Somehow I distrusted that man, and succeeded in preventing the President from accepting his statements as "gospel" truth at a time when, owing to the electional atmosphere of the political world, the slightest errors of judgment became unpardonable faults, and even treachery.... After the death of the President, and in most unexpected circumstances, I found out that the exalted personage had had, for years, as mistress, a woman who was a spy in the service of the German Embassy. He was that woman's tool, but she loved him, and when he forsook her, Fate brought her to me, in search of a living. I discovered the whole truth about her and her friend, and realised then, and only then, how well-inspired I had been when I warned Félix Faure against the man.

A LETTER FROM FELIX FAURE TO MME. STEINHEIL

It would be only too easy to quote scores of such facts, but the others, however vaguely I might describe them would still be too transparent, and I do not write these Memoirs out of spite, ill-feeling, or revenge against any one. In this chapter I merely wish to convey some idea of the part I played in President Faure's life.

Félix Faure, having noticed that some of my letters did not reach him, we agreed that in the future when we were unable to meet freely, and when we had some important communication to make to one another, our letters would be sealed with white wax in "urgent," and with blue wax in all other cases; also that my valet would take my messages to the President, and his messages would be handed to the same man, summoned by a private telephone call.

I entered the Elysée—whither a private detective, who had been selected by the President himself, always accompanied me—by a small door in the gardens, at the corner of the Rue du Colisée and the Avenue des Champs Elysées, and through the grounds to the small "blue salon," where the President awaited me for "our task."

That task, as the reader may have already guessed, was the "Memoirs" of the President.

Félix Faure, who, in spite of the many things that satisfied his self-esteem—the brilliant side of his exalted function, the relative importance of it, and, above all, the fact that it placed him on an equal footing with kings and emperors—was looking forward to the end of his septennat and was anxious to explain some day his conduct in the political and diplomatic events in which he had been and was so intimately concerned. These "Memoirs" were to form a secret history of France since the Franco-Prussian War. To these "Memoirs" I was contributing a mass of notes and comments throwing some light on certain personalities, on certain facts. Sometimes we worked apart, sometimes together, and more than once I spent a whole afternoon examining and classifying documents whilst the President in the next room was granting audiences.

We wrote the "Memoirs" on foolscap which I brought myself, for the President knew that his stationery was counted!

Everything went into these "Memoirs," which were already assuming bulky proportions: the evolution of the internal and the foreign policy of France; the Franco-Russian Alliance; the secret story of the Dreyfus Affair; the schemes of the various Pretenders to the throne of France. There were details on financial problems, colonial expansion, armaments, electoral systems, Administration, the Army and the Navy....

Certainly, if a general and critical survey, conscientious, impartial, sober, and packed with first-hand information of all the events that made the history of the Third Republic, were worth writing—and how can one deny it?—then Félix Faure did well to spend daily long hours of his time, and of mine, in writing his "Memoirs," though had they been published, say, within ten or fifteen years a great number of so-called "prominent" men would have had to disappear in order to escape the scorn of the whole world as well as the execration of their own people.

The "Memoirs" were locked up in an iron box, which was opened only when new material had to be added to the great mass already collected. Then, one day, the President begged me to take these important and secret documents home with me for safety. The iron box was left in his study, and partly filled with blank sheets—for the box might be shaken! I took the contents home, little by little and day by day, until the box was empty.

Many times it seemed to me that I was being shadowed, but my faithful "agent" watched over me, and I was able to store all the papers safely away in my house. Félix Faure had told me to keep them (and had given me a letter which said so) and to have them published if I thought fit in the case of his death, for, as he said more than once to me: "I sometimes fear I shall end like Carnot...."

The President had a very high notion of his office, but frequently complained of his limited powers.

"And yet," I once told him, "you appoint your Ministers, the nomination of all officials rests with you, and you control the Army and the Navy...."

"Yes, but to what extent?... You say I control the Navy! But I know for a fact that nearly all the powder in the magazines of our battleships is defective, that the armour-plating of those battleships has not the thickness that was ordered—which, of course, means thousands of pounds to the swindlers!—and that the boilers are almost worthless!... I have lost my temper and more than once come down on them all like a ton of bricks, but things have not been altered. A President is but a figure-head! And yet you know with what passion I love the Navy. I was born at Le Hâvre, I have always loved all that concerns the sea, and when I entered Parliament my great ambition was to become Minister of the Navy.... Even now the Navy is one of my chief interests—my 'hobby,' if you like to call it so; and there is my note-paper with the initials 'F.F.' entwined by a symbolic anchor...."

He loved to talk of naval matters. "I share Delcassé's views," he said once (the conversation took place on the day when he heard that one of our ships had been wrecked on the coast of Madagascar). "England is the great enemy, because England is the great naval power and is so close to our shores and our harbours. Unless we make friends with England, we must find the best way to harass her, in case of war. And I can see nothing better than reviving the old right of privateering and building small but extremely fast craft, large enough to carry a great deal of fuel, so as to be able to remain a long time at sea without replenishing their bunkers. We must be able to destroy the commerce of England, to starve her. To avoid important naval engagements and vanquish the enemy in numberless skirmishes, that should be our aim. We have neither the means nor the ability England possesses of building extensively and rapidly."

"But privateering," I suggested, remembering my father's long chat on what he rightly called "the most fascinating period of French history," "was a total failure during the Revolution and the Napoleonic wars."

"Quite so," said Félix Faure; "but as my friend Admiral Fournier says, the only way to make France powerful from a naval standpoint is to supply her with an unique fleet, as regards efficiency and number, of torpedo-boats, destroyers, and submarines."

The President was quite enthusiastic about the Navy. He would explain to me for a whole hour that ships spent far too much time in harbour, that gun-practice was far too limited; he would quote off-hand the gunnery records of certain British and American battleships. And at the end of his talk he would telephone to Lockroy, the Minister of the Navy, and beg him to investigate this or that point, or perhaps suggest that he or some member of his staff should visit this or that station or dockyard.

Félix Faure was less a statesman than a business man. He greatly admired the way in which the English managed their Colonies: "Theirs pay; ours don't. We laugh, alas! at the ideas and customs of the natives. Why don't we imitate the English or the Dutch? But there, we never had any respect for other people's notions or convictions."

The various evils he complained of all came from the same source: politicians in France are not the élite of the nation. The best brains, the most able men do not care for politics, and have no ambition to be in office.

THE FELIX FAURE "TALISMAN"

The Alliance with Russia, the first move towards which had been made under President Carnot, but for which Faure had done so much, was, naturally enough, a cause of much gratification to him. He would explain at length the utility of the Alliance, and he did so with the gusto of a business man who has made a wonderful deal, and who, in order to flatter his self-esteem, keeps on finding fresh indications, direct or indirect, of the importance of his bargain.

"Napoleon," he would say, for instance, "was never so powerful as when he was allied to Alexander the First. Again, one may safely assert that France, in 1815, would have been dismembered had it not been for Alexander. Sixty years later it was his nephew, Alexander II., who saved France from a German invasion five years after the Franco-Prussian War.

"And who knew but that that disastrous war might not have been avoided had Napoleon III. not ignored the friendly advances of Gortschakoff!" More than once President Faure showed strong leanings towards a rapprochement with England ... before the Fashoda affair, and this was chiefly due to the influence of the Prince of Wales (later King Edward VII.), for whom he felt the greatest personal regard, and whose diplomatic ability he much admired. What would President Faure have said had he lived a few years longer, and seen that, in spite of the Fashoda incident and in spite of the aggressively anglophobic attitude of France during the Boer War, King Edward VII. succeeded, by reason of his charming manner, his diplomacy (so subtle and yet so simple), and his sincere love for France, in making the whole French people extend to England the warm sympathy they felt for him.