Félix Faure
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| Félix Faure | |
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| In office January 17, 1895 – February 16, 1899 |
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| Preceded by | Jean Casimir-Perier |
| Succeeded by | Émile Loubet |
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| Born | January 30, 1841 Paris, France |
| Died | February 16, 1899 (aged 58) Paris, France |
| Nationality | French |
Félix François Faure (30 January 1841–16 February 1899) was President of France from 1895 until his death.
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[edit] Biography
Félix François Faure was born in Paris, being the son of a small furniture maker. Having started as a tanner and merchant at Le Havre, he acquired considerable wealth, was elected to the National Assembly on the 21st of August 1881, and took his seat as a member of the Left, interesting himself chiefly in matters concerning economics, railways and the navy. In November 1882 he became under-secretary for the colonies in Ferry's ministry, and retained the post till 1885. He held the same post in Tirard's ministry in 1888, and in 1893 was made vice-president of the chamber.
In 1894 he obtained cabinet rank as minister of marine in the administration of Charles Dupuy. In the January following he was unexpectedly elected President of the Republic upon the resignation of President Casimir-Perier. The principal cause of his elevation was the determination of the various sections of the moderate republican party to exclude Henri Brisson, who had had a majority of votes on the first ballot, but had failed to obtain an absolute majority. To accomplish this end it was necessary to unite the party, and unity could only be secured by the nomination of someone who offended no one. Faure answered perfectly to this description.
His fine presence and his tact on ceremonial occasions rendered the state some service when in 1896 he received the Tsar at Paris, and in 1897 returned his visit, after which meeting the momentous Franco-Russian Alliance was publicly announced.
The latter days of Faure's presidency were embittered by the Dreyfus affair, which he was determined to regard as chose jugée (Latin: res judicata; English: adjudicated with no further appeal). This drew against him the criticism of pro-Dreyfus intellectuals and politicians, such as Émile Zola and George Clemenceau.
[edit] Death
At a critical juncture in the proceedings, he died suddenly from apoplexy on 16 February 1899, whilst having sexual activities with 30-year-old Marguerite Steinheil in his office. It has been widely reported that those activities were constitutive of oral sex, but their exact nature is in fact unknown and may have stemmed from various jeu de mots (puns) made up afterward by ferocious political opponents. One such pun was to nickname Mme Steinheil "la pompe funèbre" (wordplay in French: could mean both funeral pomp and funeral pump). George Clemenceau's epitaph of president Faure, in the same trend, was "Il voulait être César, il ne fut que Pompée" (another wordplay in French; could mean both "he wished to be Caesar, but ended up as Pompey", or "he wished to be Caesar and ended up being pumped") ; the same Clemenceau, editor of the newspaper l'Aurore, also wrote that "upon entering the void, he (F. Faure) must have felt home"[1]. After his death, some alleged extracts from his private journals, dealing with French policy, were published in the Paris press.
[edit] Notes
[edit] References
- This article incorporates text from the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition, a publication now in the public domain.
| Political offices | ||
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| Preceded by Jean Casimir-Perier |
President of France 1895–1899 |
Succeeded by Émile Loubet |
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