If a president were to pass away while getting it on, it is apt that said president be French. Which is exactly what happened to President Felix Faure. He came and went at the same time mid-dalliance with a mistress in the presidential palace in 1899.
An Unexpected President
Felix Faure, a self-made man, was the son of a small furniture maker. In his youth, he worked as a tanner, then became a successful and rich Le Havre businessman. His rise began with his election as Le Havre’s mayor. Then, at age forty, he was elected to the National Assembly as a member of the Left. Faure focused his attentions on economics, the French Navy, and railways. He held a series of undersecretary positions in the 1880s, and became a cabinet minister in 1894. The following year, he was unexpectedly elected president when the incumbent resigned. A compromise candidate who had not offended anybody who mattered was needed, and Faure fit the bill.
Colonial expansion marked Faure’s presidency, as well as a rapprochement with Russia, conflict with Britain, and the running sore of the Dreyfus Affair. He authorized France’s conquest of Madagascar, and exchanged state visits with Emperor Nicholas II of Russia, which eventually led to an alliance. As to Britain, France almost went to war with the British in 1898 over the Fashoda Incident – a colonial confrontation in Sudan. France was forced to back down, and that damaged Faure’s reputation at home. His biggest headache however, was the Dreyfus Affair, which polarized France over a Jewish officer framed by higher ups in the French Army for treason, and unjustly convicted and imprisoned. Even after it became clear that Dreyfus was innocent and that the culprit was another officer, Faure refused to reopen the investigation.
An “Excess of Good Health”
Perhaps what most marked Faure’s presidency was how it ended. Faure liked the ladies, and in 1897, he met Marguerite Steinheil, a French woman who became famous for her many affairs with prominent men. President Faure was a prominent man, Steinheil soon became his mistress, and the duo frequently met and got it on in the presidential Elysee Palace. On February 16th, 1899, Faure telephoned Steinheil, and asked her to swing by the palace later that afternoon. She arrived and was ushered into the palace’s Blue Drawing Room, where Faure awaited her. Soon thereafter, servants heard screams, and burst in. They found a disheveled and distraught Steinheil, with the president’s convulsed hands tangled in her hair.
France’s president had suffered a fatal stroke as he was getting orally pleasured in the presidential palace. Naturally, the French press, political class, and public went wild. Typical was the French daily, Gil Blas, which reported: “Felix Faure passed away in good health – indeed, from the excess of good health”. George Clemenceau quipped: “Il voulait être César, il ne fut que Pompée” – French wordplay that means “he wanted to be Caesar, but ended up as Pompey”. However, since pomper is also French slang for oral pleasure, it carried a double meaning.
Some Sources & Further Reading
Encyclopedia Britannica – Felix Faure
History Halls – Politicians Who Couldn’t Keep it In Their Pants: Warren G. Harding
Horowitz, Sarah – The Red Widow: The Scandal That Shook Paris and the Woman Behind it All (2023)
