Felix 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 Elysee.... "And don"t refuse, this time," he added, turning to me.
From that day flowers and invitations rained upon me from the Elysee.
A month or two afterwards, the _vernissage_ (opening day) of the Salon, which the President of the Republic attends each year, took place, and Felix Faure was present with Meline, 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 Felix 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 Felix 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 a.s.sistance."
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 Felix 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?"
Felix 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 Felix Faure"s kindly intentions, but thought his methods rather too impulsive and embarra.s.sing.
My husband wrote to the President to thank him. We called on him several times at the Elysee, and a warm friendship formed.
One afternoon, I had a long conversation with Felix 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 a.s.sembly 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 _protege_, I am invariably told that it has already been promised to one of your friends. Your candidates pa.s.s 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 Elysee. He would telephone to me at any hour of the day. There was always something to do, some one to sound. Felix 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 _role_ 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 att.i.tude 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 impa.s.siveness 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 a.s.sist 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 Elysee. 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 Felix 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 ingrat.i.tude.
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 n.o.blewoman, 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 Felix 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 circ.u.mstances, 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 Emba.s.sy. 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 Felix Faure against the man.
[Ill.u.s.tration: 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.
Felix 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 Elysee--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 Colisee and the Avenue des Champs Elysees, 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.
Felix 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 ma.s.s 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 cla.s.sifying doc.u.ments 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!