VIEWS ON FOREIGN POLITICS
1878-1917
“_La Politique extérieure qui a toujours été la grande
préoccupation, le grand apprentissage de ma vie._”—Mme. Edmond
Adam, _Souvenirs_, VII. 218.
A fortnight after the appearance of the first number of _La Nouvelle
Revue_, on the 17th of December, 1879, Émile de Girardin gave a
dinner-party; _un dîner de gala_ it was called by Mme. Adam, who was
one of the guests. Among other distinguished persons present were Mr.
and Mrs. Gladstone and Gambetta.[356] At dessert the talk fell on the
new review; and Mr. Gladstone asked the editress what were its objects.
“I have three,” she replied: “to oppose Bismarck, to demand the
restoration of Alsace-Lorraine, and to lift from the minds of our
young writers the shadow of depression cast by national defeat by
giving them fame ten years earlier than they would otherwise have
acquired it.”
“And you expect to accomplish your three objects?” Mr. Gladstone
inquired.
“Perhaps not all of them,” replied Mme. Adam. “But of one thing I am
certain: that I shall see Bismarck’s fall during the existence of the
review.”
“Gambetta, who was listening,” adds Mme. Adam, “smiled defiantly at
these words. _Gambetta, qui écoutait, eut un sourire et un regard
de défi._” He may have smiled. But it is more than probable that
his defiant air existed alone in his friend’s imagination. For, as
she herself has frankly confessed elsewhere, Gambetta was never
malicious.[357]
“What are you yourself going to write in your review?” Gambetta
asked. “Doubtless you will appropriate foreign politics.”[358]
Gambetta was right. And by no means the least valuable and striking
contributions to the review were those fortnightly letters on foreign
politics—_Lettres sur La Politique Extérieure_, which for twenty years
Mme. Adam never ceased to contribute, and which she continued to
write for some months after the magazine had passed out of her hands.
Her last letter appeared in June 1900. In 1916 she collected all her
articles bearing on Bismarck and his policy and published them in a
volume entitled _L’Heure Vengeresse des Crimes Bismarckiens_. Her
articles on the Emperor William II have likewise been collected and
published in book form under the title of _Guillaume II_. (1890-1899).
In everything Mme. Adam wrote throughout these one-and-twenty years,
_la Revanche_ was the dominating idea. Nevertheless, we cannot too
often repeat that which we have said in a foregoing chapter:[359] she
never advocated an aggressive war with Germany, even for the purpose
of regaining the lost territory.
In 1887, at the close of the Schnœbele Incident, one of those Teutonic
pin-pricks by which Germany was for ever stirring up French hostility,
Mme. Adam wrote in _La Nouvelle Revue_:[360] “Whatever our enemy may
think, his neighbours on the west have long ago lost their craving for
the battle-field. Thither they no longer hasten madly; but thither if
attacked they will march resolutely.”
Mme. Adam’s object in perpetually harping on _la Revanche_ was to
keep France in a state of preparedness for the attack she felt
convinced could not fail to come, and also to assure her brethren
in Alsace-Lorraine that they had not been forgotten. Her policy was
the reverse of Gambetta’s _pensons y toujours n’en parlons jamais_.
She believed in for ever, in season and out of season, speaking and
writing of _la Revanche_.
_La Revanche_ was by no means the only subject on which Juliette
Adam and Gambetta had fundamentally disagreed. They had differed,
for instance, on the question of the attitude which France, after
her defeat, should assume towards Europe, notably at the time of the
Berlin Congress, in 1878.
The place of the meeting alone would have sufficed to provoke Mme.
Adam’s hostility to the Congress. For France, at the conqueror’s
bidding, to go to his capital there to discuss, without mentioning
her own wrong, the affairs of Europe on the basis of the _status
quo_, seemed to _la grande Française_ nothing but a new humiliation.
And this view finds justification in Professor Oncken’s contribution
to the _Cambridge Modern History_.[361] Here, in accents of pride,
the German Professor describes the Congress, which brought statesmen
from every European country to the capital of the new empire, as a
magnificent acknowledgment of the position of Germany, and one of
Bismarck’s greatest achievements. One cannot help sympathising with
Mme. Adam’s patriotism when she protests against a French contribution
to this new crown of glory for the German Empire.
While Gambetta argued that France, by standing out of the Congress,
would lose in prestige, Mme. Adam maintained that she would gain
by standing aloof as a Power which it was necessary to win over.
Moreover, she told Gambetta that her friend, Cialdini, the Italian
Ambassador in Paris, had assured her that if France should refuse to
be represented at the Congress Italy would follow her example.
Such having been Mme. Adam’s attitude towards the Congress from the
beginning, she naturally inclined to find fault with all the decisions
and arrangements made at Berlin.
She was in Rome when the Congress closed on the 13th of July. “_Jour
néfaste_,” she writes, “_s’il en fût jamais. Le Congrès de Berlin
se termine. L’encouragement aux troubles, aux ambitions futures est
signé._”[362] And now that well-nigh forty years have passed she
still regards ce jour néfaste as a black-letter day. “_Le Congrès de
Berlin_,” she wrote only last year, “_ma bête noire, l’un des deux
motifs pour lesquels je me suis brouillée politiquement avec mes
meilleurs amis_.”[363]
As Russia’s faithful friend[364] and the ardent advocate of a
Franco-Russian alliance, Mme. Adam strongly resented Russia’s
treatment at Berlin. She suspected that one of Bismarck’s ideas in
summoning the Congress had been to rob Russia of the fruits of her
victories in the Russo-Turkish War. She saw that as a result of the
Congress Russia had become as isolated in the East as was France in
the West. That Russians were themselves of this opinion was proved,
when on leaving Berlin the Russian Chancellor Gortchakoff declared
“the Congress to have been the darkest page in his career.”
Gambetta’s attitude towards Russia has puzzled not a few. It must
ever be difficult to discover the personal views of so opportunist a
statesman. “The real truth about Gambetta’s life, death and opinions
will never be known,” said recently one of those with whom he was
most intimately acquainted. In his early conversations with Mme.
Adam he annoyed her extremely by his mistrust of Russia, which he
shared with most French Radicals of that day, and which resulted
from Russia’s autocratic Government and her treatment of the Poles.
For Mme. Adam, to be the enemy of Germany was to be the friend of
Russia. “_Anti-allemande passionnée et violente, j’étais logiquement
slavophile_,” she writes.[365] And in one of the numerous quarrels
with Gambetta at the time of his proposed interview with Bismarck, she
confesses that she darted at him this insult: “You are Prussian, I
remain Cossack.” But Gambetta was well inured to such venomous words
from his too candid friend; and the patient endurance with which he
suffered them speaks volumes both for his equanimity and for Mme.
Adam’s powers of fascination.
If France must needs emerge from her isolation and form an alliance
with some European Power, Gambetta would have preferred that Power
to be England rather than Russia. Mme. Adam, animated by her Picard
dislike of England, unable to forgive us for standing aloof in 1870,
would not hear of an English Alliance. There came a time, however,
when Gambetta began to see that both an English and a Russian alliance
might be necessary to protect France against German aggression.
Dimly foreshadowing the Triple Entente of a quarter of a century
later, he began to overcome his dislike of Russia. Writing to Mme.
Adam in January 1877,[366] he says in reference to Russia’s alarm
at Bismarck’s designs on the Baltic Provinces: “_Le ressentiment
est flagrant chez les Russes, il s’agit de l’exploiter_.” Gambetta,
however, does not take to himself the credit of originating the idea
of the Franco-Russo-British Entente. In his recently published
letters to his friend and supporter Ranc,[367] he ascribes this idea
to the Prince of Wales (afterwards Edward VII), whom, in February
1878, he met more than once at the Café Anglais. By the Prince’s
insight into European politics Gambetta was deeply impressed. In this
matter he was far from sharing the views of a recent English writer
on King Edward.[368] Was that growing passion for luxury, that love
of fashionable life, which Mme. Adam so frequently deplores, casting
a spell over Gambetta and warping his judgment so far as to make him
attribute to his royal acquaintance opinions which were really his
own? We cannot say. But at any rate, in this letter to Ranc, Gambetta
describes His Royal Highness as predicting that Russia would find
her political aspirations in the Near East thwarted by Austria, that
Austria would influence Roumania, that together Austria, Roumania
and Turkey would ally themselves against Russia. “What a conflict!”
exclaims Gambetta. “Nevertheless, this is what the Prince of Wales
foresees. He does not share that hostility to Russia which animates
part of his nation. With all his young authority he opposes any
measures likely to injure Russia. He has in him the stuff of a great
statesman.”
That Gambetta over-rated the Prince’s “young authority” (_jeune
autorité_) will be obvious to all acquainted with the British
constitution, and to those who know what was the position accorded to
the Prince of Wales during his mother’s reign.
The enthusiasm of the Prince of Wales for Russia ought to have
pleased Mme. Adam. But she does not record that Gambetta confided
it to her, although he spoke to her frequently of his meetings with
the Prince.[369] Gambetta protested to her that the Prince was far
from being what rumour represented him, a mere _festoyeur_. “He loves
France seriously as well as gaily,” said Gambetta. “His great dream of
the future is an understanding (_une entente_) with us.”
Thereupon Mme. Adam rejoined bitterly: “We know what an understanding
with England brings to any country, which is so simple as to enter
into it.”
In those days, when Disraeli was Prime Minister, Mme. Adam regarded
what she described as “the insatiableness of Great Britain” with an
apprehension almost as grave as that inspired by her fear of Germany.
While for our liberal statesmen, for Mr. Gladstone and John Bright
notably, she had a profound admiration; Lord Beaconsfield and Lord
Salisbury she regarded as hand and glove with Bismarck.
It was with this triumvirate, she believed, and not without
reason,[370] that had originated at Berlin an idea, which, realised
three years later, was to prove disastrous not to France alone,
but to the peace of Europe. This idea was the French occupation of
Tunis. The colonisation of Tunis had long been an Italian dream. To
northern Africa Mazzini had directed the ambitions of his countrymen
as early as 1838.[371] Probably British statesmen, by suggesting
Tunis to France merely intended to give her something which should
atone to her for the British occupation of Cyprus. But Bismarck
had other designs: he wished above all things to distract French
attention from the north-eastern frontier. As later he was to say
to a French diplomatist: “Go to Morocco, it will help you to forget
Alsace-Lorraine,” so now for the same reason he encouraged France
to go to Tunis. But there is little doubt that when he gave this
encouragement the wily fox at Varzin was entertaining a yet subtler
design: already he had come to an understanding with Austria, and to
the German-Austrian Entente he was eager to add Italy. By embroiling
Italy with France he hoped to achieve this object, and he succeeded.
The year after the French occupation of Tunis, Italy joined Germany
and Austria; and on the 20th of May, 1882, the Triple Alliance was
concluded. Its formation and its periodic renewal[372] rendered yet
more imperative the conclusion of the Triple Entente. And it will
generally be admitted that one of the causes of the present conflict
lies in this unfortunate, though possibly inevitable, arrayal of the
great European Powers in two hostile camps.
Here, therefore, in the French colonisation of Tunis, we have an event
fraught with momentous consequences. How did Mme. Adam regard it?
In the last volume of her _Souvenirs_, which we must remember were
compiled nearly twenty years later, she sees in it one of Bismarck’s
designs for the ruin of France. But, in her articles contributed
at the time to _La Nouvelle Revue_, it is interesting to find her
refusing at first to believe in the possibility of any alliance
between Italy and Austria. Bismarck may plot if he likes; but in that
direction, not even such an arch-schemer as the German Chancellor
could possibly succeed. Mme. Adam, herself an irreconcilable
_Revancharde_, felt confident that her Latin brethren in Italy could
never so far forget their unredeemed territory as to ally themselves
with the Austrian plunderer, “and to consent to be dragged behind the
chariot of Hapsburgs and Hohenzollerns.” But alas! that swift Gallic
intuition, which had often led her to see into the future of European
politics, had for the moment forsaken her. Italy was not true to _la
Revanche_. She came to terms with the conqueror. When the Triple
Alliance was formed Mme. Adam saw one of her brightest dreams vanish.
She had hoped to substitute for Gambetta’s Triple Entente between
France, England and Russia another three-cornered understanding, one
between France, Italy and Russia.
Now that Italy had joined the enemy Mme. Adam turned with more
enthusiasm than ever to Russia. Writing[373] of her articles on
foreign politics in _La Nouvelle Revue_, she announces that she will
give Russia a prominent part. “_Pour mes lettres sur la politique
extérieure_,” she writes, “_mon siège est fait, la lutte à plume
armée contre Bismarck et pour l’alliance russe_.”[374] Already her
friendship with Tourguénieff had taught her something of the Russian
soul. She studied Russian history, especially the history of the
revolutionary movement. She was in constant correspondence with
General Chanzy, the French Ambassador at Petrograd. Finally, in 1882,
she visited Russia.
She stayed at the Hôtel de l’Europe. There she was visited by numerous
persons of distinction. No one impressed her so much as General
Skobeleff, the heroic defender of Plevna. They were well matched,
these two passionate patriots—this handsome Western woman, _la grande
Française_, and this typical Cossack, this fervent Slav. He was called
“the white General,” because it was his custom to wear, in battle,
a white coat, which challenged the enemy’s bullets to defile its
spotless purity with blood-stains. Alike for the Russian Pan-Slavist
and the French _Revancharde_ there was but one device, “the German is
the enemy.” No one in Russia did Mme. Adam long more to see than this
hero of the Russo-Turkish War. Their meeting, which occurred in the
vast yellow drawing-room of the Hôtel de l’Europe in January 1882, she
has vividly described in her little book on Skobeleff, first published
in 1886, and reprinted in a revised edition in 1916.
“We looked at one another,” she writes, “not wishing to make any
trivial remarks.... It was of his cause I spoke to him before my own.
And this is what he said to me about the Balkan peoples: ‛I assure you
they are tyrannised over. They must fill you with pity. For example,
in Bosnia, in Herzegovina, the oppressor forces the children to serve
in the very army which has slain their fathers and brothers. Into
their hands is put a gun all dripping with the blood of Slavs. This
thought drives me mad, as it must you when you think of the people of
Alsace-Lorraine serving in the Prussian army.’
“‛Yes, but they were actually our brethren, they were so near to us,
the Slavs of Bosnia and Herzegovina are not so intimately related to
you.’
“‛Not these Slavs! Why, they are our brethren,’ he said in a tone
which thrilled me through and through. ‛Pray do not let us argue about
the relative acuteness of our suffering. Russia waged war in order to
deliver the Slavs beyond the Danube from the Turkish yoke.... And now
she cannot permit Austria’s yoke to be substituted for Turkey’s. The
former is also more oppressive, for it tyrannises not merely over the
individual’s person, but over his conscience....’
“‛Austria,’ I argued, ‛has for some years been hardly responsible for
her action in the East. It is Germany who is urging her to dominate
over the peoples of the Balkan Peninsula, and to conquer them both by
force of arms and by diplomacy.’
“‛Germany!’ he repeated, and into that one word he breathed all the
fire of his hatred.
“The preachers of the Crusades must have looked like that apostle of
the Slavs.
“‛I no longer love war,’ said Skobeleff. ‛No, I love it no longer; I
have waged it too often,’ he added, as if replying to his own inmost
thought. ‛No victory is worth all it costs of energy, of strength,
of public money and of men. Yet there is a war for which I should
ever be ready, and which I should never deem too costly. It is a holy
war. Sooner or later the devourers of the Slavs must be themselves
devoured. On that day, I see it, I will it, I predict it, Germany will
be devoured by the Slavs, the Latins, the Franks.’”
Mme. Adam and her new friend had far too much in common for their
friendship to cease with her departure from Petrograd. He followed her
to Paris. There he visited her salon. They agreed to work together,
to unite all their forces in order to oppose what Skobeleff described
as _le système d’enveloppement bismarckien_. But their hopes were
disappointed by Skobeleff’s early death at the age of thirty-nine.
Shortly before he died he said to one of his compatriots: “Carry
on my work, and do not neglect to bring into all your plans our
friend in Paris.” Mme. Adam is one of those who lay at Bismarck’s
door the sudden passing of this brilliant soldier and irreconcilable
Germanophobe. But the Chancellor has enough crimes accredited to him
without this. A distinguished French journalist, who knew Skobeleff,
and in many ways greatly admired him, wrote to me recently: “I do
not believe he was assassinated by orders from Bismarck. I know too
much of his death to believe that. _Mais les défauts de ses propres
qualités l’ont conduit à une mort rapide._”
The effect of Skobeleff’s influence on Mme. Adam was to render truer
than ever the words of her friend, Mme. Novikoff: _elle a la Russie au
cœur_.[375] Now with all her heart and soul she began to work for a
Franco-Russian Alliance. It was precisely this alliance that Bismarck
feared. Mme. Adam’s persistent advocacy of it in the columns of _La
Nouvelle Revue_, and the numerous charges on which she never ceased to
indict the Chancellor, provoked him on one occasion to cry out: “Is
there no one who can silence _cette diablesse de femme_?” The German
Ambassador at Paris is said to have repeated this question to M. Jules
Ferry, then Prime Minister. “Only one person,” he replied, “and he
unhappily is dead: her husband, Edmond Adam.” Ferry, however, Mme.
Adam has told me, desiring to obtain German support or acquiescence in
his policy of colonial expansion, and wishful, therefore, to please
the German Government, did ask her to discontinue her Germanophobe
articles. “Only if you imprison me,” she replied. “And what an honour!
To be imprisoned for attacking Bismarck.”
Keeping closely in touch with her Russian friends Mme. Adam was
overjoyed as the years went on to find sympathy with France growing in
Russia. At first it had existed only among Russian Revolutionaries.
But it began to spread to the conservatives, and finally to the Czar,
Alexander III, himself. Then came the glorious days of Cronstadt and
Toulon. When the French squadron, under Admiral Gervais, entered
Cronstadt harbour, on the 25th of July, 1891, Mme. Adam was in an
ecstasy to hear with what immense enthusiasm it had been received.
When, in the following August, the Treaty of Alliance between France
and Russia was signed, Count Ignatieff, the ex-Minister of Interior,
sent her a telegram beginning: “To you is due the honour of having
predicted the sentiments which unite French and Russian hearts,” and
ending with the wish that “the bond which unites our two countries may
endure for ever.”[376]
In October 1893 a detachment of the Russian fleet entered Toulon
harbour on a return visit. Mme. Adam, we may be sure, took care to
be in the South of France during that visit. In the festivities with
which the Russian soldiers were entertained at Toulon, and later in
Paris, she played a prominent part. On behalf of the women of France
she presented the Russian sailors with numerous gifts, and each
married officer received from her hand a gold bracelet for his wife.
On another occasion, a distinguished Russian, visiting Paris, was
proud to find that Mme. Adam had been deputed to bestow upon him his
_brevet de commandeur de la légion d’honneur_.[377]
Mme. Adam’s sympathies as an ardent Slavophile were by no means
confined to Russia. No Slavonic people is without a place in her
heart. Their struggles against Teutonism have always appealed to her.
With Gambetta she believed that one of the surest ways of pulling
down the Germanic Tower of Babel is to hold out a helping hand to
the Slavs of the Lower Danube.[378] She has ever been the friend of
Roumania. In _La Nouvelle Revue_ she wrote on the 1st of September,
1881: “Roumania’s attitude will never be aggressive.” Again, in the
same publication, on the 15th of the month, she continued to preach
confidence in Roumania: “I believe,” she wrote, “that Roumania,
by reason of her smallness, constitutes the best safeguard of
international interests and the surest guarantee of the liberty of a
river (the Danube) which she has no intention of exploiting for her
own personal ends.”
Throughout the eighties and nineties, whenever she could escape
from her editorial duties in Paris, Mme. Adam would start off on
some journey to Central Europe—to Vienna, Hungary, North Italy or
Montenegro.[379] Thus she has been able to study on the spot the
Near Eastern question. And for twenty years she conducted in Austria
and the Balkans a veritable crusade on behalf of nationalism,
anti-Teutonism and Slavism. Everywhere her charm of manner and her
acquaintance with Ambassadors in Paris obtained for her an entry into
diplomatic circles; and it may well be imagined that the insight she
thus gained into the most complex of European problems was invaluable
to her in writing her articles on foreign politics for _La Nouvelle
Revue_.
In 1884, during her visit to Hungary, which she has described in
her book, _La Patrie Hongroise_, she found herself up against a
difficulty, the stubbornness of which she had not suspected. She was
dismayed by the Magyar indignation at her Slavist propaganda. For
the Magyars Russia was as much “the enemy” as was Germany for French
_Revanchards_. Socially, the Nationalist party was charmed to receive
her; on that field, as always, she proved irresistible; but her
Slavist gospel they rejected with scorn. After her return to Paris
the leader of the Hungarian nationalists, Count Apponyi, wrote her a
letter expressing irreconcilable antagonism to Russia. He declared
that in case of a conflict between Russia and Germany, Hungary’s
instinct of self-preservation would lead her to place her army of
600,000 men[380] at Germany’s disposal. Again, in June 1888, Count
Apponyi wrote: “Even under the charm of your pen, madame, the most
ingenuous of readers cannot help smiling to see the name of Russia
coupled with any ideal whatsoever.... We for centuries have been the
safeguard of civilisation. We arrested that wave of barbarism, the
inflow of the Turks, which broke against our frontier. The same fate
will attend the Russian wave.”
In no country did Mme. Adam more passionately espouse the national
cause than in Egypt. Here her motto was, “Egypt for the Egyptians.”
She had great faith in the Egyptian people, and she strongly approved
of the French refusal to join the British in their bombardment of
Alexandria.
Mr. Gladstone’s action in this matter was a sad blow to her admiration
of this illustrious statesman. She had regarded him as the apostle
of the oppressed, as “the initiator of democracy.” She had admired
his championship of Armenia and Bulgaria and of Home Rule in Ireland.
Of the Irish problem, she had written: “Mr. Gladstone is the only
man, not in Great Britain alone, but in Europe, capable of dealing
with such a desperate situation.”[381] Contrasting the British Prime
Minister with the German Chancellor, she writes:[382] “While Europeans
are accustomed to await in agonising suspense the acts and speeches of
M. de Bismarck, they await in hope and in confidence the utterances of
Mr. Gladstone.”
When she saw Mr. Gladstone taking what seemed to her the
anti-nationalist side in Egypt, she could only believe that he had
been forced into this _concession fatale_ by “British mercantile
Chauvinists” and Palmerstonians.[383] Mr. Gladstone’s good-will
towards France she never doubted; but she deplored that it had been
unable to permeate the British Foreign Office.[384]
The influence of mercantile Chauvinism Mme. Adam discerned in the
Fashoda Affair. It was then giving birth to that British Imperialism,
which whether advocated by Mr. Chamberlain or Lord Rosebery[385]
seemed to her equally dangerous. In the South African War she saw what
she had described as _l’insatiable ambition des agents britanniques_
in Egypt, developing into _la voracité scandaleuse de l’Angleterre en
Transvaal_.[386]
It was with some dismay, however, that on this question of the Boer
Republic’s Independence Mme. Adam found herself in line with her
arch-enemy, the Emperor of Germany. And one can hardly congratulate
her on the fiction with which she tried to extricate herself from
such a lamentable position; for she genuinely persuaded herself that
William II was only supporting Kruger in order to please his subjects,
and that in reality Queen Victoria’s grandson could not fail to side
with his grandmother.
Mme. Adam’s hereditary suspicion of _la perfide Albion_ was, as she
herself confessed to me, by no means allayed by the Entente Cordiale.
It was not until Great Britain retrieved the error of 1870, and
definitely entered the Great War as the Ally of France, that this
_grande Française_ began to trust us.
That she has completely changed her opinion of us, and that she is not
ashamed to own it, is proved by this extract from one of her letters
written to me in 1916. She is referring to an Englishman who had
recently visited her at Gif....
“_Abbaye de Gif_,
“_S. et Oise_,
“_Le 8 octobre, 1916_.
“... _Comme le grand député capitaine respire la volonté, la
conviction, le patriotisme! Quelle joie d’apprendre nos alliés si
autrement que je croyais les connaître._”
One of her British _confrères_, she describes as _le plus parfait
gentilhomme du monde_. Now in 1917 she writes: “_L’Angleterre est
admirable. Vive l’Angleterre._ Her improvised army is worth the most
ancient of armies. Be proud of it. Such words on my lips are not
without their value. For I was once your enemy. I blamed your policy
at the Berlin Congress and in Heligoland.” “Now, side by side, _fer à
fer_, France and the United Kingdom will drive out of France, out of
Lorraine, out of Belgium, the German, who is the enemy of us all.”[387]
In conclusion, we must not omit to note that Mme. Adam’s classical
interests could not fail to lead her to sympathise with the national
movement in Greece and with the ideals of her friend, Venizelos,
with whom she has corresponded during the present war. We are not
surprised to learn that the leader of Greek Nationalists welcomed with
enthusiasm the publication of Mme. Adam’s book, _L’Heure Vengeresse
des Crimes Bismarckiens_. For his poor distracted land has indeed
been one of the worst sufferers from Bismarck’s crimes, and from the
decisions taken by that _bête noir_ of Mme. Adam, the Berlin Congress.
FOOTNOTES:
[356] _Souvenirs_, VII. 419.
[357] _Ibid._, VI. 312.
[358] _Ibid._, 324.
[359] See _ante_, 189.
[360] _L’Heure Vengeresse des Crimes Bismarckiens_, 100.
[361] Vol. XII. 143.
[362] _Souvenirs_, VII. 204.
[363] Article in _Le Gaulois_, February 20, 1916.
[364] The Russian Revolution has but served to strengthen Mme. Adam’s
friendship for Russia. In a letter which appeared on April 4, 1917,
in the _Gaulois_ and other French papers, she writes, “_Mon activité
passionnée servira jusqu’à mes derniers jours la Russie slave, les
Yougo-slaves, la cause Tchèque_.”
[365] _Souvenirs_, VI. 166.
[366] _Ibid._, 440.
[367] See _Le Matin_, 29 December, 1915.
[368] See Sir Sidney Lee’s article on King Edward in the _Dictionary
of National Biography_.
[369] _Souvenirs_, VII. 15, 16, 146.
[370] See Tardieu, _La France et Ses Alliances_, 46.
[371] _Ibid._, p. 99.
[372] Signed at first for five years, it was renewed in 1887 for
another five years, in 1891 for six or twelve, in 1902 for another six
or twelve; and, as we know, it endured for the longer term, until 1914.
[373] _Souvenirs_, VII. 373.
[374] _Ibid._, 380.
[375] _Souvenirs_, VII. 421.
[376] See article, _The Birth of an Alliance_, contributed by Mme.
Adam to _The Daily Chronicle_, 18 May, 1916.
[377] De Goncourt, _Journal_, VI. 200.
[378] _Souvenirs_, VII. 165.
[379] See her picturesque article on “Montenegro” in _La Nouvelle
Revue_, 1898.
[380] See _The Daily Chronicle_, 23 September, 1916, Mme. Adam’s
article “Teuton and Slav,” where she quotes these remarkable letters
in full.
[381] _La Nouvelle Revue_, XVI. 459.
[382] _Ibid._, XII. 897.
[383] _Ibid._, XVII. 496, 736, 739.
[384] _Ibid._, XVI. 978.
[385] _La Nouvelle Revue_, Vol. I. Series 2, December 9, 1899.
“_L’impérialisme de Lord Rosebery est le même que celui de M.
Chamberlain d’une nuance de près. L’un veut aggrandir à tout prix
l’Angleterre, accaparer tout ce qui peut être accaparé, et cela par
tous les moyens: Lord Rosebery veut conserver tout ce qui aura été
accaparé par M. Chamberlain._”
[386] _Ibid._, Vol. I. Series 2, 254.
[387] While the first quotations in this paragraph occur in Mme.
Adam’s letters to me, the last sentence is taken from her Preface to
_L’Heure Vengeresse des Crimes Bismarckiens_.