CHAPTER XVIIIA Few Literary Men

When I lived in Paris I used to see her daily. She was then at the height of her beauty and fame, and political men of all shades used to crowd to her receptions, and to bow down before her splendid grace and proud demeanour. She was considered as the real Queen of the Third Republic, and no important political measure was undertaken by any member of the government of that day without her having been consulted about its opportuneness. No one ever regretted having asked her advice or trusted to the clearness of her judgments; nor could any say that she had revealed the slightest fraction of all the secrets of state which had been confided to her.

I do not believe a more discreet person ever lived, and it is a great deal to that immense and so rare quality that she owed the influence she managed to acquire with all, without exception, who came into contact with her. I can talk about it the more easily because on several different occasions I had the opportunity to convince myself personally of herdiscretion. Most certainly among her many qualities I believe it was the latter that her friends, and among them Gambetta, appreciated the most in her. The great orator had never forgotten that first dinner to which she had asked him, and later on, when the fall of the Empire had drawn them more together, he began, with discretion at first and with impetuosity at last, to consult her and to confide in her all his dreams of glory. She grew not only to like him, but to feel for him a great, deep, true affection, one of those that a woman can only experience when she has reached middle life, known what the storms of the heart mean, and, greatest joy of all, felt what it is to be everything and yet nothing in another manâ€™s life. One can boldly affirm that it was she who made Gambetta what he became in the later years of his life, that it was to her he owed the great development of his fighting qualities, as well as the great dignity of which he gave proofs in so many important questions, a dignity that in those long bygone days, when he had appeared with a flannel shirt at the first dinner given in his honour by Juliette Lambert, no one supposed he could ever attain. Gambetta, who also could very quickly discover the good and the bad sides of the people with whom he was thrown into contact, experienced in time for her a reverence such as he had never imagined he could feel for any woman in the wide world. He not only admired her mind, but he also recognised the great superiority which her culture, apart from everything else, gave her over him, and he soon turned to her to solve all his doubts, and to be advised as to all that he was to do to successfully reach the eminence to which he had aspired from the first day he arrived in Paris, a poor student, with hardly enough money in his pocket to be able to dine every day.

But, strange to say, when one thinks of the exceptionalphysical advantages and charm of Madame Adam, he never for one single moment allowed himself to pay any banal attentions to her; she perhaps was not quite so devoid of a nearer feeling of attraction towards him.

In truth, Gambetta placed her so high in his thoughts that it had never occurred to him to discover that underneath the adviser and counsellor, to whom he turned for comfort and encouragement at almost every instant of his life, there could exist a fair, beautiful woman with a womanly heart and womanly feelings. He did not realise that, in associating herself with his dreams and his ambitions, she also associated with them, perhaps even unknown to herself, her own future and her own existence. Perhaps this misunderstanding, which circumstances and not their own will had created between them, influenced their relations towards the end of the life of Gambetta, but, let it be said to the honour of Madame Adam, she never allowed the ignorance of her charms in which her friend indulged to influence her friendship for him, and, with a strength of character such as very few women would have been capable of, she sacrificed herself to his future and only thought of his successes. She tried to persuade herself of the fact she had contrived long ago to impress upon others, i.e. that she was living only for her child and for her country, and that she was above everything a great patriot, â€œune grande franÃ§aise,â€ and nothing else.

She still believed in the Republic at that period of life when I first met her. She still hoped that it would bring to her beloved France the peace and the prosperity she so passionately desired for it. Later on, however, she was destined to experience in that hope, too, some of the greatest disappointments of her whole life. For a woman with high ideals and a great moral aim, as was the case with her, nothingcould be harder to bear than the slow realisation that she had nursed a false ideal, the conviction that she had worshipped at a wrong altar. And yet this great trial was not spared to her who had already suffered so much. Little by little the scales had fallen from her eyes, and she discovered that personal ambitions, personal greed, and personal intrigues flourish just as much and just as well, and perhaps even more, under a republic than under a monarchy. She saw that humanity remains unchangeable, whilst things undergo many transformations, that bad passions never die, and that good and virtuous people are always the victims of those who are their inferiors in moral worth.

I remember one evening that I happened to be alone with Gambetta, at about the time that he became Prime Minister, we discussed together Madame Adam. He spoke of her with feelings not only of reverence, but also with an admiration the more remarkably expressed in that it was done without the usual enthusiasm which he generally displayed when talking about things or people who were near to his heart. He told me that but for her he would certainly never have reached to the political eminence on which he found himself. We were old friends, and I could allow myself to touch upon delicate subjects with him; so I ventured to ask him whether the beauty of Juliette Lambert had ever made an impression on him. He replied without the slightest hesitation that he had never thought about it, so perfectly superior she had appeared to him, intellectually, and so entirely he had put her upon a pedestal whence he had never once thought that she could come down. I asked him then brutally why the thought of the great things he could have achieved together with her, had he made of her the companion of his life, had never struck him. Gambetta looked at me very closely, then after a few moments of silence softly said: â€œI wouldnever have dared to allow my thoughts to rest upon that idea, I know myself but too well, and I would not have had the courage to make her unhappy. Believe me, that woman would never suffer more from anything than from the loss of her illusions, and she sees in me the man she has created, not the man that in reality I am.â€

I have often thought of these words, of the great Republican leader, especially when in later years, long after he had entered into eternal rest, I saw Madame Adam once again on my return to Paris after a long absence. A great transformation had taken place in her. She had witnessed that loss of her illusions to which her friend had referred, and suffered from it just as he had foreshadowed. She had seen her beloved France not able to come out of the mesh of intrigues and miseries into which the man who by the force of events had become ruler had entangled France, and she had realised that her conception of a Republic, such as she had dreamt of, was an impossibility; that it is not by changing its form of government a nation rises to greatness and glory. She had been obliged to assist, powerless to avert it, the destruction of all the plans which she had made together with those men who had been her friends, and among whom so many had become her adversaries, according as the gulf of the opinions that had come to divide them had grown broader and broader. She had experienced that grief which is so very acute to a warm, womanly heart such as hers, of finding that she had no longer the power to influence those who formerly had cherished the same high ideals that in that beautiful world her imagination had conjured she had placed before everything else.

Death, too, had robbed her of much that she had leaned upon, both in France and abroad; she had undergone those fiery trials out of which noble souls emerge greater,nobler, more valiant and splendid than before, but under the weight of which vulgar natures are destroyed. After all these moral struggles and inward battles she had acquired even more courage, more indulgence, more charity, and more faith in the Infinite, and in an Eternity to which perhaps she had not given much attention in the days of her youth, when the world was at her feet and sovereigns bowed before her inimitable grace. To these consolations her tired, weary soul turned when everything else had failed her. The transformation that has taken place in the personality of Juliette Lambert is one of those phenomena that, when met with, remains always the subject of the deepest admiration on the part of those who have watched the change come about, and have followed its various phases.

Politics, that used to be the all-engrossing subject in the life of Madame Adam, have now dropped to the second plane, and purely intellectual subjects engross her more. Her affection for her beloved France, though it remains still the one absorbing passion of her life, is no longer expressed by the old wild desire to see France revenged upon her enemies. Her patriotism has assumed proportions that give it more earnestness, more steadfastness, and thus it makes the greater impression on others, and carries an authority that passion, when expressed violently, can never attain. She has obliged strangers to respect her patriotism, and to see her in that graver, sober light which alone is worthy of the great patriot that she has always been, of the woman who in success as well as in disaster has never despaired of the resources of her country, nor of its power to arise, stronger and more powerful than it was before, out of disaster and ruin, and, worse evil than any other, out of the intrigues of unscrupulous men who want to use her, in order to further their own greed or their own gain.

With that difference Juliette Lambert in her old age has remained what she was in her youth, a noble, charming woman, kind and affectionate, with the warmest of hearts and the most generous character. She lives mostly in the country, in a dear old house, formerly a cloister in those olden times when a king reigned over France. Lâ€™Abbaye du Val de Gyf, as it is called, is one of those lovely dwellings where everything speaks of peace and rest, and of the high soul and earnest mind of its owner. There, among her books and her roses, and her dogs and her birds, she lives in quietness, and spends her days thinking of the past, and writing her wonderful reminiscences. There her friends come and see her, as often as she allows them to do so, there one of her best loved friends, the unfortunate Queen AmÃ©lie of Portugal, has often fled for consolation, because the closest intimacy unites the fiery Republican and the daughter of the Bourbons. There Madame Adam forgets her disillusions, and thinks only of the good things which life has left her.

The last time I saw her in her beautiful home at Gyf we talked about old times, and all those hopes of the great things which we both had expected out of the Franco-Russian alliance. She frankly owned to me that it had not realised the great hopes that she had trusted it would, and rather bitterly remarked that â€œthings we yearn after very much never turn out quite like we have expected they will when they come to be realised. But then,â€ she added with a shade of malice, â€œhow very seldom do we see what we wish for realised in general?â€

And thus I take leave of her, after an acquaintance that stretches over more than a quarter of a century, the same loving, delightful, clever and kind woman that she has always been, with her serene smile, and grave, serious eyes that have always looked upon humanity through the windows of hersoul, and never through the spectacles of envy, hatred, or any of those bad feelings that most human beings indulge in. An exception she has always stood amongst women, and an exception she will remain for all those who later on, even when she too has disappeared from this mortal scene, will read about her, and think what a noble, beautiful creature she has always proved herself to be.

Duringthe many years which I spent in Paris I had numerous opportunities of meeting the majority of the remarkable literary men who abounded in France towards the end of last century. Since then their number has considerably decreased, indeed it is very much to be doubted whether the great thinkers, such as Taine, Renan, Guizot, or Thiers, have ever been replaced.

I knew Renan intimately, and wish I could describe him as he deserves. To hear certain people speak of the author of the â€œOrigines du Christianismeâ€ one would think that he was a ferocious hater, not only of religion, but also of everything that approached it. In reality Renan was intensely religious. Few people have understood so fully the beauties of the moral preached by Christ, and few people have had more reverence for the sacred individuality of the Saviour of mankind. He tried to imitate Him in all the actions of his life, to be, like Him, kind and indulgent and compassionate for the woes of the world. From his sojourn in the seminary of St. Sulpice, he had kept the demeanour and the manners of a Catholic priest, and do what he could, that atmosphere clung to him.

But he had a quality which many clericals fail to possess, a very clear insight into religious matters, and the faculty of being able to set aside what was superstition, and retainingwhat could be kept of the poetry that attaches to the teachings of the different churches that divide the world. He always sought truth, and never rested until he thought he had found it, but he never gave out his own ideas as perfect ones, nor tried to impose them upon others. His was essentially an impartial and a tolerant mind. Indeed his thoughts were so constantly directed towards those regions where it is to be hoped eternal truth exists, that he did not believe it worth while to assume an intolerance which I do not think he could ever have felt, no matter in what circumstances nor under what provocation. I have never met a man more indifferent to criticisms directed against his person or his works, and I remember once when a very bitter article concerning his book, â€œLa Vie de JÃ©sus,â€ had been brought to his notice, he merely smiled and quietly said: â€œWhy do you think I must be angry at this? Isnâ€™t every one entitled to have an opinion of his own?â€

This book, so wonderful in its simplicity, among all those which he had written, was the one he cared for the most, partly because he had composed it in collaboration with his sister, Henriette Renan, who had such a singular influence over his life, and who was as remarkable a personality as himself. During the journey which they had undertaken together in the Holy Land, they had thought about the book which they wanted to write. In his â€œSouvenirs dâ€™Enfance et de Jeunesse,â€ Renan recognises that the person who had had the greatest influence over his mind had been his sister, and he walked in the road her footsteps had trodden until he also saw the great Light after which they had both longed so much. In speaking about him, one could use with justice the words he applied to his sister when he wrote that â€œthough noble lives havenâ€™t the need to be remembered by anyone else than God, one mustnevertheless try to fix their image in the minds of the generations that come after them.â€

I am thinking about these words as I am now remembering all the conversations we had together, and the patience with which he explained to me all the various points I asked him to develop. He was patience personified; he never regarded anything trouble when, by inconvenience to himself, he could be useful to others. His conversations were always instructive, always attractive, and always worth listening to, even when they strayed on to frivolous subjects, which he often liked to touch. It must not be supposed that Renan was a grave philosopher who did not care for the congenial or the pleasant, or the amusing things which happen in life. He could enjoy mirth like, and with the frankness of, a child.

His works have been discussed more perhaps than those of most writers of his time, and though they have left a deep impress upon the minds of serious people, no one who has read them can say that their influence has been anything else but to good. The image that he has drawn for us of the person of Christ is so pure, so noble, so entirely religious, that even those who object to the way in which he has presented it cannot but be attracted by the image that his pen has evoked.

However strange it may seem to say so, Renan himself was more surprised than anyone else to find he had written a work which evoked so many criticisms. He had been so entirely absorbed by his subject that he had never given a thought to anything else but the picture of the Redeemer, such as it had presented itself to him, in the spot which had seen Him work and die. He had never intended publishing a book of controversy, and in presence of the storm which it provoked he was even more astounded than sorry. It was not in his nature to be angry, and regret was impossiblefor a soul like his, which only performed what it thought and firmly believed to be right.

Contrary to the feeling some express about him, Renan had never indulged in atheistic opinions, and he strongly condemned and opposed those who supported them. His belief and faith in a Supreme Being were as firm as they were sincere, and he only deplored that his convictions had not allowed him to remain a son of the Catholic Church, in which in his youth he had hoped to become a priest. Her teachings had left their impress upon his soul, and directed it towards the deeper studies in which he became absorbed.

Renan had married a woman well worthy of him, and who made him a wonderful helpmate. She knew how to smooth all difficulties from his path, and proved well fitted for her difficult position as the wife of one of the greatest thinkers of modern times. She was an accomplished hostess. To the evening parties which saw their friends assembled in their little home in the Rue de lâ€™Observatoire, she gave the impress of her own charming personality, and presided over the conversations with immense tact and dignity. Their daughter, who married a professor at the Sorbonne, M. Psichari, a Greek by origin, continued the traditions left to her by her parents, and until lately had a literary salon, which was well known in Paris. I do not know whether it still exists or not.

Renan was extremely ugly; this has been repeated too often for anyone not to be aware of it. But a more attractive face than he possessed is not easily to be found. There was such kindness in his smile, in the look of his eyes, and such intelligence in that large head with its noble brow, that one could not help being struck by it, and admiring it far more than if it had indeed been a beautiful face. The painter Bonnat has made a portrait of him that is, I think, the bestone that has ever come from his brush. It shows Renan as he really was; one has only got to look at it, and the original appears as we, who knew him well, saw him sitting in his deep arm-chair, with his head slightly bent down on his chest, and the expressive countenance that used to brighten up whenever he met a friend, or heard about some noble deed such as he himself would have liked to perform. It was impossible to know him and not to admire the man in him, even more, perhaps, than the great thinker or the great writer, because, after all, intellect or genius can be met sooner than real virtue or real goodnessâ€”and Renan was essentially good.

From Renan to Taine is not a far step, and somehow it seems to me that the latterâ€™s name is the only one worthy to be pronounced immediately after that of my old friend and master. I have also known Taine well, met him often, and always been struck by his large, wide mind, so utterly devoid of prejudices, and at the same time so absolute in the judgments which he thought he had the right to formulate. I must emphasise the words, â€œwhich he thought he had the right,â€ because those judgments assume the intelligence as well as the moral personality of Hippolyte Taine. He was an historian before everything else, perhaps even before he was a critic, though he counts among the greatest that French literature has seen; but his inclinations led him before everything else towards the study of the past, and of the causes that had brought about the great transformations that the world has witnessed, ever since society in the sense we understand it to-day began to exist; and whilst trying to fathom these causes he slowly came to convictions, which he never would renounce when once he thought them justified. Nothing would move him to change one line in the writings which, after due consideration, he decided to publish, and even his long friendship with the Princesse Mathilde did not influencehim in describing Napoleon in any other sense than the one in which he had understood that colossal figure. The story goes that after having read the study which he first gave to theRevue des Deux Mondes, she sent him her card with â€œp.p.c.â€ written on it, a hint which he took, and as is known everywhere, their intercourse of many years came to an end.

Taine used to spend the greater part of the year at Menthon, in Savoy, on the borders of the Lake of Annecy, and it was during a visit which I paid to him there, from Aix-les-Bains where I was undergoing a cure, that I had with him the longest and perhaps the most interesting conversation in the whole time of our intercourse with each other. We discussed many subjects, and among others his great work, the â€œOrigines de la France Contemporaine.â€ He told me how he had begun it with the intention of stopping after the first two volumes devoted to theAncien RÃ©gime, and how gradually the subject had taken hold of him and he had come to the conclusion that he must develop it, and bring it to the point which he considered to be the only right one for properly understanding the immense and terrible drama of the Revolution. He hated anarchy, he thought it his duty to show it up in all its vivid horror, and he tried to write the story of that tragedy with the same impartiality he would have brought to bear on the description of it in any other country than his own. As he told me on that day: â€œCâ€™est un pauvre patriotisme que celui qui sâ€™imagine que lâ€™on doit excuser les crimes de son pays, simplement par ce quâ€™on en est un citoyen (â€œIt is a poor kind of patriotism which imagines that it must excuse the crimes of its own country, simply because one is born a citizenâ€).

With this direction of mind it is not to be wondered that, though admired by many, Taine was merely liked bythe few. He could not be complaisant to the illusions or the false idols of the crowd, and he repudiated all that he called in his expressive language, â€œles exagÃ©rations dâ€™ignorants qui se croient instruitsâ€ (â€œthe exaggerations of ignoramuses who believe themselves learnedâ€). He was a philosopher in his way, though it was entirely a personal philosophy which was founded on his own experience rather than on the teachings of those who had preceded him on the road of life and knowledge. Living most of his time far away from Paris, he was, according to the words of Balzac, one of those great minds â€œwhich solitude had preserved from all worldly meannesses.â€ Left face to face with the magnificences of Nature, he had acquired some of its impassivity before the woes of mankind, and in his judgments of events he often forgot the tears and the sorrows, and the blood out of which they had developed.

Renan was a soft and kind moralist, Taine was an inexorable thinker, Dumas Fils was the type of the sceptical worldly philosopher who hastens to follow the advice of Figaro, that it is better to laugh at some things for fear of being obliged to cry over them. Anything more sparkling than his conversation it would be difficult to describe, anything more amusing than the paradoxes which he loved to develop has never been met with. But with it all there was also about that charming, delightful man a strong leaning towards the tendency to moralise, and to pose as a moralist. Indeed he might, perhaps, have become a moralist in fact, had his rambling, sharp mind allowed him to think about moral problems otherwise than in associating them with his â€œbons mots.â€ These constitute the great attraction of his plays, and give to some of them that bitter flavour which, in spite of all the wit displayed in the dialogue, hangs about their whole construction.

In his sadly truthful comedy, â€œLa Visite de Noces,â€ the analysis which he makes there of the great fact, which especially in France has absorbed so much of public attention, the fact of love outside marriage, is certainly full of ingenious reasonings. But though it strikes the mind, it does not appeal to the heart of those who listen to it, because it is not with witty phrases that a social evil can be mended. However, this last fact did not disturb the equanimity of Alexandre Dumas. He did not pose as an apostle, and he knew very well that principles fall down very easily before the strength of passion aroused. He had no hopes of curing the evils of mankind, but it amused him to satirise them, and to laugh at them, and to talk of them, and he did perhaps more than any other writer of his generation to acclimatise society to the fact of the existence of many things, which until he made them popular had never been mentionedâ€”in the society of ladies at least.

Alexandre Dumas was married to a Russian, a very intelligent and, in her youth, a very attractive woman, but who, towards the end of her life, developed slatternly habits. Those who called upon her unawares found her with her hair wrapped up in curl-papers, her face seldom washed, and in an untidy dressing-gown, the garment she most affected. I remember one morning at Dieppe, where the clever dramatist had a villa, I found her sitting in her garden overlooking the sea, in a kind of white wrapper, none too fresh, and without any stockings on her feet. When lunch was announced Dumas turned to his wife and asked her whether she would not tidy herself up a bit, to which she replied with indifference: â€œWhy, I am all right.â€ To watch her husband shrug his shoulders was a sight in itself.

Two daughters were born to M. and Mme. Dumas. The eldest married a banker, Maurice Lippmann, with whom she

Photo: H. Manuel, Paris.MADAME JULIETTE ADAM

Photo: H. Manuel, Paris.

MADAME JULIETTE ADAM

Photo: Pierre Petit, Paris.ALEX. DUMAS (PÃ¨re)

Photo: Pierre Petit, Paris.

ALEX. DUMAS (PÃ¨re)

Photo: H. Manuel, Paris.ANATOLE FRANCE

Photo: H. Manuel, Paris.

ANATOLE FRANCE

Photo: Gerschel, Paris.OCTAVE MIRBEAU

Photo: Gerschel, Paris.

OCTAVE MIRBEAU

could not agree, and a divorce soon followed. Colette Dumas was a pretty, wild kind of creature, gifted with a charm quite her own, and absolutely devoid of what is commonly called moral sense. She had never been baptised, and she was never brought up, but simply grew as she liked, mostly in her fatherâ€™s study, where she heard expounded the whole time the theories after which she tried later on to shape her own life. There was no harm about her, but, alas, no principles ever ruled her conduct, and a more lovely little animal never existed. The poor girl discovered later on that life was not the comedy she had been led to think it, and before she died a few years ago she must have often regretted the false education that she had received, and lamented the views which she had taken of existence, which to her youthful eyes had appeared in the light of one great enjoyment.

Her sister Jeannine was quite a different character, as sedate as Colette was hasty, and with strong common sense instead of passionate cravings after the impossible. She was married to an officer belonging to the old aristocracy, and she knew very well how to adapt herself to her new existence in the provincial town where she settled, and where, like all happy people, she had no history.

At the time I am writing the description, the Goncourts were talked about a great deal in French literary circles. I have attended receptions at their house, but I never could share the enthusiasm that some of their writings excited among the general public. They were both clever, Jules the more so of the two, but though they showed themselves very hard workers, one can well question the use their work has proved to the development of the intellectual capacities of their contemporaries. It is very much to be doubted whether their books will survive them for any considerable time. One thing is certain, they were the first to start the school ofself-admiration that now reigns so completely over French modern literature.

Of quite a different type was the Comte de Falloux, a member of the Academy, and a writer of no mean talent. The Comte was just as well known for his political as for his literary activity, and he represented in the Chamber of Deputies, and afterwards in the Senate, the Legitimist party, of which he was one of the leaders, and where his opinion carried much weight. M. de Falloux was an Ultramontane of the purest water, who always looked towards Rome for his inspirations, and who saw nothing good outside the Pope and the Jesuits. He was a great favourite among a certain coterie of the Faubourg St. Germain, and though a great friend of Mgr. Dupanloup, the famous Bishop of Orleans, used always to quarrel with him, and thought him far too liberal and too leniently inclined towards compromise, his own stern, obstinate nature never accepting any. He was extremely well read, but he was not an amiable man, and certainly was not sympathetic. He was a man of letters belonging to that school of grand seigneurs of which the Duc de Broglie and the Duc dâ€™Audiffret Pasquier were such brilliant examples.

Though I shall speak later on about M. Zola when discussing the Dreyfus case, which is so entirely associated with his name, yet I must also here say a few words concerning him. In the â€™eightiesâ€”the period to which I am referringâ€”he had already made a great name for himself as the father of the new Naturalistic school. Whether he had directed his attention that way because he really believed that fictional literature, such as it had been understood until he arrived to transform it, was based on false principles I cannot say. Perhaps he simply wanted to make more money in trying to offer to the public something that hitherto it hadnot seen, and which was bound to interest it by its unexpectedness if by nothing else. But what I can certify through personal knowledge of the man is that he had enough vanity to prefer being hissed than passed by in silence. That he had considerable talent no one can deny, but that he might have used it in a different direction is also not to be questioned. One effect of his style was to turn the heads of would-be authors, who, not having the necessary capabilities to write a good book, imagined that by imitating Zola, and scribbling plots of questionable taste, they would likewise rise to fame, and, what was still better, earn fortune, forgetting entirely that talent such as Zola possessed could allow itself a latitude which people with fewer capabilities were better advised not to attempt.

M. Zola married a very superior and most intelligent woman, who was gifted with most remarkable qualities of heart and mind. She showed extraordinary dignity, and most uncommon forbearance in regard to her husband, whose memory to this day she tries to defend against any possible attack. When he died she took to her heart two children of which he was the father, and brought them up, and established them in the world with a total abnegation of her own personal feelings. Indeed, Madame Zolaâ€™s conduct in life, even under the most trying circumstances, must always be admired. She certainly was far superior to her husband in regard to moral character, and she is liked and esteemed by all those who have had the privilege of meeting and knowing her.

In thus recounting the literary men I have met with in Paris I find I have forgotten to mention Alphonse Daudet, with his leonine countenance and his black locks. And yet I knew him better than I did Zola, was a frequent visitor at his house, and a great admirer of his amiable and cleverwife, who has since also made a name for herself in the world of letters. Daudet was an extremely capricious man, and one whose temper was of the same character, but his abilities were incontestable, and some of his books will very probably outlive those of Zola. When he happened to be entirely in good health, which unfortunately was not often the case in the last years of his life, Daudet was a most pleasant companion, full of conversation, and possessing the French spirit of â€œle mot pour rire.â€ I remember he made us roar one afternoon by relating to us how once he had received an anonymous letter, in which he was asked, in case he was â€œtall, fair, with blue eyes, and wore a pink tie,â€ to come to a rendezvous in the garden of the Tuileries. The writer obligingly added that unless he fulfilled these conditions in his personal appearance, and consented to put on a pink tie, he had better not waste his time by coming, as the lady who wanted to make his acquaintance was determined to do so only if he fulfilled the ideal she had nursed for long years. It seemed that the ideal in question depended for a great part on the pink tie.

Alphonse Daudet left two sons and a daughter. Leon Daudet, his eldest boy, has also written psychological books, but they evince none of his fatherâ€™s wit. He also has made himself conspicuous by his political vagaries, and his divorce from the granddaughter of Victor Hugo, which, owing to certain rather strange circumstances connected with it, caused considerable scandal. He is a fervent Catholic, but having, out of consideration to the feelings of the Hugo family, consented to be married only at the mairie, without the help of the Church, he had the bad taste to say publicly, when he married again, that his first marriage had not been legal, which, of course, was severely commented upon even by his best friends. His brother, Lucien Daudet, is a mild youngman, who has also literary ambitions, and whose principal occupation consists in attendance on the Empress EugÃ©nie, whom he has attempted to describe in a little volume that could not have been pleasant reading for the Empress, because nobody gifted with common sense likes to be turned into a perfection and a genius rolled into one, or whilst still alive to be subjected to such extravagant praise. The youngest brother of Alphonse Daudet, Ernest Daudet, is also a writer, who has given his attention principally to historic subjects. His books are all worth reading, if a little dull, and he is a great favourite in the salons of the Faubourg St. Germain, where his monarchical opinions have won him an entrance.

I wish I had more space at my disposal to mention otherwise than in passing Jules Claretie, the late Director of the ComÃ©die FranÃ§aise, and the author of so many charming novels, which mostly can be put into everybodyâ€™s hands. Many people did not like him, but those who knew him well have always felt great sympathy for him. He wrote the French language as no one else perhaps, with a light, pleasant, vivid style that at once conveyed to the reader the authorâ€™s thoughts and his way of looking upon things. For years before his death in 1914 he wrote a delightful weekly chronicle for theTemps, called â€œLa vie Ã Paris,â€ which will certainly be consulted later on by all who wish to learn the social history of Paris of the period.

When, after the fall of M. Thiers, the Duc de Magenta was elected second President of the Third Republic, it was generally understood, as I have mentioned already, that he would only be the representative of a transitional government, and that, accepting the tacit conditions under which he had been appointed, he would contribute all the weight of his authority to secure the return of France to the flag of the old Monarchy.

But Marshal MacMahon, when he became Head of the State, did not show the slightest disposition to enter into that scheme. Not only did he disappoint the party which had voted for him, because it had believed that he would be an instrument in its hands, but he showed strong sympathies for the Left side of that Assembly which had overthrown the previous President more out of pique than anything else. He took ministers holding opinions directly in contradiction to those which he himself had been supposed to profess, and when at last, in November, 1873, the Comte de Chambord arrived secretly at Versailles, as I have already related, and asked the Marshal to grant him a secret interview during which the political situation was to be discussed, the latter refused, with the hypocritical words that, though he was quite ready to sacrifice his life for the Prince, he could not do the dishonourable thing that was asked of him.

It was that word â€œdishonourableâ€ that upset the Comte de Chambord. Himself the soul of honour, he could notbut be affronted by the supposition that he could have had the intention to ask from the Duc de Magenta anything that could have compromised his loyalty as a man or as a soldier. I believe this had more than any other thing to do with the discouragement that made him seize the pretext of his white flag in order to renounce his pretensions to the throne of his ancestors. A good many years later, talking about Marshal MacMahon at Frohsdorf, he told me that â€œCâ€™est un imbÃ©cile, et ce qui est pire, câ€™est un ambitieux, qui ne veut pas se lâ€™avouer, et qui cherche Ã dissimuler ce sentiment sous le grand mot de son honneurâ€ (â€œHe is an imbecile, and what is worse, he has ambition, which he doesnâ€™t want to own, and tries to hide under those great words, â€˜his honourâ€™â€).

I donâ€™t think anyone ever made a more scathing and more true appreciation of the character of the Marshal than the last descendant of the Bourbons when he voiced that judgment.

Once the possibility of a monarchical restoration was put aside, and especially after the Prince Imperial had fallen in Zululand, by which the Bonapartists were reduced to impotence, it seemed as if the Republic was to be the only possible government in France.

I was in Paris when the heir of the Napoleons ended his short existence so gloriously and so tragically, and I do not think that I heard one single person doubt that this Republican regime was certain to last.

Until then great hopes had existed, even among the former enemies of the Empire, that the young Prince would be able, by one of those freaks of political life which occur so often in the existence of nations, to step once more upon the throne from which his father had been overthrown. He was supposed to possess courage, cleverness, great steadfastness of character, strong principles, and an ardent love forhis country. That alone constituted certain guarantees for the future.

The Orleanists knew very well that until the country had altogether forgotten the incident of their claiming back their confiscated millions at a moment when the country was smarting under the unparalleled disaster of 1870, they had no chance of being called back to power. The Comte de Chambord had made himself impossible; the Republic was acceptable to but very few; the Prince Imperial had therefore the possibility if not the probability of returning to France as its Emperor, and this solution was wished for even by people who, before the war and the changes which it had brought about, would have recoiled with horror at the idea of being thought supporters of the Bonapartes. But when fate intervened, and the tragedy which was enacted in Africa put an end to all hopes and calculations that had been made, it became evident that the country must resign itself to a Republican government. And I am persuaded that apart from the ardent Monarchists, who fought for a principle more than for a dynasty, every reasonable person in France thought so.

The whole situation rested on the fact that in the opinion of many, the Republic ought to be essentially Conservative, whilst in that of others, who were gradually to increase in number, its first duty was to show itself distinctly Radical, and determined to follow the glorious principles, as they were qualified, of 1789.

The Duc de Magenta, who found himself in a certain sense called upon to decide between these two currents, did not very well know what to do. His own leanings were distinctly Conservative, and he was no admirer of the Radical programme, scarcely even of the moderate Republican one. Nevertheless he imagined that he could have the necessaryauthority to appoint ministers of moderate views. There were still men of great valour in their midst, like M. Buffet and M. Dufaure, not to speak of the Duc dâ€™Audiffret Pasquier, who had made a name for himself by his famous speech against Napoleon III. in the first National Assembly, nor of the Duc de Broglie, to whose help the Marshal was to have recourse later on. There were soldiers like General Changarnier and General Chanzy, who had fought so valiantly whilst in command of that army of the Loire which had made the last effort to free France from the victorious Prussians; politicians like M. Ribot, whose austerity and loyalty of principles have never to this day been doubted. There were also, even in the ranks of the Left, men like Leon Say, whose presence in a ministry was in itself a guarantee that it would never yield to the demands of the extreme Socialists, or like Gambetta, who, whatever can be said against him, was a great patriot, incapable of imperilling the existence of his country by an alliance with anarchism. Any man blessed with the slightest common sense, and possessed of frankness in his dealings with his colleagues, which unfortunately for him Marshal MacMahon never showed, might have consolidated the Republic by making use of these various elements. He was unable to do so, however, and went on from blunder to blunder, from concession to concession, reminding one of no one so much as Louis XVI., who also accepted everything and reconciled himself to nothing.

When the vote of the Chamber had made Jules Simon President of the Cabinet, Marshal MacMahon might easily have found in him an ally and a supporter in his wish to establish the Republic upon bases which would have strengthened the position of France in the eyes of Europe.

Jules Simon was a man of high principles, unsullied honour, a thinker, a writer, a philosopher, of austere life and strongconvictionsâ€”one who was not guilty of meanness nor permitted himself anything base. He was a staunch Republican, a sincere Liberal, a true follower of whatever was good and great in the Revolution of 1789; he abhorred excesses and extravagances, no matter in what shape or under what colours they presented themselves.

When he became Prime Minister he tried earnestly and sincerely, as his duty, to convert the President of the Republic to his views. These he was convinced would conciliate the different parties that divided the Chamber of Deputies, as well as the Senate, and if he had found the help he sought from the Head of the State, it is probable that the whole tide of events in France would have taken a different turn. But that help failed him, and after having on the 15th of May parted from Marshal MacMahon on the best of terms, and received from him the assurance that he would do his best to co-operate with him in the direction which he wanted to give to the government of the country, Jules Simon was startled by receiving the next morning the famous letter from the President of the Republic, refusing to lend himself to his plans. He replied by handing in his resignation.

It is to the honour of Jules Simon that whenever he discussed the event in later years he always refused to accuse the Duc de Magenta of duplicity, as many in his place would have done. When the electoral campaign began, he, of course, took an important part in it, but even then his attitude in regard to the Marshal was most correct, and he never allowed himself to say a word that might have been construed in the light of personal animosity. He was a real philosopher, and a political man to whom no suspicion had ever been attached. In France such are rare, and the example he gave must not be forgotten.

The Marshal called to his help men belonging to theExtreme Right, such as the Duc de Broglie and M. de Fourtoul. He could hardly have done anything else, because it is not likely that even a moderate Republican would have cared to risk the unpopularity that was bound to follow all those who had taken part in this mad venture. They accepted office only because they imagined that by dissolving the Chambers the elections might give them a majority which would have called back the Orleans to the throne and restored the Monarchy.

People who knew the Duc de Broglie well affirm that he put the condition quite clearly to the Duc de Magenta, and told him that he would enter the ministry only if he were given a free hand as regards the future in case the country supported him by sending his followers to represent it in the new Chamber.

Whether this is true or not I have not had the means of discovering, but long after the death of Marshal MacMahon, his widow one day allowed a word to escape her which might have been taken as a tacit acknowledgment of the fact. She was conversing with a friend about the events that had accompanied and followed thecoup dâ€™Ã©tatof the 16th of May, and replying to a remark that friend made to the effect that very probably had it succeeded the Duc de Magenta would have remained President of the Republic until his death, she exclaimed: â€œOh no, my dear, the 16th of May, even if it had been successful, would not have kept us at the ElysÃ©e.â€

Had MacMahon possessed a scrap of dignity he would have resigned after the country had pronounced itself against him, and the obstinacy with which he clung to his place after his defeat is one of the most extraordinary happenings in the history of modern France. I have often wondered, and have not been the only one to do so, what he had hoped to gain by staying discredited and despised at a post whichcould hardly have been a bed of roses. Duty had nothing to do with it. It might have been his duty to listen to Jules Simon, at least his constitutional duty; it certainly was not to his advantage that after having ignominiously failed in carrying through his attempt to create a Monarchical Republic, he remained the head of a Radical one.

Gambetta, whose verdict was nearly always right and just, when he troubled to utter it seriously respecting men and things, once defined the Marshal, and did so perhaps even better than the Comte de Chambord had done. When asked to what motive he attributed his having remained at his post â€œenvers et contre tous,â€ he replied simply: â€œIl est restÃ©, parce quâ€™il nâ€™a pas compris quâ€™il devait sâ€™en allerâ€ (â€œHe remained because he did not understand that he ought to goâ€).

But when the Senatorial elections took place, and sent to the Upper Chamber the same majority that already existed in the Lower Chamber, even an intelligence as obtuse as that of Marshal MacMahon understood that he had better leave to others the task of governing the Republic. He retired much too late for his personal dignity, and with him the last hopes of a Conservative Republic disappeared for ever. After some discussions, M. Jules GrÃ©vy was elected his successor. Some other names had been put forward, amongst them M. de Freycinet. M. Jules Ferry was also mentioned, who was to go down to posterity as the author, later, of that famous Article 7, which was so strongly opposed by the clergy and all the parties in the Chamber, with the exception of the Radical and extreme Republican parties. He was certainly a statesman of broad views. Moreover he was honest and sincere, and his personality was highly respected; but he did not care to become an automaton as was desirable in a President of a constitutional Republic. On the other hand, he was so intensely disliked by all those whom he had contrived to wound by his political attitude that he was very soon eliminated from the list. As for M. de Freycinet, a clever, quiet, resolute individual, his opponents dreaded his great abilities, and perhaps also the subtlety of his reasonings. He had just enough friends to praise and to propose him, but not a sufficient number to ensure his election. After a few hoursâ€™ discussion the general choice fell on M. Jules GrÃ©vy as Chief Magistrate of France.

M. GrÃ©vy was an advocate of BesanÃ§on, who had signally distinguished himself by more or less violent attacks against the Empire. He was not a brilliant man, but one gifted with strong common sense, an orator of no mean value, but whose eloquence was cold and quiet, like his whole character. He disdained to appeal to the passions of the crowd. He had the reputation of being an honest man in the full sense of the word, one who would never have consented to any indelicacy, and who represented the perfect type of the French bourgeois of the time of Louis Philippe, when the lust for luxury and the hunt after notoriety had not yet invaded public life.

When the first National Assembly gathered together at Bordeaux after the war, he was unanimously elected President, and in the delicate functions of that position he showed great dignity, singular impartiality, and firmness combined with extreme politeness. His task was excessively difficult, and no one did anything to lighten it, so that, after an incident of a personal nature by which he thought himself wounded, he sent in his resignation. It was accepted with alacrity by the Right, which feared that he would be an obstacle to its plans and intentions, and which, dreaming already of the fall of M. Thiers, was desirous of having a President after its own heart, which it found in M. Buffet, the irreconcilable enemy of GrÃ©vy.

But when Marshal MacMahon had at last made up his mind to retire, and when the various candidates had been eliminated for one reason or another, the name of M. Jules GrÃ©vy immediately met with sympathy, and he was elected by common consent. He made a good chief of a Democratic Stateâ€”dignified, calm, gifted with tact, and animated by the most sincere desire to govern according to the wishes of the majority that had elected him. He brought with him to the ElysÃ©e the manners of the bourgeoisie to which he belonged, proved hostile to everything that savoured of ostentation and luxury, and went on living the same life he had led at BesanÃ§on, when, as a young advocate, he had had to fight his way in the world. Madame GrÃ©vy was also an excellent woman, a good mother and an exemplary wife, who mended her husbandâ€™s socks and never attempted to meddle in matters that did not concern her. Under her rule festivities were but rare at the ElysÃ©e, but charity was practised on a large scale. M. GrÃ©vy did not show himself the nonentity he was later on represented to be, and several of his ministers, with whom I had an opportunity of discussing the President, told me that his advice always proved most valuable to them, and that, whenever serious matters came to the front, his strong common sense and clear judgment generally found the best way to put an end to the difficulties which had arisen. He was not a genius, but he had statesmanlike views, and these, more than once, proved useful to France.

Unfortunately, M. GrÃ©vy survived himself, politically speaking. Had he retired at the end of his first seven years he would have been remembered with gratitude by his country as well as by his family. But several untoward events and scandals gave a sad celebrity to his term of office.

One was the affair of the Union GÃ©nÃ©rale; the firstand the last attempt of French aristocracy to meddle with finance. Since that time it has grown wiser, and has had nothing more to do with banks, except marrying bankersâ€™ daughters. But under the Presidency of M. GrÃ©vy it hoped to make up for its defeat in the field of politics by securing a great triumph in the field of finance. In M. Bontoux it thought it had found the man capable of retrieving its fallen fortunes, and almost all the proudest names of France co-operated in the enterprise which he started, and which he fondly hoped would rival the power of the Rothschilds and of Jewish finance in general. For some little time everything went well, and the shares of the Union GÃ©nÃ©rale rose out of all proportion. Then one fine day the end came suddenly and crushingly, M. Bontoux was imprisoned, and all the numerous enterprises of which he had been the promoter suffered disaster.

Later on somehow, in other hands, the venture proved prosperous, and his creditors recovered something like ninety per cent. of their money. But at the moment that the catastrophe occurred half France was ruined by it, and as of course the Jews were accused of having brought it about, I think I am not much mistaken in saying that it is from that period that anti-Semitism began to flourish in the country, and that people like Drumont became popular.

The crash of the Union GÃ©nÃ©rale and the Panama scandal, which began to ooze out among the public, would have been enough to throw a shadow on the Presidency of M. GrÃ©vy, but the drama which closed it stamped it with a shame that he himself did not deserve, and which, whatever has been said about it by his enemies, he felt acutely.

As everybody knows, Mademoiselle GrÃ©vy, the Presidentâ€™s only daughter, had married Daniel Wilson, the son of a very rich sugar refiner, who in the merry days of the Empire hadformed part of thatjeunesse dorÃ©e, whom the CafÃ© Anglais still remembers. He had grown bald, and he had become poorer since those halcyon days; but he had a sister, Madame Pelouze, the owner of the lovely chÃ¢teau of Chenonceaux, in the valley of the Loire, who had considerable influence over him, and who imagined that by arranging a marriage between him and the daughter of the President of the Republic he would retrieve his fallen fortunes. Daniel Wilson listened to her, and soon found himself installed at the ElysÃ©e.

Once there, the rest was easy for a man of his intelligence, and this is a quality that his most bitter adversaries concede to him. He soon acquired unbounded influence on the mind of his father-in-law, and M. GrÃ©vy, grown old and perhaps even lazy, was very glad to find in his son-in-law a person capable of helping him and of bringing to his notice many things which he might perhaps have otherwise forgotten, as well as to give him good advice when he needed it. Very soon M. Wilson became a political power, and this brought him many friends, even more flatterers, and a host of demands. At first he was careful, then he grew bolder, at last he quite forgot that he was at the mercy of the least indiscretion, and finally, when it became known that he had accepted monetary considerations in return for promotions in the Order of the Legion of Honour, the scandal became so immense that poor M. GrÃ©vy, who had known nothing at all about it, was peremptorily asked to resign his functions as Head of the State.

To those who read of this now, the whole affair cannot but appear strange, especially if they have followed the course of events in France since that day, and they can but wonder at the sensitiveness of public feeling then. To-day, when almost everything from the great Cross of the Legion of Honour down to a modestbureau de tabacis to be had for moneyin Franceâ€”and quite recently rumour spreads to the other side of the channelâ€”one can only grieve for poor M. GrÃ©vy that he had been born too soon, and had not become President of the Republic some fifteen years later.

In the scandal that accompanied his fall the real services which he had rendered to the State, and his sincere attempts to restrain the great development of Radicalism in the country, were quite forgotten. He had been weak in many things, blind in some others, but he had always been honest, even when his son-in-law was doing questionable things in his name. And certainly at the time of the Schnaebele incident it had only been by his intervention and his wisdom that a war with Germany had been avoided. He had, in that dangerous moment, shown both dignity and firmness, and succeeded in settling with honour difficulties which but for him might have led to the most serious consequences. France, when thinking of him or talking about him, should never forget this.

When he resigned, there was again a question raised as to who should be asked to become his successor, and the name of Jules Ferry was once more put forward. But Jules Ferry was considered as far too Conservative by the Paris Municipal Council, which sent delegates to the National Assembly to warn it that, should he be chosen, the population of the faubourgs would come down to Versailles in order to signify its veto. To tell the truth, Ferryâ€™s energy was feared, and it was dreaded that he would prove himself a master rather than a President. M. de Freycinet was out of the question, when suddenly M. Carnotâ€™s candidature was put forward by M. Clemenceau, who was beginning already to assume the leadership of the Radical party, and to make himself respected by all the others.

At that moment Sadi Carnot was Minister of Finance.He had quite recently been the object of an ovation in the Chamber of Deputies when he had refused to exonerate M. Wilson from the payment of certain taxes which he owed to the State, and from which he had attempted to escape, thanks to his relationship with President GrÃ©vy. Carnot was the personification of that caste which is called in all the old memoirs of the eighteenth century, â€œles grands bourgeois de Paris.â€ His past career had been irreproachable, he had perhaps few friends, not being at all pliant, but he had a remarkable absence of enemies. His personal appearance was grave and solemn, not to say dull; he did not speak much, and his manners were always cold and distant. He made an excellent President, and had he not come to such a tragic end, it is probable that no one would ever have given him a thought after he had left office.

When he was murdered the Radical party had already secured a very large majority in the Chamber as well as in the Senate, and all thoughts as to the possibility of a Republic governed according to Conservative principles had long ago vanished. For a few brief months his successor, Casimir PÃ©rier, tried to fight against the tide of anarchism which was slowly rising, but after him no one attempted it, and the Republic fell entirely into the hands of M. Clemenceau and his friends.

Withoutbeing an intimate friend of Leon Gambetta, I used nevertheless to see him very often, and there existed between us one of those close relationships which sometimes draw together people whose opinions are totally different. I had first met him before the war, when he had not reached the fame which ultimately became his. I admired him more than I liked him, and to tell the truth he never was fully in sympathy with me, but it was impossible to see him often and not to be struck by his immense intelligence, and especially by the extraordinary powers of assimilation which distinguished him.

I have already mentioned that at the beginning of his political career he had little idea of social requirements, yet as soon as he found out his mistake he speedily made it his aim to acquire knowledge of the customs and manners current in the higher classes of society, and to make a special study of its code of etiquette. He realised quite well that sometimes trivial details bring about tremendous results, and that if a man wants to lead his country he must not begin by giving the public occasion to ridicule him. Besides, there lay at the bottom of the character of this extraordinary man a thirst for luxury, for power, for riches, for all the good things of the world, which alone would have been sufficient to make him study the refinements without which they become useless. Gambetta was an epicure in the fullest sense of thatword, and the apparent carelessness which he had affected in outward appearance when he entered political life proceeded more from the desire to attract notice to himself than from anything else.

He wanted to impose his personality upon others, and not knowing how to do so, he tried to attain it by an apparent indifference to those outward things that rule the actions of ordinary men.

When once he was thrown into contact with good society, and especially after he had fallen under the influence of Madame Edmond Adam, or Juliette Adam as earlier I referred to her, his views of life changed considerably. He very soon became more refined in his tastes and habits, the equal in social deportment of those men and women whose judgments and opinions he had affected to despise in the days when he was a street orator who frequented the CafÃ© Procope and other meeting-places of the young Radical party who made it its business to attack the Empire at every opportunity.

The war sobered him, and his short sojourn in the responsible position of member of a government, such as it was, considerably changed his ideas. He at once perceived that it was easier to criticise men in power than to do their work. He was a great patriot in the sense that he put his country before anything else in the world, and that he was ready to sacrifice all that he held dear for its welfare, but he was no chauvinist, though so often accused of fomenting chauvinism in France. He had a very clear comprehension of every political situation, and also of the different ways in which it could be explained to the crowd, who generally see only the externals of questions without ever going into their details.

He wanted his country to regain its former power and fame, and he knew that this would be difficult if the ideaof the humiliation it had endured was always put before its eyes, and if the wounds it had received were always made to smart. In a certain sense he was right, in another he was wrong, because France might have been more quiet now, and more prosperous even in the material sense of the word, if that idea of arevanchehad not always been fostered, and had she been taught to reconcile herself to accomplished facts. In saying this I know that many among my readers will scream outright, but not being a Frenchman I may be allowed to express my opinion, that it would be to the advantage of a country for which I have always had the greatest sympathy if she began thinking more about herself and less about another war with Germany.

Gambetta exercised an unbounded influence on many people, and was the object of hatred to many others, but no one who met him could pass him by with indifference. If he had not been of a lazy disposition he might easily have become Prime Minister long before he did, and in this connection I must relate a story which probably will surprise more than one person. Gambetta, though he led his party, and though he was at one moment the most powerful man in France, showed always some reluctance when the question of his forming a government was raised. I ventured one day to ask him why. He replied to me that, now he understood the responsibility of the head of a Cabinet, and had studied European politics, he did not think himself up to the task, and also did not think that his presence in a ministry would be to the advantage of France, because his name had become synonymous with the principle of a war with Germany, for which he was but too well aware that his country was not prepared. â€œLater on,â€ he added, â€œmy day may come, but I feel that now, though I may have a great deal more intelligence than some of the foreign ministers who leadthe destinies of other countries, I havenâ€™t their experience of affairs, nor their perfect knowledge of saying pretty things which they do not mean. This would make me appear inferior to them, and France must not be represented by a man to whom this reproach applies. France must hold her own, and something more, in the presence of Europe.â€

I made a gesture of surprise, which he noticed.

â€œYou are astonished at what I tell you,â€ he remarked, â€œbut do you think me such a poor patriot to put my own personal advantage or ambitions before her welfare? This would be very miserable indeed, and I know of no meaner thing than accepting office when one is aware that it is not for the good of oneâ€™s fatherland. I know very well what is thought about me in Europe, and especially in Germany, and I do not wish to give the latter country the slightest excuse to say that she has been provoked, or that we are following a policy of aggression. Such policy is unworthy of a great nation, and we are a great nation, in spite of our reverses, and we must remain one, though some people would like us to come down from that height. We must work to consolidate our position, to become powerful enough and strong enough to be able to strike when the day comes, not only with the chance, but with the certitude, of success. What is the good of wasting oneâ€™s time in petty strifes or petty recriminations? Yes, I think about revenge, I think of nothing else, but I should be ashamed to be thought eager for it at once, and at any price; above all I would not like to risk losing it by such a miserable circumstance as my becoming head of the government at a time when the hour for it had not yet struck.â€

I relate this conversation in its entirety as it shows the real patriotism which animated Gambetta, as well as his great foresight and intuition in politics in general. Veryfew statesmen would have viewed a situation with such entire self-abnegation. In France especially, where the thirst after power and official positions was so great, he constituted a solitary and noble exception. I think that the happiest time in Gambettaâ€™s life was when he was President of the Chamber, and inhabited the Palais Bourbon. There he felt in his element, and also at the height, not of his ambitions, but of his wishesâ€”a totally different matter. In the old home of the Duc de Morny he did not consider himself inferior to that clever councillor of Napoleon III., and reflected with some satisfaction on the circumstances that had brought him there, and placed him in the chair occupied with such authority by the illegitimate son of Queen Hortense. In his new position also he could give way to the luxurious tastes which he had always nursed and only appeared to scorn, because he had not been able to believe he would ever be in a position to gratify them.

Leon Gambetta also felt that in the capacity of leader of the representatives of the nation he would have more opportunities of learning the real wants of that nation, and thus, when the day came that he could do so, would be able to work for its welfare with better chances of success than he had had hitherto. His rare tact served him well, and his knowledge of mankind, something quite different from knowledge of the world, made him avoid many of the mistakes another placed in his position would inevitably have fallen victim to. He made an excellent President of the Chamber, just as he made an admirable host in the Palais Bourbon, where he displayed his epicurean tastes in a way that drew upon him the censure of the newspapers, which tried to ridicule the former Socialist leader, whose first care had been to get as his cook the most famous chef in Paris.

Madame Adam used sometimes to smile at the changewhich her influence, more than anything else, had brought about in Gambetta. But when he became President of the Chamber their intimacy slackened, for a very short time it is true, but slackened all the same. Gambetta, it must be owned, was very sensible to feminine charms and feminine blandishments. Strange as it may seem when one takes into consideration his extreme ugliness, the fact that he had but one eye, and was enormously fat, he yet exercised a great fascination on women in general, and he liked to use it, and to spend part of his spare time in the society of the fair ladies who worshipped at his shrine. This partly was the cause of his death. But about this we shall speak later on.

When at last circumstances arose which obliged Gambetta to accept the task of forming a Cabinet, it was with the utmost reluctance, in spite of all that has been said concerning this subject, that he undertook it. He had no faith in the possibility of being a long time at the head of affairs, and as he told one of his friends: â€œWhy take such trouble when one is assured beforehand it is for nothing?â€ Nevertheless he started earnestly to work to give to the government the direction he thought the best for the interests of the country. But the composition of the Chambers was not congenial to him; he felt himself far superior to all those men upon the vote of whom his fate depended, and this made him impatient as to the control which they pretended to exercise over him. He despised them, if the truth must be said, and involuntarily he allowed this feeling to appear in the manner in which he handled them, a fact that had much to do with the short time he remained in power.

His advent as Prime Minister had excited considerable sensation abroad; even in France it was the signal for the retirement from public life of many people who felt that they could not remain in office under such a thoroughly Radicalgovernment as the one he was supposed to lead. Among those who resigned was the Comte de St. Vallier, at that time French Ambassador in Berlin.

When his resignation was accepted he thought himself obliged, nevertheless, to call on the Prime Minister when he returned to Paris, in order to express to him his regrets that the opinions which he held prevented him from working harmoniously with him. Gambetta received him with great affability and courteousness, and at once said: â€œYou are wrong to go away, I shall not remain for long where I am now, and you would have rendered a greater service to France by remaining at your post than by a retreat which, as you will see, will prove to have been useless. Je ne suis quâ€™un bouche-trou (â€˜I am only a stop-gapâ€™), and very probably the President of the Republic in entrusting to me the task of forming a government wanted to prove to France how impossible it is for a Radical ministry ever to maintain itself. The sad part of this is that, though I am a Republican, I have no Radical sympathies. I assure you that this is the fact, and that you would have found me far more inclined to sympathise with your opinions than with those of the people who are supposed to be my followers. The great mistake that we are constantly making in France is to mix up opinions with the way in which the country must be governed. We ought to have neither a Conservative, nor a Radical, nor even a Republican government; we ought to have a French one. This would be quite enough. I am sorry you have resigned; very sorry, indeed.â€

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