An Inconvenient Death

French president Felix Faure died on Feburary 16, 1899 on the heels of the Fashoda incident. At this time France and the UK still experienced tense tensions between their burgeoning empires. His death was, at best, sensational as it occurred in flagrante delicto. The lady involved wrote in her memoirs that a German was most interested in some of his personal belongings. Orleanist and Bonapartist factions were preparing to invade and establish their own governments while the Dreyfuss affair was also in full swing. German hatred was to the point of being irrational as well, irredentialism running at full pitch while French industry had leads in certain areas that it would not retain even a few years later. Could this one man's death under slightly different circumstances cause France to implode and, if so, what are the possible results?
 
Did his death affect French government policy that much? I thought by this point the Third Republic had evolved into an almost entirely parliamentary regime and the role of the President had become essentially ceremonial.
 
His death is weeks before the treaty that began to improve relations between London and Paris. There was a threatened march on Paris by a French general who backed off and another by a Bonapartist pretender as well as an Orleanist (in response to the Bonapartist). With the Dreyfuss affair also threatening to tear the nation apart a resignation of one of the chief justices blocked resolution of that infamous case, but it would be the next President of France, Emile Loubet, that would simmer down tensions and help alleviate the threat of French implosion. At that time the president of France had some power though I am not sure how much.
 
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