operations” at a disastrous fire on the Boulevard Sebastopol. In the
sight of the crowd he struggled into oilskins, and next was to be seen
stationing the engines, dragging about hose, pushing forward ladders,
signalling and shouting forth encouragement and patience to the occupants
of the blazing house. On this, as on all similar occasions, M. Lépine
was blackened and singed when at last the fire had been mastered. But
never have I beheld him so blackened, so dishevelled and battered, so
courageous and capable as when he came to the rescue of the “victims”
of the devastating Paris floods. Up and down the swollen, lurid river
he careered in a shabby old boat. At once-pleasant river-side places,
such as Boulogne and Surèsnes, he was to be found chest-deep in the
turbid, yellow-green water—always signalling, always “firmly” and
“actively” “directing operations.” He climbed into the upper windows
of tottering, flooded houses; briskly made his way across narrow plank
bridges; distributed here, there and everywhere blankets, medicaments,
provisions—the mud and slime of the river caked hard on his oilskins.
As he passed by in his boat, the most bedraggled figure in Paris, loud
cries of “Vive Lépine” from the bridges and quays; and, indeed, wherever
he went, M. le Préfet de Police excited respect and admiration. I see
him, in top hat and frock coat, “receiving” the late King Edward VII.
in the draughty Northern Station. I see him pointing out the beauties
of Paris to the present Prince of Wales. I see him surrounded by the
turbulent students of the Latin Quarter, whither he has been summoned to
check their demonstrations against some unpopular professor. I see him
examining (in the interests of the public) the clocks of motor cabs, the
cushions of railway carriages, the seating conditions in theatres, the
very benches and penny chairs in the Bois de Boulogne. Finally, I see him
as he is to-day; no longer Chief of the Police, but a private “citizen,”
established in a spacious, comfortable _appartement_, which, to the
admiration and excitement of naïve, bourgeois Parisians, is equipped with
no fewer than two bathrooms.
“With two bathrooms our admirable Lépine will have plenty to do,” states
M. le Bourgeois. “They are a responsibility, as well as a pleasure; but,
of course, they will not prove too much for a man like Lépine.” Then up
speaks a primitive soul: “One is free to bathe and free not to bathe. But
to have two bathrooms is scandalous: and I should not have thought it of
Lépine.”
However, in the opinion of a third critic, M. Lépine should be permitted
to have ninety-nine bathrooms if he likes. Twenty-two years Chief of
the Police, he is now entitled to do as he pleases. So leave his two
bathrooms alone.
“When a man has retired, he must have distractions with which to occupy
his mind and his leisure.”
But if, as reported, M. Lépine loves his pair of bathrooms, he loves
the streets better. As in his official days, behold him here, there and
everywhere. A brawl or a fire, and there he is. Now in an omnibus, next
in the underground railway, up at Montmartre, down on the boulevards,
amidst exclamations of “Voilà Lépine!” and the salutes of the police.
Only a private “citizen,” but he is still addressed as “M. le Préfet.”
Merely the master of a comfortable _appartement_, of a couple of
bathrooms—but is that enough for a Frenchman of action and genius?
Gossips predict that M. Lépine will next be seen in the Chamber of
Deputies, or that he will help M. Georges Clemenceau to wake up the
Senate—the “Palais du Sommeil.” For my own part I fancy that, should a
crisis arrive, the ex-Chief of the Police will be requested to “direct
operations” again.
“There is a telephone in my new home,” M. Lépine is reported to have
said. “If the Government should want me back, it has only to ring me up.”
XVI
MADAME LA PRÉSIDENTE, M. GEORGES CLEMENCEAU AND THE UNFORTUNATE M. PAMS
There is an important reason for the popularity of M. le Président: there
is Madame la Présidente.
Less than a month ago Madame Raymond Poincaré, wife of the President
of the French Republic, was the hostess, in Paris, of King George and
Queen Mary; to-day, as I write, she is helping to entertain, with almost
similar brilliancy, their Majesties Christian and Alexandrine of Denmark.
In the interval between these two Royal visits, Madame Poincaré has spent
a few days on the Riviera, but it wasn’t a holiday. Madame la Présidente
was accompanied to the south of France by the most punctilious, the most
rigid, the most terrible of all tutors—a high official of the French
Protocol. And instead of enjoying the drowsy charms or the worldly
delights of the Riviera, it was Madame Poincaré’s duty to master a few
elegant phrases from the difficult Danish language; to acquaint herself
with the brightest episodes in Danish history; to discern the subtleties
and intricacies of Danish etiquette; and incidentally (and always
under the respectful but intense eye of the high Protocol official)
to discover which kinds of flowers grow in Denmark; what the climate
is like; at what hours the Danes rise and retire; and whether they are
particularly fond of music, literature, the drama, pictures, sculpture,
dancing, needlework, and so on, and so forth.
Although an extremely clever and accomplished woman, it is probable that
Madame Poincaré experienced hardships and even miseries in “getting up”
her Denmark: for it is a country—and a language—that does not easily
accommodate itself to an emergency. (You, reader, could _you_ gossip,
here and now, glibly and elegantly, even in your own language, about
Danish national characteristics?) Moreover, it must be remembered that,
when she left for the Riviera to acquaint herself with Denmark, Madame
Poincaré had only recently finished “getting up” her England: the latter,
of course, a less arduous, but nevertheless a strenuous, task. Two
languages, two countries; two Kings and two Queens; banquets, gala opera
performances, military reviews, special race-meetings, drives in State
carriages across Paris, ceremonious greetings and adieux at the gaily
decorated Royal railway station—decorations, illuminations, soldiers and
soldiers, the National Anthems of England, Denmark and France—all this
brilliancy, and excitement, and hard labour in the short space of one
month! Such, nevertheless, has been the duty of Madame Raymond Poincaré
as hostess of the Presidential Palace of the Élysée: and yet even here
in England, and even there in Denmark, one hears scarcely a word about
the personality or the functions of Madame la Présidente!
An ungrateful, even an ironical position, that of a French President’s
wife. She is the hostess of foreign Royalty: but never, in her turn,
their guest. The rigid French Protocol forbids, for some reason or other,
that Madame la Présidente shall accompany her husband on his State visits
abroad. She may drive through the streets of Paris by the side of Queen
Mary: but she must not drive, officially, through the streets of London,
or Copenhagen, or St Petersburg. In a word, Madame la Présidente must
suffer all the anxieties and responsibilities of the arduous, proud
position of hostess to Royalty: and is left behind in Paris when her
husband goes away on visits of State to receive almost Royal honours.
Yes: an ungrateful, an ironical position, that of Madame la Présidente.
Particularly so, when one remembers that, upon social occasions at
all events, she is almost invariably more tactful, _sympathique_ and
ornamental than M. le Président.
Well, the French Chief of the State goes almost royally abroad. In
his own country, when he opens exhibitions or “inaugurates” monuments
and statues and _lycées_ at Lyons and Marseilles, he is very nearly a
king—and Madame la Présidente stays at home. She “counts” only in Paris;
her powers are confined within the walls of the Élysée, where she is for
ever dispensing all kinds of hospitalities—hospitalities that demand
infinite skill and tact. For instance, one of those dinners upon other
occasions—“eminent” Academicians, leading barristers, men of letters,
and clericals, and anti-clericals, and militarists, and pacifists, and
ambiguities, enigmas, and “dark horses” (so far as their political
opinions are concerned)—many of whom are the bitterest of enemies, and
all of whom Madame la Présidente has “placed” around the dinner-table,
with such incomparable tact and discretion that not a guest can see
more than the nose or the chin of his particular foe. Also, Madame
la Présidente has often reconciled enemies—to the advantage of M. le
Président—whose own endeavours to obtain the same reconciliation have
proved vain. Furthermore, it is on record that, during an acute Cabinet
crisis, Madame la Présidente stopped one of France’s leading statesmen,
as he flung out of the Élysée, by grasping his arm and putting a rose in
his button-hole, and the Cabinet Minister, exclaiming: “Ah, madame, vous
êtes exquise!” allowed himself to be led by Madame la Présidente back to
the Council Chamber.
Has Madame la Présidente been once again working miracles? What is this
we hear in the month of June, 1913? A reconciliation, an alliance, even,
between M. Raymond Poincaré and M. Georges Clemenceau.
When, in February last, M. Raymond Poincaré was elected President of
the French Republic, Parisians exclaimed excitedly, with one voice:
“This means the end of Clemenceau. He is dying; he is dead; he is
already buried.” For it will be remembered that M. Georges Clemenceau,
the “Smasher of Cabinets,” also “The Tiger,” had savagely attacked M.
Poincaré’s candidature; had even called upon him to withdraw in favour of
an obscure Minister of Agriculture, in business life a maker of cigarette
papers, of the unfortunate name of Pams. Cried M. Clemenceau here, there
and everywhere: “I vote for Pams.” In the lobbies of the two Chambers he
ordered his followers to “vote solidly for Pams.” The “Tiger” had sent
M. Loubet to the Élysée; he would do the same for his dear Pams. The
manufacturer of cigarette papers was a true democrat—M. Poincaré was a
despot. Pams, indeed, had all the virtues; Pams at the Élysée would raise
the prestige of the Republic, but heaven help the poor Republic if M.
Poincaré were elected.
So fierce was the “Tiger’s” antagonism that, on the very day of the
Presidential election, and in the Palace of Versailles, M. Poincaré
appointed “seconds” to demand an explanation from M. Clemenceau. The
affair was “arranged.” But up to the last moment the “Tiger” canvassed
and canvassed for M. Pams in the lobbies of the Versailles palace. And
he was sallower than ever; he did not attempt to conceal his anger
and indignation when M. Poincaré was proclaimed Chief of the State by
a handsome majority. Said a Deputy: “Versailles has been Clemenceau’s
Waterloo. In Poincaré he met his Wellington.” But the “Tiger” wasn’t
tamed. A few weeks later he “smashed” the Briand Cabinet. Then he started
a paper—_L’Homme Libre_—and therein, as in the lobbies of the two
Chambers, he renewed his attacks upon the new President. So has Paris
been amazed, staggered, almost petrified to read in the newspapers the
following official announcement:
“Sur le désir que le président de la République lui en avait fait
exprimer par son secrétaire général civil, M. Clemenceau s’est rendu
aujourd’hui à l’Élysée, pour conférer avec M. Poincaré.” Or: “At the
desire of the President of the Republic, expressed through his principal
private secretary, M. Clemenceau has called at the Élysée and conferred
with M. Poincaré.”
Mortal enemies—nearly a duel—three months ago: but now is M. Clemenceau
invited most politely to call at the Élysée, where he remains shut up
with President Poincaré for a whole hour! Never such gesticulations
on the boulevards, such excitement in the French Press. “Even the
weather has been _bouleversé_ by the interview at the Élysée,” writes a
Paris journalist. “M. Clemenceau’s visit to M. Poincaré is undoubtedly
responsible for the sudden heat wave.” Asks another journalist, somewhat
cruelly: “What does M. Pams think of it? Also, where is M. Pams? We
have sought for M. Pams at both his Paris and country residences, but
in vain. No news of M. Pams either at the cigarette paper manufactory.
We are becoming uneasy about M. Pams.” And declares a third journalist:
“Versailles is forgotten and forgiven. Behold the President and
Clemenceau hand-in-hand. But it is the triumph of the ‘Tiger.’”
And so, most indisputably, it is. It was M. Poincaré who “desired” the
famous interview, and this was made clear (at M. Clemenceau’s request)
in the official communication to the Press. Why did he “desire” it?
What induced M. Poincaré to forget all about M. Clemenceau, M. Pams and
Versailles? The truth is, M. Poincaré has need of the “Tiger’s” support,
not only in the Chambers, but in his new paper. It is also a fact that,
in spite of the Pams episode, M. Clemenceau is far and away the most
powerful journalist and politician in France. If M. Clemenceau doesn’t
agree with you, he “smashes.” “He assassinates you in the Chamber and
then buries you in his newspaper,” once said a Deputy. To come to the
point: the President of the French Republic, disturbed by the hostility
to the Three Years Army Service Bill, sees in the “Tiger” the only
statesman powerful enough to cope successfully with the situation. In
other words, the next French Premier will be M. Georges Clemenceau.
And, according to many a reliable French politician, the fall of M.
Barthou, the actual Prime Minister, is near. A kindly, admirable
man, M. Barthou: but no “leader.” I remember him, as Minister of the
Interior, attending the funeral of the victims of the Courrières mining
catastrophe—eleven hundred lives lost. Tears ran down his face; he was
literally a wreck, pale, red-eyed, almost inarticulate, when the special
train took him back to Paris. Six weeks later, during the subsequent
strike, down to Courrières came M. Georges Clemenceau, the new Minister
of the Interior. Not a trace of emotion about the “Tiger” as he visited
the stricken mining villages. He spoke sharply to the strikers. He
promised that, if order were preserved, the troops would be withdrawn.
Next day three—precisely three—windows of an engineer’s house were
broken. Then trainful after trainful of troops, until there were ten
soldiers to every striker—and that broke the strike.
A man of iron, M. Clemenceau—when in power. No pen so eloquent, so
stirring as his in French journalism, and his pen he has now taken up in
favour of M. Poincaré and the new Army Service Bill. Throbbing, thrilling
phrases, as always. Here is a passage of his appeal to the French Army:
“Athens, Rome, the greatest things of the past were swept off the face of
the earth on the day that the sentinels hesitated as you are beginning to
do. And you—your France, your Paris, your village, your field, your road,
your stream—all that tumult of history out of which you come, since it is
the work of your forerunners—is all this nothing to you?”
All this may be very sound, very lofty, very noble. But all this, by
arrangement with President Poincaré, will lead to the next Premiership.
And all this leaves me unhappy, for the reason that I can’t help thinking
and worrying about M. Pams.
What is the “Tiger,” the future Premier, going to do for him?
There’s a cynical, sinister rumour on the boulevards that M. Clemenceau
has shrugged his shoulders and said: “Don’t speak to me about Pams. I’ve
had enough of him. Let him go on making cigarette papers.” So things
stand at the Élysée on the 2nd of June 1913.