My Memoirs. Marguerite Steinheil

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.