The "Figaro" has been publishing some curious revelations which are put forward as expressions of the private opinions of the late President Felix Faure. The writer, who signs himself Saint Simonin but is believed to be M. Mermeix, a prominent partisan of Boulanger, says' he was. told by M, Faure that the Marchand mission was intended merely as a commercial and scientific expedition, and that Lord Salisbury's intimation that Marchand must leave Fashoda was a complete surprise to the French Government. According to Lockroy, who was Minister of Marine at the time, the French coast defences were in so defective a state that they could not have resisted a determined attack, and as this state of things could not be revealed, for obvious reasons, it was decided to make the necessary expenditure at once, thout waiting for Parliamentary sanction. The Governor of the Bank of France was taken into confidence and advanced the money. The votes were not laid before Parliament until long after the crisis was over, but, while it lasted, M. Felix Faure and his advisers were in a state of panic, knowing, as they did, that if a war with England became inevitable, they could not escape the penalty of their responsibility. The statements of the late President's anonymous biographer have not be ed to pass unc object of the Marchand mission from first to last was to give France a foothold on the Upper Nile, so as to place her in better position for the reopening of the Ezyptian question. The most noteworthy feature of the business is that the men who had the management of French policy at this time, except M. Delcassé, altogether failed to realise the consequences of their own actions. Their newspapers had so often told them that England would only bark and not bite, that when Lord Sal bury put his foot down they were complete-taken abad President Faure's speculations as to the action of other European Powers in the event of a war between England and France are also curious reading. He and his advisers, according to "Saint Simonin,' were convinced that Germany would remain neutral and even friendly to France. If the French fleet were destroyed, England would be the unquestioned mistress of the seas, and the Emperor William's naval ambition would receive a severe setback. German trade would profit largely by neutrality during 2 Franco-English war, The unknown factor in the problem was Italy, but even if she made common cause with England, in spite of the advice of her allies, the Italian army could not have obtained a foothold in France, and the war would have been a purely naval one. It was only by good fortune that conflict was averted. Public opinion was so inflamed after the Fashoda settlement that the slightest incident, such as a fight between sailors or an strack on a consulate by a handful of drunkards might have started a conflagration.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.