M. FALLIÈRES AS PRESIDENT
The septenary of M. Loubet had come to an end. No one had ever given a
thought to the possibility of his presenting himself for re-election,
and he himself was but too glad to relinquish the burden of office. M.
Loubet, in spite of all that has been said about him, was not the
insignificant personage some had tried to represent him. He had been
elected through the influence of the Radical party, but he had
nevertheless the strength of character to resist the desires or even the
orders of that same party on several occasions when he thought they
wanted to go too far.
Popular opinion has it that this was sufficient to arouse the ire of M.
Clemenceau, who, faithful to his tactics of holding in hand the leading
strings of the government, furious to see his intentions frustrated,
declared war against M. Loubet.
The latter was clever enough to appear to ignore it, and arranged
matters so as to retire from the Presidency with all the honours of war,
leaving to his successor the task of coping with the difficulties which
the Radical party seemed determined to put in the way of every President
of the Republic.
His successor, M. Fallières, was elected largely through the influence
of M. Clemenceau. M. Fallières was essentially a peaceful man. He had
accepted the position of President of the Republic, partly because he
did not like to disobey the orders of his superiors, and partly because
he was a careful man, an excellent father, and saw in his septenary the
opportunity to improve the material prospects of his children.
It was during his tenure of office that the Dreyfus affair came to a
close, and that the Captain was not only rehabilitated but also rewarded
for his sufferings with the Legion of Honour, in spite of the outcries
which this decision raised among the Clericals and the anti-Semites. It
was also he who signed the decree granting burial in the Panthéon to the
ashes of Zola, and it was during his septenary, moreover, that relations
were definitely broken with the Vatican. The last event produced a great
sensation, especially when the representative of the Papal Nuncio, Mgr.
Montagnini, was expelled from Paris by the police in about as brutal a
way as it was possible to conceive.
Much has been written concerning that last measure, of which, let it be
said _en passant_, neither M. Fallières nor the French Government had
any reason to be proud. It was one of those acts of violence which only
tend to exasperate the public mind against those who render themselves
guilty of the indiscretion, but which is of no importance in reality. Of
course Mgr. Montagnini had not behaved with the necessary tact in the
delicate position wherein he found himself placed, but if he had had to
do with gentlemen they would have asked him to go away of his own
accord, which he would probably have been but too glad to do, and they
would not have expelled him _mania militari_. M. Fallières, in spite of
his middle-class education, felt this, and it is said that he vainly
tried to avoid this scandal. The Radical party, however, had laid down
its conditions not only to him, but also to M. Clemenceau, and the
latter with all his cleverness and his energy was not strong enough to
refuse it this satisfaction, which was craved with persistence and in
such imperative terms.
I knew Mgr. Montagnini very well, and I happened to call on him on the
eve of the day which saw him thrown out of France with such unnecessary
brutality. He had been warned of the measures about to be taken against
him, but would not believe in its possibility. When I asked him why he
had not telegraphed to Mgr. Merry del Val, then Secretary of State of
the Holy See, asking permission to leave of his own accord, he replied
to me that it would have been useless, because that permission would
never have been granted to him. As I expressed my astonishment he
explained to me at length that Rome wanted the French Government to
resort to violence against its representative because it would only
raise the prestige of the Church and provoke general indignation against
its persecutors.
“All this will pass,” he added; “many months will not go by before the
very government which does not hesitate to insult a priest and the
official representative of the Pope will find itself obliged to renew
relations with the Holy See. So many questions will arise in connection
with this separation of the Church and State, of which the French
Radicals are so proud, that they will very soon see the mistake they
have made.”
Though Mgr. Montagnini was not a prophet by any means, he proved in this
particular case to be right, because in spite of the open rupture of the
French Republic with the Vatican, relations were never entirely
interrupted between Rome and Paris. Indeed it would have been
impossible, because in spite of the hatred for the Catholic Church which
the leading politicians in France affected, they had on different
occasions to turn to the representatives of the clergy for help, and
they did not disdain even to ask them to use their influence whenever
they wanted a candidate to be elected either in the Senate or in the
Chamber of Deputies, who under the mask of being a moderate Liberal, was
in reality a Radical of the purest water, and a fervent partisan of M.
Clemenceau and his group.
It was at that time that the star of M. Clemenceau began to ascend
higher in the heavens than it had ever been. Until the election of M.
Fallières, he had more or less ruled in the dark, and as it were _en
cachette_. When his candidate had been given the first position in the
State the hour of his triumph sounded.
M. Clemenceau, in spite of all that has been said, had never been a
partisan of the Russian alliance. His sympathies were entirely English.
He had been the object of the special attention of King Edward, and his
political plans comprised a strong Franco-English friendship, which
would prove to be a shield in case of a new war with Germany.
M. Clemenceau would not have been sorry to see war. He was far too
shrewd not to notice that in spite of the violent attacks of a certain
portion of the press against Germany, the majority of the nation did not
any longer harbour such feelings of hatred against their eastern
neighbour as formerly existed. More than that, a good many people
thought that it would be better to reconcile oneself to facts, and, by
an understanding with the German Government, to avoid the heavy taxes
which the increased armaments imposed on the country. These armaments
were not popular among the greater number of Frenchmen. Forty years had
gone by since the war of 1870, and a new generation had succeeded to the
one that had witnessed the unexampled disasters which had brought about
the fall of the Second Empire. That younger generation could not feel in
the same way as its fathers had done; it only saw that France was
prosperous, and that a war, even if it turned out to be successful,
could but increase the military burdens of the country. This appealed to
no one, and consequently a renewal of hostilities with Germany was not
desired. M. Clemenceau, on the contrary, had rabid anti-German feelings,
and he encouraged what chauvinist tendencies still existed in France,
and tried to persuade the leading men in England that the conclusion of
an understanding with France would prove of infinite advantage to both
countries.
Unfortunately Russia could not be left out of this understanding, and M.
Clemenceau had perforce to submit to the fact, but he did his best,
nevertheless, to destroy the Russian sympathies which existed in his
fatherland by urging the newspapers which were at his disposal to say
that in signing the famous Franco-Russian alliance, which had been the
cause of so much joy, France had been the dupe--France who had given her
money, and France who had thrown herself into the arms of Russia, whilst
the latter had taken all that she had been offered, without giving
anything in return for the gifts freely showered on her with a more than
generous hand.
Nevertheless, M. Fallières started for St. Petersburg, as in duty bound,
almost immediately after his election, conforming himself thus to the
tradition which had been handed over by M. Félix Faure to his
successors. He was warmly welcomed on the banks of the Neva, but
welcomed only by the government and officials who followed the lead
given to them by the Sovereign. The country itself remained very
indifferent during his visit, and the attitude of the public was not at
all what it had been when Félix Faure had arrived at Peterhof to return
the memorable visit of Nicholas II. in Paris. Somehow the alliance was
more accepted as an accomplished fact than as an advantage. In Russia,
too, the hour of disillusion had struck.
M. Fallières, in spite of what had been said of him, was very far from
being the nonentity he was reported to be. On the contrary, he had an
unusual amount of common sense, and was not slow to notice the change in
the political atmosphere of the day. Nevertheless, he did his best to
disguise from the public the fact of the coolness which had begun to
replace the mutual enthusiasm of France and Russia for each other, but
when he returned home he began to listen more than he had done formerly
to the advice of M. Clemenceau, and to look towards England as a
possible ally, having learnt much by his visit to Peterhof.
Although it has been reported otherwise, M. Fallières was fond of M.
Clemenceau, and they got on very well together the whole time the latter
remained Prime Minister. Together they worked for the benefit of M.
Briand, the new star that suddenly arose in the heaven of the Third
Republic, and which began to shine in great part through their efforts
to assure themselves of its help and co-operation towards the final
triumph of the Radical party.
I shall talk of M. Briand in the next chapter. Some people saw in him a
successor of M. Fallières as President of the Republic, a conviction
which personally I did not share at all, and events proved the truth of
my conviction. M. Briand was far too clever to retire at that moment
from political life, which still has many triumphs in store for him, and
a man who has once occupied the position of Head of the State has no
future after his term of office is over; he can only end his days in
peace, with the broad red ribbon of the Legion of Honour across his
breast as a remembrance of happy days never to return.
The reign of M. Fallières had its share of scandals. I have already
spoken of M. Rochette. There were others besides, among them that
provoked by the tragic adventures of Madame Steinheil, whose trial and
subsequent acquittal occupied Parisian society for long months.
Several episodes of the same kind have lately occupied public attention.
They have all left M. Fallières more or less indifferent, and have not
ruffled his equanimity. He fulfilled his duties in an unostentatious
fashion, and tried to impart as much simplicity as possible to the
Presidential household. He travelled about, distributed all the
handshakes required of him and all the medals and decorations that his
ministers had awarded to their adherents. He partook of the regular
number of official dinners, opened exhibitions and charitable
institutions, in a word he was a model President, and it is quite
possible that M. Clemenceau viewed the end of his Presidency with
regret.
Madame Fallières has been the subject of all kinds of absurd stories.
Notwithstanding these, she did not show herself as unfit for the part
she had been called upon to play as her enemies would have us believe.
She was polite with everybody, reserved in her manners, and avoided
mistakes. She has done much good, and if she was not so generous as some
of her predecessors had shown themselves, she never refused to give
money for the cause of charity, when it was necessary, but on the
contrary tried to alleviate the distresses which were brought to her
notice. She did not pose for what she was not, and she always declared
that when she would have to leave the Elysée, she would do so with
regret at having to give up such a sumptuous home, but that at the same
time she would not be sorry to return to private life and its
simplicity.
M. and Mme. Fallières had several children born to them. Their only
daughter was married a few years ago to M. Jean Lannes, who had been,
until the day when he accompanied to the altar the daughter of his
chief, the private secretary of the President of the Republic. His
marriage caused a certain sensation in Republican circles, because it
was celebrated in the Church of the Madeleine, in spite of the fact that
M. Fallières was supposed to be a freethinker, which in reality he was
not by any means. But Madame Fallières was a fervent Catholic, and she
never would have allowed her child to be married simply at the _mairie_,
as it was suggested to her by some zealous friends. Madame Fallières had
always the courage of her opinions, and she has showed it during her
reign as the first lady of the French Republic.
Her son, André Fallières, was the subject of much talk at the time of
the Steinheil affair, and some people affirmed--well, it does not matter
what; it is needless to say that there was not the slightest foundation
for such a story.
When M. Fallières’ term of office was over, there were but three
candidates possible for the position: one of them was M. Clemenceau
himself; M. Pamm, a very wealthy manufacturer possessed of the vast
influence which unlimited means always allow one to wield; and M.
Poincaré, advocate and Academician, a man gifted with singular strength
of will, strong Conservative principles, who endeavours to govern
personally the country entrusted officially to his care, who has a holy
horror of Radicals, and who is cordially disliked by M. Clemenceau.
This last was perhaps the very reason why M. Poincaré was elected--the
Chamber and the Senate have become just a little tired of the autocracy
exercised over them by the _tombeur de ministères_.