Félix Faure

Félix Faure was president of France from 1895 until he died in office in 1899, in the middle of the Dreyfus affair and in circumstances that delighted his enemies for a century. He was the son of a furniture maker, trained as a tanner, and made a fortune as a shipowner in Le Havre. He entered the Chamber of Deputies in 1881 and rose through junior office to become minister of marine and colonies. His election to the presidency in 1895 surprised everyone including him. He was a vain and ceremonious president who enjoyed the trappings of the office, and the press called him President Sun. His term saw the Franco-Russian alliance consolidated with a state visit by Nicholas II, and the beginning of the colonial confrontation with Britain that came to a head at Fashoda in 1898. On Dreyfus he was immovable. He refused to reopen the case, and it was to him that Zola addressed J'accuse in January 1898. He died on 16 February 1899 of a cerebral haemorrhage in his office at the Élysée, in the company of his mistress Marguerite Steinheil. The circumstances were widely known and endlessly joked about, and Clemenceau's remark that he had wished to be Caesar and ended as Pompey was the mildest of them. His funeral was the occasion of an attempted coup by the nationalist Paul Déroulède, who tried to persuade a general to march on the Élysée and was ignored. His successor Émile Loubet reopened the Dreyfus case within months.

• Lived: 1841 CE – 1899 CE
• Nationality: French
• Roles: head_of_state, politician