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A HISTORY OF
THE THIRD FRENCH
REPUBLIC
RAYMOND POINCAKE
A HISTORY OF THE
THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
C. H. C. WRIGHT
Professor of the French Language and Literature
in Harvard University
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS
BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY
1916
COPYRIGHT, I916, BY CHARLES H. C. WRIGHT
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Published May igib
1
TO
MY WIFE
SI
CONTENTS
I. The Antecedents of the Franco-Prussian War. i
II. The Franco-Prussian War — The Government of
National Defence (September, 1870, to Febru-
ary, 1871). II
III. The Administration of Adolphe Thiers (Febru-
ary, 1871, to May, 1873). 3i
IV. The Administration of the Mar^chal de Mac-
Mahon (May, 1873, to January, 1879). 5o
V. The Administration of Jules Gr^vy (January,
1879, to December, 1887). 75
VI. The Administration of Sadi Carnot (December,
1887, TO June, 1894). 96
VII. The Administrations of Jean Casimir-Perier(June,
1894, TO January, 1895) and of Felix Faure
(January, 1895, to February, 1899). ii5
VIII. The Administration of Emile Loubet (February,
1899, to February, 1906). i34
IX. The Administration of Armand FalliSres (Febru-
ary, 1906, TO February, igiS). iSg
X. The Administration of Raymond Poincare (Feb-
ruary, 1 91 3-). 176
Appendix :
Presiding
Officers
of
French
Cab-
INETS.
187
Bibliography.
193
Index.
199
ILLUSTRATIONS
Raymond Poincare
Frontispiece
Adolphe Thiers
32
Edme-Patrice-Maurice Mac-Mahon
5o
Leon Gambetta
70
Jules Ferry
78
Sadi Carnot
96
Marie-Georges Picquart
124
Rene Waldeck-Rousseau
1 36
A HISTORY OF THE
THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
CHAPTER I
THE ANTECEDENTS OF THE FRANCO-
PRUSSIAN WAR
Two men were largely responsible, each in his
own way, for the third French Republic,
Napoleon III and Bismarck. The one, endeav-
oring partly at his wife's instigation to renew
the prestige of a weakening Empire, and the
other, furthering the ambitions of the Prussian
Kingdom, set in motion the forces which cul-
minated in the Fourth of September.
The causes of the downfall of the Empire
can be traced back several years. Napoleon III
was, at heart, a man of peace and had, in all
sincerity, soon after his accession, uttered the
famous saying: "L'empire, c'est la paix." But
the military glamour of the Napoleonic name
led the nephew, like the uncle, into repeated
wars. These had, in most cases, been success-
ful, exceptions, such as the unfortunate Mexi-
can expedition, seeming negligible. They had
2 THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
sometimes even resulted in territorial aggran-
dizement. Napoleon III was, therefore, desir-
ous of establishing once for all the so-called
*' natural" frontiers of France along the Rhine
by the annexation of those Rhenish provinces
which, during the First Empire and before, had
for a score of years been part of the French
nation.
On the other hand, though France was still
considered the leading continental power, and
though its military superiority seemed unas-
sailable, the imperial regime was unquestion-
ably growing "stale." The Emperor himself,
always a mystical fatalist rather than the hewer
of his own fortune, felt the growing inertia of
his final malady. A lavishly luxurious court
had been imitated by a pleasure-loving capital.
This had brought in its train relaxed standards
of governmental morals and had seriously
weakened the fibre of many military com-
manders. Outwardly the Empire seemed as
glorious as ever, and in 1867 France invited
the world to a gorgeous exposition in the
"Ville-lumiere." But Paris was more emo-
tional year by year, and the Tuileries and
Saint-Cloud were dominated by a narrow-
BEFORE THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR 3
minded and spoiled Empress. Court intrigues
were rife and drawing-room generals were to
be found in real life, as well as in Offenbach's
"Grande Duchesse." But nobody, except per-
haps Napoleon himself, realized how the
Empire had declined. The Empress merely
felt that it was time to do something stirring,
and, without necessarily waging war, to assert
again the pre-eminence in Europe of France,
weakened in 1866 by the unexpected outcome
of the rivalry between Austria and Prussia for
preponderance among the German States.
Beyond the eastern frontier of France a
nation was growing in ambition and power.
Prussia still remembered the warlike achieve-
ments of Frederick the Great, although since
those days its military efficiency had at times
undergone a decline. But now, under the reign
of King William, guided by a vigorous minis-
ter, Bismarck, an example, whatever his admir-
ers may say, of the brutal and unscrupulous
Junker, the Prussian Government had for some
time tried to impose its leadership on the other
German States. Some of these were far from
anxious to accept it. In the furtherance of
Prussian schemes, Bismarck had been able to
4 THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
inflict a diplomatic rebuff on Napoleon, as well
as a severe military defeat on Austria.
In 1866, Prussia won from Austria the im-
portant victory of Koniggratz or Sadowa, and
thereby asserted its leadership. The outcome
was a check to Napoleon, who had expected a
different result. Moreover, by it Bismarck
was encouraged to pursue his plans for the
consolidation of Germany under a still more
openly acknowledged Prussian supremacy. A
crafty and utterly unscrupulous diplomat, he
was able to mislead Napoleon and his unskilful
ministers.
Soon after Sadowa the Emperor tried to
obtain territorial compensation from Prussia.
He wished, in return for recognition of Prus-
sia's new position and of the projected union
of North and South Germany minus Austria,
to obtain the cession of territories on the left
bank of the Rhine, or an alliance for the con-
quest and annexation of Belgium to France.
Such schemes having failed, Napoleon tried
next to satisfy French jingoism by the acquisi-
tion of the Duchy of Luxembourg. This move
resulted only in securing the evacuation by its
Prussian garrison of the Luxembourg fortress
BEFORE THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR 5
and the neutralization of the duchy. From
that time on, tension increased between France
and Prussia. Bismarck was, indeed, more
anxious for war than Napoleon. He suspected
the weakness of the French Empire, he de-
spised its leaders, he realized the advance in
military efTiciency of his own country, and his
aim was unswerving to establish a Prussianized
German Empire at the cost, if possible, of the
downfall of France. As a matter of fact, France,
as now, was far from being permeated with mili-
tarism and, a few months before the war in
1870, the military budget was actually reduced.
The occasion for a dispute arrived with the
suggested candidacy of Leopold of Hohen-
zollern-Sigmaringen, a German prince related
to the King of Prussia, to the crown of Spain.
As early as 1868, intrigues had begun to put a
Prussian on the Spanish throne, but Napoleon
had not as yet been disturbed. It was not until
1870 that he took the matter seriously. In
July, Prince Leopold accepted the crown,
egged on by Bismarck, and with the fiction of
the approval of King William as head of the
Hohenzollerns, as distinguished from his posi-
tion as King of Prussia.
6 THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
At that time the French Emperor was in
precarious health and scarcely in full control of
his powers. The French people at large were
pacifically inclined and would have asked for
nothing better than to remain at home instead
of fighting about a foreigner's candidacy to an
alien throne. But, unfortunately, the Empress
Eugenie was for war. The Government, too,
was in the hands of second-rate and hesitating
diplomats. Emile Ollivier, the chief of the
Cabinet, was an orator more than a statesman,
and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, the due
de Gramont, was a conceited mediocrity more
and more involved in his own mistakes. In
consequence, the attitude of the Government
was not so much deliberate desire for war as
provocative bluster, of which Bismarck was
quick to take advantage. The Cabinet was
egged on by Eugenie's adherents, the militants,
who had been looking for an insult since
Sadowa, and by obstreperous journalists and
noisy boulevard mobs, whose manifestations
were unfortunately taken, even by the Corps
legislatif, for the voice of France.
In consequence, blunder after blunder was
made. The ministers worked at cross-purposes,
BEFORE THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR 7
without due consultation and without consid-
eration of the effect of their actions on an in-
flamed public opinion or on prospective Euro-
pean alliances. Stated in terms of diplomatic
procedure, the aim of the French Cabinet was
to humiliate Prussia by forcing its Govern-
ment to acknowledge a retreat. King William
was not seeking war and was probably willing
to make honorable concessions. Bismarck, on
the contrary, desired war, if it could be under
favorable diplomatic auspices, and the Hohen-
zollern candidacy was a direct provocation.
He wanted France to seem the aggressor, in
view of the effect both on neutral Europe,
and particularly on the South German States,
which he wished to draw into alliance under
the menace of French attack.
The French Ambassador to the King of
Prussia, Benedetti, was instructed to demand
the withdrawal of Prince Leopold's candidacy.
This demand followed a very arrogant state-
ment to the Corps legislatif, on July 6, by the
due de Gramont. The assumption was that
Prince Leopold's presence on the Spanish
throne would be dangerous to the honor and
interests of France, by exposing the country
8 THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
on two sides to Prussian influence. King
William was, on the whole, willing to make a
concession to avoid international complica-
tions, but he obviously wished not to appear
to act under pressure. M. Benedetti went to
Ems and, on July 9, he laid the French de-
mands before the King. After long-drawn-out
discussion the French Government asked for
a categorical reply by July 12. On that day
the father of Prince Leopold, Prince Antony
of Hohenzollern, in a telegram to Spain, for-
mally withdrew his son's name. The King had
planned to give his consent to this apparently
spontaneous action on the part of the candi-
date's family, when officially informed. Thus
France would obtain its ends and the King
himself would not be involved.
Unfortunately the thoughtlessness of the
head of the French Ministry spoiled every-
thing. Instead of waiting a day for the King's
ratification, Emile Ollivier, desirous also of
peace, hastened to make public the telegram
from the Prince of Hohenzollern. Thereupon
the leaders of the war party in the Corps legis-
latif at once pointed out that the telegram was
not accompanied by the signature of the Prus-
BEFORE THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR 9
sian monarch, declared that the Cabinet had
been outwitted, and clamored for definite
guarantees. Stung by the charge of inefficiency,
the would-be statesman Gramont immedi-
ately accentuated his stipulations and de-
manded that the King of Prussia guarantee
not to support in future the candidacy of a
Hohenzollern to the Spanish throne.
Matters were rapidly reaching an impasse,
and Bismarck was correspondingly elated, be-
cause France was appearing to Europe a
trouble-maker. The due de Gramont and
Emile Ollivier committed the error of dictat-
ing a letter to the Prussian Ambassador for
him to transmit to the King, to be in turn sent
back as his reply. King William was offended
by this high-handed procedure. He had al-
ready told comte Benedetti at Ems that a
satisfactory letter was on its way from Prince
Antony and had promised him another inter-
view upon its arrival. After receiving the
dispatch from his ambassador at Paris com-
municating Gramont's formulas, he sent
word to Benedetti that Prince Leopold was
no longer a candidate and that the incident
was closed. Nor was the King willing to grant
10 THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
Benedetti's urgent requests for an interview
(July 13).
The King and the French Ambassador had
remained perfectly courteous, and the next
day, at the railway station, they took leave of
each other with marks of respect. Things were
not yet hopeless, until Bismarck, by a trick of
which he afterwards bragged, caused a dis-
patch to be published implying that Benedetti
had been so persistent in pushing his demands
that King William had been obliged to snub
him. The French were led to believe that their
representative had been insulted, and neutrals
sided with Prussia as the aggrieved party.
After deliberation the French Ministry decided
on war and the decision was blindly ratified by
the Corps legislatif on July 15. At this meet-
ing Emile Ollivier made his famous . remark
that the Ministry accepted responsibility for
the war with a "clear conscience." His actual
words, "le coeur leger," seemed, however, to
imply "with a light heart," and thereafter
weighed heavily against him in the minds of
Frenchmen.
CHAPTER II
THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR — THE GOVERNMENT
OF NATIONAL DEFENCE
September, 1870, to Februaury, 1871
On July 19 the French Embassy at Berlin de-
clared a state of war. Paris was wild with en-
thusiasm and eager for an advance on Berlin.
The provinces were for the most part cool, but
accepted the war calmly because they were
assured of an easy victory. The leaders of the
two nations had for each other equal contempt.
*'Ce n'est pas un homme serieux," Napoleon
had once said of Bismarck, and Bismarck
thought Napoleon "stupid and sentimental."
Meanwhile each nation had eyes on the terri-
tory of the other: France was ready to claim
the Rhine frontier; Prussia wanted all it could
get, and certainly Alsace and Lorraine. The
idea, so often repeated by the Germans since
the war, that these provinces were annexed
because they had once been German, was not
in Bismarck's mind, — "that is a Professor's
reason," he said.^ He wanted Strassburg be-
^ Moritz Busch, Bismarck, vol. i, chap. i.
12 THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
cause its commanding position and the wedge
of Wissembourg could cut off northern from
southern Germany. The frontier of the Vosges
was as desirable to the Germans as the Rhine
to the French.
From the beginning all went wrong in
France. The Government found itself left in
the lurch by the European states whose alli-
ance it had expected. Moreover, mobilization
proceeded slowly and in utter confusion. In
spite of Marshal Le Boeuf's famous exclama-
tion ("II ne manquera pas un bouton de
guetre"), never did a nation enter on a war less
prepared than the French. On the other hand,
all Germany, well trained and ready, sprang to
the side of Prussia. The whole military force
was grouped in three armies — under Stein-
metz, Prince Frederick Charles, and the Crown
Prince. But, meanwhile, it seemed necessary
to the French to give a semblance of military
achievement. The Emperor had started from
Paris on July 28 leaving the Empress as regent.
On August 2, a vain military display with
largely superior forces was made across the
frontier at Saarbriicken, a practically unpro-
tected place was taken, and the Emperor was
THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR i3
able to send home word that the Prince Im-
perial had received his "baptism of fire" and
that the soldiers wept at seeing him calmly
pick up a bullet. The same day King William
took command of the German forces at Mainz,
and on August 4 the army of the Crown Prince
entered Alsace and defeated at Wissembourg
the division of about twelve thousand men of
General Abel Douay, who was killed. On the
6th Mac-Mahon, with a larger force, met the
still more numerous Germans somewhat farther
back at Worth, Frosch wilier, and Reichsoffen,
and was utterly routed with a loss of over
ten thousand in killed, wounded, and taken.
Alsace was thus completely exposed to the
enemy, and the road was open to Luneville
and Nancy. On the same day, German armies
under Steinmetz and Prince Frederick Charles
crossed into Lorraine at Saarbriicken and
engaged the troops of the French general
Frossard at Forbach and Spicheren, inflicting
on them a severe repulse. Meanwhile Fros-
sard's superior, Bazaine, though not far away,
did not move a finger to help him. "If Fros-
sard wanted the baton of marshal of France he
could win it alone."
i4 THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
The news of these disasters was a terrible
shock to Paris. The ''liberal" OUivier Cabinet
was overthrown and replaced by a reactionary
one led by General Cousin-Montauban, comte
de Palikao. The Emperor withdrew from mili-
tary leadership and Marshal Bazaine received
supreme command. Bazaine was a brave sol-
dier, but a poor general-in-chief, and withal a
self-seeking man, incompetent to deal with the
difTiculties in which France found itself. He
was perhaps not a conscious traitor in the great
disaster which soon came to pass, but he
thought more of himself than of his country.
At the time we are concerned with he was con-
sidered the coming man. Meanwhile Mac-
Mahon, cut off from Bazaine's main army, fell
back, between August 6 and August 17, to
Chalons. Bazaine was apparently without in-
telligent strategic plans. He professed to be
desirous of concentrating at Verdun, but was
afraid to get out of reach of Metz. He won
first an indecisive battle at Borny (August
14), which was unproductive of any concrete
advantage. On August 16, he let himself be
turned back, by an enemy only half as numer-
ous, at Rezonville (Vionville, Mars-la-Tour).
THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR i5
On the 18th, he encountered, on the contrary,
a much larger force at Saint-Privat (Grave-
lotte) and let himself be cooped up in Metz.
Critics of Bazaine say that he could have
turned both Rezonville and Gravelotte to the
advantage of the French.
The familiar military uncertainties now be-
gan to show themselves in the movements
of Mac-Mahon and his troops. The armies of
Steinmetz and of Frederick Charles were united
under command of the latter to beleaguer
Metz, and a smaller force under Prince Albert
of Saxony was thrown off to cooperate with the
army of the Crown Prince in its advance on
Paris. Mac-Mahon had collected about one
hundred and twenty thousand men, and Na-
poleon, without real authority except as a
meddler, was with him. The plan was origi-
nally to fall back for the protection of Paris,
but the Empress-Regent was afraid to have a
defeated Emperor return to the capital lest
revolution ensue, and Palikao urged a swift
advance to rescue Metz, crushing Prince Al-
bert of Saxony on the way, taking Frede-
rick Charles between the two fires of rescuers
and besieged, with the Crown Prince still too
i6 THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
far away to be dangerous. Meanwhile Mac-
Mahon moved to Reims, which was neither
on the direct road to Paris nor to Metz, and at
last started to the rescue of Bazaine by the
roundabout route of Montmedy, continually
hesitating and retracing his steps. On receiv-
ing news of his progress, the armies of the
Crown Prince and of Prince Albert converged
northward. Mac-Mahon's right wing, under
General de Failly, was surprised at Beaumont,
and finally the French army in disorder drew
up in most unfavorable positions between the
Meuse and the Belgian frontier, to face a foe
twice as numerous and already nearly com-
pletely surrounding it. The battle of Sedan
broke out on September 1. Mac-Mahon was
wounded early in the fight and gave over the
command to Ducrot, in turn superseded by
Wimpffen, already designated by the Ministry
to replace Mac-Mahon in case of accident.
After a fierce battle it fell to General de
Wimpffen to capitulate on September 2. By
the disaster of Sedan the Germans captured
the Emperor, a marshal of France, and the
whole of one of its two armies.
The news of the overwhelming defeat of
THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR 17
Sedan struck Paris like a thunderbolt. Jules
Favre proposed to the Corps legislatif the over-
throw of Napoleon and of his dynasty; Thiers,
who favored the restoration of the Orleans
family, wished the convocation of a Constitu-
ent Assembly ; the comte de Palikao asked for
a provisional governing commission of which
he should be the lieutenant-general. But, be-
fore anything was done, the Paris mob invaded
the legislative chamber. Gambetta, with the
majority of the Paris Deputies, went to the
Hotel de Ville, and to prevent a more radical
set from seizing the Government, proclaimed
the Republic (September 4). A Government
of National Defence was constituted of which
General Trochu became President, Jules Favre
Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Gambetta
Minister of the Interior. Thiers was not a
member, but gave his support. Eugenie es-
caped from the Tuileries to the home of her
American dentist. Dr. Evans, and then fled to
England.
Jules Favre was innocent enough to think
that the Germans would be satisfied with the
overthrow of Napoleon, and he was rash
enough to declare that France would not yield
i8 THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
"an inch of its territory or a stone of its for-
tresses." But, in an interview with Bismarck
at Ferrieres, on September 19, he reaUzed the
oppressiveness of the German demands. The
rhetorical and emotional, even tearful, Jules
Favre was faced by a harsh and unrelenting
conqueror, and the meeting ended without an
agreement. Meanwhile Paris was invested by
the German forces of the Crown Prince and
the Prince of Saxony after a defeat of some
French troops at Chatillon. William, Bis-
marck, and Moltke took up their station at
Versailles. Europe, made suspicious by the
numerous changes of government in France in
the nineteenth century, and moved also by
selfish reasons, refused its aid and looked on
with indifference. Thiers made a fruitless
quest through Europe for practical aid, bring-
ing home only meaningless expressions of
sympathy.
Unfortunately even a number of people in
the provinces, relaxed by the factitious pros-
perity of the imperial regime, were too willing
to yield to the invaders. Where resistance was
brave it appeared fruitless: Strassburg capit-
ulated on September 28, after the Germans
THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR 19
had burned its library and bombarded the
cathedral. A scratch army on the Loire,
under La Motterouge, was beaten at Artenay
(October 10) and had to evacuate Orleans.
On October 18, the Germans captured Cha-
teaudun after heroic resistance by National
Guards and sharpshooters.
Though one of the two great French armies
was in captivity and the other besieged in
Metz, the idea of submission never for a mo-
ment entered Gambetta's head. Paris was
under the command of Trochu, patriotic and
brave, but military critic rather than leader,
discouraged from the beginning, and unable
to take advantage of opportunities. A delega-
tion of the Government of National Defence
had established itself at Tours to avoid the
German besiegers, but two of its members,
Cremieux andJGlais-Bizoin, were elderly and
weak. Admiral Fourichon was the most com-
petent. Gambetta escaped from Paris by
balloon on October 7, and, reaching Tours in
safety, made himself by his energy and patri-
otic inspiration, practically dictator and or-
ganizer of resistance to the invaders.
Leon Gambetta, a young lawyer politician
20 THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
of thirty-two, of inexhaustible energy and im-
passioned eloquence, was the son of an Itahan
grocer settled at Cahors. With the help of his
assistant Charles de Freycinet, he levied and
armed in four months six hundred thousand
men, an average of five thousand a day. Every-
thing was done in haste and unsatisfactorily, —
the army of General Chanzy was equipped
with guns of fifteen different patterns. But
Gambetta did the task of a giant, in spite of
another crushing blow to France, the sur-
render of Metz.
Bazaine had let himself be cooped up in
Metz. Instead of being moved by patriotism,
he thought only of his own interests and am-
bitions. In the midst of the cataclysm which
had fallen on France he aspired to hold the
position of power. The Emperor gone and the
Republic destined, Bazaine thought, to fall,
he would be left at the head of the only army.
His would be the task of treating for peace
with Germany, and then he would perhaps be-
come in France regent instead of the Empress,
or Marshal-Lieutenant of the Empire, like
the Spanish marshals. So he neglected favor-
able military opportunities, and dallied over
THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR 21
plans of peace, while Bismarck misled him with
fruitless propositions or false emissaries like
the adventurer Regnier. Finally, on October
27, Bazaine had to surrender Metz, with three
marshals (himself, Canrobert, and Le Boeuf),
sixty generals, six thousand officers, and one
hundred and seventy-three thousand men.
France was deprived of her last trained forces,
and the besieging army of Frederick Charles
was set free to help in the conquest of France.
After the war Bazaine was condemned to
death, by court-martial, for treason. His sen-
tence was commuted to life imprisonment, but
he afterwards escaped from the fortress in
which he was confined and died in obscurity
and disgrace at Madrid.
No sooner did the news of the capitulation
of Metz reach Paris than a regrettable affair
took place. There was much dissatisfaction
, with the indecision of the Provisional Govern-
ment, and, on October 31, a mob invaded the
Hotel de Ville and arrested the chief members
of the commission. Fortunately they were re-
leased later the same day and a plebiscite of
November 3 confirmed the powers of the Gov-
ernment of National Defence. Fortunately,
22 THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
too, within a few days came news of the first
real success of the French during the war, the
battle of Coulmiers (November 9).
Gambetta had succeeded during October in
organizing the Army of the Loire which, under
General d'Aurelle de Paladines, defeated the
Bavarian forces of von der Thann at Coul-
miers and recaptured Orleans. The plan was
to push on to Paris and the objections of
d'Aurelle were overcome by Gambetta. But
the fall of Metz had released German rein-
forcements. After an unsuccessful contest by
the right wing at Beaune-la-Rolande (Novem-
ber 28), and a partial victory at Villepion,
the French were defeated in turn on Decem-
ber 2 at Loigny or Patay (left wing), on De-
cember 3 at Artenay . The Germans reoccupied
Orleans and the first Army of the Loire was dis-
persed. The Government moved from Tours
to Bordeaux.
After Coulmiers General Trochu had
planned a sortie from Paris to meet the Army
of the Loire. This advance was under com-
mand of General Ducrot, but was delayed by
trouble with pontoon bridges. The various
battles of the Marne (November 30-Decem-
THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR 28
ber 2) culminated in the terrible fight and
repulse of Villiers and Champigny. In the
north, a small army hastily brought together
under temporary command of General Favre
was defeated at Villers-Bretonneux and Amiens
(November 27).
The last phase of the Franco-Prussian War
begins with the crushing of the Army of the
Loire and the check of the advance to Cham-
pigny. With unwearied tenacity Gambetta
tried to reorganize the Army of the Loire. A
portion became the second Army of the Loire
or of the West, under Chanzy. The rest, under
Bourbaki, became the Army of the East.
Faidherbe tried to revive the Army of the
North.
To Chanzy, on the whole the most capable
French general of the war, was assigned the
task of trying, with a smaller force, what d' Au-
relle had already failed in accomplishing, a
drive on Paris. In this task Bourbaki and
Faidherbe were expected by Gambetta to
cooperate. Instead of succeeding, Chanzy,
bravely fighting, was driven back, first down
the Loire, in the long-contested battle of Josnes
(Villorceau or Beaugency) (December 7-10),
24 THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
then up the valley of the tributary Loir to
Vendome and Le Mans. There the army,
reduced almost to a mob, made a new stand.
In a battle between January 10 and 12, this
army was again routed and what was left
thrown back to Laval.
Faidherbe, taking the offensive in the north,
fought an indecisive contest at Pont-Noyelles
(December 23) and took Bapaume (January 3).
But his endeavor to proceed to the assistance
of Paris was frustrated, he was unable to re-
lieve Peronne, which fell on January 9, and was
defeated at Sain t-Quen tin on January 19.
Bourbaki, in spite of his reputation, showed
himself inferior to Chanzy and Faidherbe.
He let his army lose morale by his hesitation,
and then accepted with satisfaction Freycinet's
plan to move east upon Germany instead of
to the rescue of Paris. On the eastern frontier
Colonel Denfert-Rochereau was tenaciously
holding Belfort, which was never captured by
the Germans during the whole war.^ Bour-
baki's dishearteningly slow progress received
no effective assistance from Garibaldi. This
* He surrendered by order of the Government. The isolated
incident of the resistance of the town of Bitche through all the
war is no less noteworthy.
THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR 25
Italian soldier of fortune, now somewhat in his
decline, had offered his services to France and
was in command of a small body of guerillas
and sharpshooters, the Army of the Vosges.
With alternate periods of inactivity, failure,
and success, Garibaldi perhaps did more harm
than good to France. He monopolized the serv-
ices of several thousand men, and yet, through
his prestige as a distinguished foreign volun-
teer, he could not be brought under control.
Bourbaki won the battle of Villersexel on Jan-
uary 9. Pushing on to Belfort he was defeated
only a few miles from the town in the battle
of H6ricourt, or Montbeliard, along the river
Lisaine. The army, now transformed into
panic-stricken fugitives, made its way pain-
fully through bitter cold and snow, and Bour-
baki tried to commit suicide. He was suc-
ceeded by General Clinchant. When Paris
capitulated, on January 28, and an armistice
was signed, this Army of the East was omitted.
Jules Favre at Paris failed to notify Gambetta
in the provinces of this exception, and the
army, hearing of the armistice, ceased its
flight, only to be relentlessly followed by the
Germans. Finally, on February 1, the rem-
26 THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
nants of the army fled across the Swiss fron-
tier and found safety on neutral soil.
Meanwhile, in Paris the tightening of the
Prussian lines had made the food problem
more and more difTicult, and the population
were reduced to small rations and unpalatable
diet. After Ghampigny the German general
von Moltke communicated with the besieged,
informing them of the defeat of Orleans, and
the means seemed opened for negotiations.
But the opportunity was rejected, and the
Government even refused to be represented
at an international conference, then opening
in London, because of its unwillingness to
apply to Bismarck for a safe-conduct for its
representative. A chance to bring the con-
dition of France before the Powers was neg-
lected. Between December 21 and 26, a sally
to Le Bourget was driven back, and, on the
next day, the bombardment of the forts began.
On January 5, the Prussian batteries opened
fire on the city itself. On January 18, the Ger-
mans took a spectacular revenge for the con-
quests of Louis XIV by the coronation of King
William of Prussia as Emperor of the united
German people. The ceremony took place in
THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR 27
the great Galerie des Glaces of Louis's magni-
ficent palace of Versailles. The very next day
the triumph of the Germans received its con-
secration, not only by the battle of Saint-
Quentin (already mentioned), but by the re-
pulse of the last offensive movement from
Paris. To placate the Paris population an
advance was made on Versailles with battal-
ions largely composed of National Guards.
At Montretout and Buzenval they were
routed and driven back in a panic to Paris.
General Trochu was forced to resign the mili-
tary governorship of Paris, though by a strange
contradiction he kept the presidency of the
Government of National Defence, and was re-
placed by General Vinoy. On January 22, a
riot broke out in the capital in which blood
was shed in civil strife. Finally, on January 28,
Jules Favre had to submit to the conqueror's
terms. Paris capitulated and the garrison was
disarmed, with the exception of a few thou-
sand regulars to preserve order, and the Na-
tional Guard; a war tribute was imposed on
the city and an armistice of twenty-one days
was signed to permit the election and gather-
ing of a National Assembly to pass on terms
28 THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
of peace. With inexcusable carelessness Jules
Favre neglected to warn Gambetta in the pro-
vinces that this armistice began for the rest
of France only on the thirty-first and that, as
already stated, the Army of the East was ex-
cepted from its provisions.
Gambetta was furious at the surrender and
at the presumption of Paris to decide for the
provinces. He preached a continuation of the
war, and the intervention of Bismarck was
necessary to prevent him from excluding from
the National Assembly all who had had any
connection with the imperial regime. Jules
Simon was sent from Paris to counteract Gam-
betta's efforts. The latter yielded before the
prospect of civil war, withdrew from power,
and, on February 8, elections were held for the
National Assembly.
The downfall of what had been considered
the chief military nation of Europe was due
to many involved causes. The Empire was
responsible for the debacle and the Govern-
ment of National Defence was unable to cre-
ate everything out of nothing. Many people
were ready to be discouraged after a first
defeat, and few realized what Germany's de-
THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR 29
mands were going to be. The imperial army
was insufficiently equipped and the majority
of its generals were inefficient and lacking in
initiative: there was no preparation, no sys-
tem, little discipline.
During the period of National Defence the
members of the Government themselves were
usually wanting in experience and in diplo-
macy, and the badly trained armies made up
of raw recruits were liable to panics or unable
to follow up an advantage. There was jeal-
ousy, mistrust, and frequent unwillingness to
subordinate politics to patriotism, or, at any
rate, to make allowances for other forms of
patriotism than one's own. Gambetta and
Jules Favre were primarily orators and trib-
unes and indulged in too many wordy proc-
lamations, in which habit they were followed
by General Trochu. The patriotism and en-
thusiasm of Gambetta were undeniable, but
he was imbued with the principles and mem-
ories of the French Revolution, including the
efficacy of national volunteers, the ability of
France to resist all Europe, and the subordi-
nation of military to civil authority. Conse-
quently, in a time of stress he nagged the gen-
3o THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
erals and interfered, and gave free rein to Frey-
cinet to do the same. They upset plans made
by experienced generals, and sent civilians to
spy over them, with power to retire them from
command. They were, moreover, trying to
thrust a republic down the throats of a hostile
majority of the population, for a large propor-
tion of those not Bonapartists were in favor
of a monarchy. The wonder is, therefore, that
France was able to do so much. M. de Frey-
cinet was not boasting when he wrote later,
"Alone, without allies, without leaders, with-
out an army, deprived for the first time of
communication with its capital, it resisted for
five months, with improvised resources, a for-
midable enemy that the regular armies of the
Empire, though made up of heroic soldiers,
had not been able to hold back five weeks." ^
^ La guerre en province, quoted by Welschinger, La guerre de
1870, vol. II, p. 295.
CHAPTER III
THE ADMINISTRATION OF ADOLPHE THIERS
February, 1871, to May, 1878
The elections were held in hot haste. The
short time allowed before the convening of the
Assembly made the usual campaign impos-
sible. It met at Bordeaux on February 13,
1871. The peace party was in very consider-
able majority, and though Gambetta received
the distinction of a multiple election in nine
separate districts, Thiers was chosen in twen-
ty-six. The radicals and advocates of guerilla
warfare and of a "guerre a ou trance" found
themselves few in numbers. Many of the
representatives had only local or rural repu-
tation. They were new to parliamentary life,
and in the majority of cases were averse to
a permanent republican form of government.
They would have preferred a monarchy, but
they were ready to accept a provisional re-
public which would incur the task of settling
the war with Germany and bear the onus
of defeat. They were especially suspicious of
32 THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
Paris, and hostile to it as the home of fick-
leness, of irresponsibility, and of mob rule.
They were largely provincial lawyers and rural
landed gentry, conservative and clerical, who
felt that too much importance had been
usurped by the Parisian Government of Na-
tional Defence.
The new Assembly, therefore, gradually
fell into several groups. On the conservative
side came the Extreme Right, made up of
out-and-out Legitimists, believing in absolu-
tism and the divine right of kings; the Right,
composed of monarchists desirous of conciliat-
ing the old regime with the demands of mod-
em times and of making it a practical form
of government; the Right Centre, consisting
of constitutional monarchists and followers of
the Orleans branch of the house of Bourbon.
Among the anti-republicans the Bonapartists
were almost negligible. Next came the Left
Centre of conservative Republicans, the re-
publican Left, and the radical Union republi-
caine, partisans of Gambetta and advanced
"reformers."
At the first public session of the Assembly
Jules Gr6vy was chosen presiding officer. A
ADOLPHE THIERS
THE ADMINISTRATION OF THIERS 33
former leader of the opposition to the Em-
pire, he had not participated in affairs since
the Fourth of September, and, therefore, had
not yet identified himself with any set. Among
the Republicans he was averse to Gambetta
and remained so even when the latter became
moderate. On February 17, Adolphe Thiers,
the "peace-maker," was by an ahnost unani-
mous vote elected ** Chief of the Executive
Power of the French Republic." It was he
who, thirty years before, had fortified Paris
that had now fallen only by famine, who had
opposed the war when it might yet have been
averted, who had travelled over Europe to
defend the interests of France, who had been
elected representative by the choice of twen-
ty-six departments.
M. Thiers formed a coalition cabinet rep-
resenting different shades of political feeling,
and in one of his early speeches, on March
10, he formulated a plan of party truce for the
purpose of national reorganization. This plan
was acquiesced in by the Assembly and bears
in history the name of the Compact of Bor-
deaux {pade de Bordeaux). France was to con-
tinue under a republican government, without
34 THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
injury to the later claims of any party. Thiers,
himself, as a former Orleanist, advocated, at
least in his relations with the monarchists, a
Restoration, with the sine qua non that an
attempt should be made at a fusion of the
Legitimists and the Orleanists. Meanwhile he
was the chief executive official of a republic.
But, even before the formulation of the
truce of parties, Thiers was in eager haste to
settle the terms of peace with Germany before
the expiration of the armistice. The prelim-
inaries were discussed between Thiers and
Bismarck at Versailles. The Germans were
almost as anxious as the French to see the
end of the war, and the objections and delays
of Bismarck were partly tactical. Brief suc-
cessive prolongations of the armistice were
obtained, and finally the preliminaries were
signed on February 26. Thiers made herculean
efforts to keep for France Belfort, which Bis-
mark claimed, and finally succeeded on con-
dition that the German army should occupy
Paris from March 1 to the ratification of the
preliminaries by the Assembly. France was
to give up Alsace and a part of Lorraine, in-
cluding Metz, and pay an indemnity of five
THE ADMINISTRATION OF THIERS 35
billion francs. German troops were to occupy
the conquered districts and evacuate them
progressively as the indemnity was paid. The
peace discussions afterwards continued at
Brussels, and the final treaty was signed at
Frankfort on May 10, 1871.
No sooner were the preliminaries signed
than Thiers returned post-haste to Bordeaux,
and obtained an almost immediate assent
(March 1), so that the Germans were obliged
to forego a large part of their plans for a tri-
umphal entry into Paris and a review by the
Emperor. Only one body of thirty thousand
men marched in through one section and, two
days later, evacuated the city.
The same meeting which ratified the pre-
liminaries of peace officially proclauned the
expulsion of the imperial dynasty and declared
Napoleon III responsible for the invasion, the
ruin and dismemberment of France. The
same day also beheld the pathetic withdrawal
of the representatives of Alsace and of Lor-
raine, turned over to the conqueror.
The misfortunes of France were far from
ended. Paris was soon to break out into re-
bellion under the eyes of the Germans still in
36 THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
possession of many of the suburbs. The enemy
looked on and saw Frenchman kilUng French-
man in civil war.
It had become obvious that the division of
administration between Bordeaux and Paris
was making government difficult. The As-
sembly, still suspicious of Paris, decided to
transfer its place of meeting to Versailles. But
Paris itself was in a state of nervous hysteria
as a result of the long and exhausting siege
ifievre obsidionale) . The Paris proletariat were
as jealous and suspicious of the Assembly as
the Assembly of them. The suggestion of a
transfer to Versailles instead of to Paris seemed
a direct challenge. Versailles recalled too
easily Louis XIV and the Bourbons. The
monarchical sympathies of the Assembly
were, moreover, well known, and the Parisians
dreaded the restoration of royalty. The peo-
ple were hungry and penniless, and industry
and commerce had almost completely ceased.
The city was full, besides, of soldiers disarmed
through the armistice and ready for riot. On
the other hand, the National Guards, a large
body of semi-disciplined militia made up, at
least in part, of the dregs of the populace, had
THE ADMINISTRATION OF THIERS 87
been allowed to retain their weapons, and
many of them gave their time to drunkenness,
loafing, and listening to agitators. Some
rather injudicious condemnations of leaders
in the October riots merely aggravated the
dissatisfaction. All this led to the Commune.
The leaders of the Commune were, some
of them, sincere though visionary reformers,
whose hearts rankled at the sufferings of the
poor and the inequalities of wealth and privi-
lege. The majority were mischief-makers and
cafe orators, loquacious but incompetent or
inexperienced, without definite plans and un-
fit to be leaders, some vicious and some dis-
honest. The rank and file soon became a law-
less mob, ready to burn and murder, imitating,
in their ignorant cult of "liberty," the worst
phases of the French Revolution and its Reign
of Terror. Still, the Communards have their
admirers to-day, and, as the world advances
in radicalism, it is not unlikely that the Jaco-
bin Charles Delescluze, the bloodthirsty Raoul
Rigault, and the brilliant and scholarly Gus-
tave Flourens will be considered heroic pre-
cursors.
The idea of the Commune was decentral-
38 THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
ization. It was an experiment aiming at a free
and autonomous Paris serving as model for
the other self-governing communes of France,
united merely for their common needs. It
amounted almost to the quasi-independence
of each separate town. But mixed up with
the theorists of the Commune were count-
less anarchist revolutionaries, followers of the
teachings of Blanqui, as well as admirers of
the great Revolution which overthrew the old
regime, and socialists of various types.
The germs of the movement which was to
culminate in the Commune were visible at an
early hour. The dissatisfaction of the Radi-
cals with the moderation of the Government
of National Defence, the riots of October 31
and January 22 were all symptoms of the dis-
content of the proletariat. Indeed, the proc-
lamation of the Republic, on September 4,
was itself an object lesson in illegality to the
malcontents. Organized dissatisfaction began
to centre about the obstreperous and dis-
orderly, but armed and now "federated"
National Guards. Manifestoes signed by self-
appointed committees of plebeian patriots
appeared on the walls of Paris. These com-
THE ADMINISTRATION OF THIERS 3q
mittees finally merged into the "Comite cen-
tral," or were replaced by it. This commit-
tee advocated the trial and imprisonment of
the members of the Government of National
Defence, and protested against the disarma-
ment of the National Guards and the en-
trance of the Germans into Paris.
The Government was almost helpless. The
few regulars left under arms in Paris were of
doubtful reliance, and General d'Aurelle de
Paladines, now in command of the National
Guards, was not obeyed. A certain number of
artillery guns in Paris had been paid for by
popular subscription, and the rumor spread at
one time that these were to be turned over to
the Germans. The populace seized them and
dragged them to different parts of the city.
The Government decided at last to act
boldly and, on March 18, dispatched General
Lecomte with some troops to seize the guns at
Montmartre. But the mob surrounded the
soldiers, and these mutinied and refused to
obey orders to fire, and arrested their own
commander. Later in the day General Le-
comte was shot with General Clement Thomas,
a former commander of the National Guard,
4o THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
who rather thoughtlessly and out of curiosity
had mingled with the crowd and was recog-
nized.
Thus armed forces in Paris were in direct
rebellion. Other outlying quarters had also
sprung into insurrection. M. Thiers, who had
recently arrived from Bordeaux, and the chief
government officials quartered in Paris, with-
drew to Versailles. Paris had to be besieged
again and conquered by force of arms.
In Paris the first elections of the Commune
were held on March 26. On April 3 an armed
sally of the Communards towards Versailles
was repulsed with the loss of some of their
chief leaders, including Flourens. Meanwhile,
the Army of Versailles had been organized
and put under the command of Mac-Mahon.
Discipline was restored and the advance on
Paris began.
As time passed in the besieged city the
saner men were swept into the background
and reckless counsels prevailed. Some of the
military leaders were competent men, such as
Cluseret, who had been a general in the Ameri-
can army during the Civil War, or Rossel, a
trained officer of engineers. But many were
THE ADMINISTRATION OF THIERS 4i
foreign adventurers and soldiers of fortune:
Dombrowski, Wrobleski, La Cecilia. The
civil administration grew into a reproduction
of the worst phases of the Reign of Terror.
Frenzied women egged on destruction and
slaughter, and when at last the national
troops fought their way into the conquered
city, it was amid the flaming ruins of many of
its proudest buildings and monuments.
The siege lasted two months. On May 21,
the Army of Versailles crossed the fortifica-
tions and there foflowed the "Seven Days'
Battle," a street-by-street advance marked
by desperate resistance by the Conmiunards
and bloodthirsty reprisals by the Versaillais.
Civil war is often the most cruel and the Ver-
sailles troops, made up in large part of men
recently defeated by the Germans, were glad
to conquer somebody. Over seventeen thou-
sand were shot down by the victors in this last
week. The French to-day are horrified and
ashamed at the cruel massacres of both sides
and try to forget the Commune. Suffice it here
to say that the last serious resistance was made
in the cemetery of Pere-Lachaise, where those
federes taken arms in hand were lined up
42 THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
against a wall and shot. Countless others,
men, women, and children, herded together
in bands, were tried summarily and either
executed, imprisoned, or deported thousands
of miles away to New Caledonia, until, years
after, in 1879 and 1880, the pacification of re-
sentments brought amnesty to the survivors.^
Fortunately, M. Thiers had more inspiring
tasks to deal with than the repression of the
Commune. One was the liberation of French
soil from German occupation, another the
reorganization of the army. With wonderful
speed and energy the enormous indemnity
was raised and progressively paid, the Ger-
mans simultaneously evacuating sections of
French territory. By March, 1873, France
was in a position to agree to pay the last por-
tion of the war tribute the following Septem-
ber (after the fall of Thiers, as it proved), thus
* The fierceness of hatreds engendered by the Commune may
be illustrated by the following untranslatable comment by Alex-
andre Dumas fils on Gustave Courbet, a famous writer and a
famous painter: " De quel accouplement fabuleux d'une limace et
d'un paon, de quelles antitheses genesiaques, de quel suintement
sebace pent avoir ete generee cette chose qu'on appelle M. Gus-
tave Courbet? Sous quelle cloche, h I'aide de quel fumier, par
suite de quelle mixture de vin, de bidre, de mucus corrosif et
d'oedeme flatulent a pu pousser cette courge sonore et poilue, ce
ventre esthetique, incarnation du moi imbecile et impuissant?"
(Quoted in Fiaux's history of the Commune, pp. 582-83.)
THE ADMINISTRATION OF THIERS 43
ridding its soil of the last German many
months earlier than had been provided for
by the Treaty of Frankfort. The recovery of
France aroused the admiration of the civilized
world, and the anger of Bismarck, sorry not to
have bled the country more. He viewed also
with suspicion the organization of the army
and the law of July, 1872, establishing practi-
cally universal military service. He affected
to see in it France's desire for early revenge
for the loss of Alsace and Lorraine.
M. Thiers, the great leader, did not find his
rule uncontested. Brought into power as the
indispensable man to guide the nation out of
war, his conceit was somewhat tickled and he
wanted to remain necessary. Though over
seventy he had shown the energy and endur-
ance of a man in his prime joined to the wis-
dom and experience of a life spent in public
service and the study of history. Elected by
an anti-Republican Assembly and hunself
originally a Royalist, the formulator also of
the Bordeaux Compact, he began to feel,
nevertheless, in all sincerity that a conserva-
tive republic would be the best government,
and his vanity made him think himself its best
44 THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
leader. This conviction was intensified for a
while by his successful tactics in threatening
to resign, when thwarted, and thus bringing
the Assembly to terms. But he tried the
scheme once too often.
The majority in the Assembly was not, in
fact, anxious to give free rein to Thiers, and
it had wanted to avoid committing itself defi-
nitely to a republic. It wanted also to insure
its own continuation as long as possible, con-
trary to the wishes of advanced Republicans
like Gambetta, who declared that the National
Assembly no longer stood for the expression
of the popular will and should give way to a
real constituent assembly to organize a per-
manent republic.
The first endeavor of the Royalists was to
bring about a restoration of the monarchy.
The princes of the Orleanist branch were re-
admitted to France and restored to their privi-
leges. A fusion between the two branches of
the house of Bourbon was absolutely neces-
sary to accomplish anything. The members
of the younger or constitutionalist Orleans line,
and notably its leader, the comte de Paris,
were disposed to yield to the representative
THE ADMINISTRATION OF THIERS 45
of the legitimist branch, the comte de Gham-
bord. He was an honorable and upright man,
yet one who in statesmanship and religion
was unable to understand anything since the
Revolution. He had not been in France for
over forty years, he was permeated with a re-
ligious mystical belief not only in the divin-
ity of royalty, but in his own position as God-
given (Dieudonne was one of his names) and
the only saviour of France. Moreover, he could
not forgive his cousins the fact that their
great-grandfather had voted for the execution
of Louis XVI. So he treated their advances
haughtily, declined to receive the comte de
Paris, and issued a manifesto to the country
proclaiming his unwillingness to give up the
white flag for the tricolor. Henry V could not
let anybody tear from his hand the white
standard of Henry IV, of Francis I, and of
Jeanne d'Arc.
Such medisevalism dealt the monarchical
cause a crushing blow. The Royalists had al-
ready begun to look askance at M. Thiers and
hinted that his readiness to go on with the Re-
public was a tacit violation of the Bordeaux
Compact. Under the circumstances, however.
46 THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
his sincerity need not be doubted in believing
a republic the only outcome, and his ambition
or vanity may be excused for wishing to con-
tinue its leader. By the Rivet-Vitet measure
of August 31, 1871, M. Thiers, hitherto "chief
of executive power," was called "President
of the French Republic." He was to exercise
his functions so long as the Assembly had not
completed its work and was to be responsible
to the Assembly. Thus the legislative body
elected for an emergency was taking upon
itself constituent authority and was tending
to perpetuate the Republic which the major-
ity disliked.
From this time the tension grew greater
between Thiers and the Assembly, which be-
grudged him the credit for the negotiations
still proceeding, and already mentioned above,
for the evacuation of France by the Germans.
It thwarted the wish of the Republicans to
transfer the seat of the executive and legis-
lature to Paris. Thiers was, indeed, work-
ing away from the Bordeaux Compact and
was advocating a republic, though a conserva-
tive one. This "treachery" the monarchists
could not forgive, though bye-elections were
THE ADMINISTRATION OF THIERS 4?
constantly increasing the Republican mem-
bership. Thiers did not, on the other hand,
welcome the advanced republicanism of Gam-
betta declaring war on clericalism, and pro-
claiming the advent of a new "social stratum"
(une couche sociale nouvelle) for the govern-
ment of the nation.
By the middle of 1872, Thiers was the open
advocate of "la Republique conservatrice,'*
and this gradual transformation of a transi-
tional republic into a permanent one was what
the monarchists could not accept. So they
declared open war on M. Thiers. On Novem-
ber 29, 1872, a committee of thirty was ap-
pointed at Thiers's instigation to regulate the
functions of public authority and the condi-
tions of ministerial responsibility. This was
inevitably another step toward the affirmation
of a permanent republic by the clearer specifi-
cation of governmental attributes. The major-
ity of the committee were hostile to M. Thiers
and were determined to overthrow him. The
Left was also growing dissatisfied with his
opposition to a dissolution. He found it in-
creasingly difficult to ride two horses. The
committee of thirty wished to prevent Thiers
48 THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
from exercising pressure on the Assembly by
intervention in debates and threats to resign.
In February and March, 1873, it proposed
that the President should notify the Assembly
by message of his intention to speak, and the
ensuing discussion was not to take place in
his presence. M. Thiers protested in vain
against this red tape (chinoiseries). The effect
was to drive him more and more from the
Assembly, where his personal influence might
be felt.
The crisis became acute when Jules Grevy,
President of the Assembly, a partisan of Thiers,
resigned his office after a disagreement on
a parliamentary matter. His successor, M.
Buffet, at once rigorously supported the hos-
tile Right. In April an election in Paris
brought into opposition Charles de Remusat,
Minister of Foreign Affairs and personal
friend of Thiers, and Barodet, candidate of
the advanced and disaffected Republicans.
The governmental candidate was defeated.
Encouraged by this the due de Broglie, leader
of the Right, followed up the attack, declar-
ing the Government unable to withstand radi-
calism. In May he made an interpellation on
THE ADMINISTRATION OF THIERS 49
the governmental policy. Thiers invoked his
right of reply and, on May 24, gave a brilliant
defence of his past actions, formulating his
plans for the future organization of the Re-
public. A resolution was introduced by M.
Ernoul, censuring the Government and call-
ing for a rigidly conservative policy. The
government was put in the minority by a close
vote and M. Thiers forthwith resigned. The
victors at once chose as his successor the can-
didate of the Rights, the marechal de Mac-
Mahon, due de Magenta, the defeated general
of Sedan, a brave and upright man, but a
novice in politics and statecraft. He declared
his intention of pursuing a conservative pol-
icy and of re-establishing and maintaining
"I'ordre moral."
CHAPTER IV
THE ADMINISTRATION OF THE MARECHAL DE
MAC-MAHON
May, 1873, to January, 1879
"L'oRDRE MORAL,'* such WQS the political
catchword of the new administration. Just
what it meant was not very clear. In general,
however, it was obviously intended to imply
resistance to radicalism (republicanism) and
the maintenance of a strictly conservative
policy, strongly tinged with clericalism.^ The
victors over M. Thiers had revived their desire
of a monarchical restoration and many of
them hoped that the marechal de Mac-Mahon
would shortly make way for the comte de
Chambord. But though an anti-republican he
was never willing to lend himself to any really
illegal or dishonest manoeuvres, and his sense
of honor was of great help to him in his want
of political competence. So he did not prove
the pliant tool of his creators, and his term
^ Clericalism does not imply political activity on the part of
the clergy alone, but quite as much of laymen strongly in favor
of the Church.
EDME-PATRICE-MAURICE MACMAHOX
THE ADMINISTRATION OF MAG-MAHON 5i
of office saw the definite establishment of the
RepubUc.
The first Cabinet was led by the due de
BrogUe who took the portfoho of Foreign
Affairs. The new Government was viewed
askance by the conquerors at BerHn, who dis-
liked such an orderly transmission of powers
as an indication of national recovery and sta-
bility. Bismarck even exacted new credentials
from the French Ambassador. Meanwhile,
the Minister of the Interior, Beule, proceeded
to consolidate the authority of the new Cabi-
net by numerous changes in the prefects of
the departments, turning out the "rascals"
of Thiers's administration to make room for
appointees more amenable to new orders.
The time now seemed ripe for another effort
to establish the monarchy under the comte
de Chambord. It culminated in the "monar-
chical campaign" of October, 1873. The mo-
narchical sympathizers were hand-in-glove
with the Clericals and for the most part coin-
cided with them. The Royalists were inevita-
bly clerical if for no other reason than that
monarchy and religion both seemed to involve
continuity, and the legitimacy of the mon-
52 THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
archy had always been blessed by the Church.
The revolutionary Rights of Man were held
to be inconsistent with the traditional Rights
of God and the monarchy. Moreover, the
founders of the third republic had, with note-
worthy exceptions like the devout Trochu,
been mildly anti-clerical. They were for the
most part religious liberals and deists, rarely
atheists, but that was enough to array the
bishops, like monseigneur Pie of Poitiers,
against them. Indeed, a quick religious re-
vival swept over the land, as was shown by
numerous pilgrimages, including one to Paray-
le-Monial, home of the cult of the Sacred
Heart. France herself should be consecrated
to the Sacred Heart, and the idea was evolved,
afterwards carried out, of the erection of the
great votive basilica of the Sacre Goeur on the
heights of Montmartre.
The first step toward the restoration of
"Henry V" was to persuade the comte de
Paris to make new efforts for a fusion of
the two branches. Swallowing his pride, the
comte de Paris generously went to the home
of the comte de Ghambord at Frohsdorf, in
Austria, in August, and paid his respects to
THE ADMINISTRATION OF MAC-MAHON 53
him as head of the family. As the comte de
Chambord had no children, it was expected
that the comte de Paris would be his successor.
But the old difficulty about the white flag
cropped up, and the comte de Chambord
stubbornly refused to rule over a country
above which waved the revolutionary tricolor.
Matters dragged on through the summer,
during the parliamentary recess, and the con-
servative leaders were outspoken as to their
plans to overthrow the Republic. It was
hoped that some compromise might be reached
by which could be reconciled, as to the flag,
the desires of the Assembly which was ex-
pected to recall the pretender and those of the
comte de Chambord who considered his di-
vinely inspired will superior to that of the
representatives of the people. It was suggested
that the question of the flag might be settled
after his accession to the throne. The embassy
.to Salzburg, in October, of M. Chesnelong,
an emissary of a committee of nine of the
Royalist leaders, achieved only a half-success,
but left matters sufTiciently indeterminate to
encourage them in continuing their plans.
Matters seemed progressing swimmingly when,
54 THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
on October 27, an unexpected letter from
the pretender to M. Chesnelong categorically
declared that nothing would induce him to
sacrifice the white banner.
The effect of this letter was to make all
hopes of a restoration impossible. Every-
body knew that the majority of Frenchmen
would never give up their flag for the white
one, whether this were dignified by the name
of "standard of Arques and Ivry," or whether
one called it irreverently a "towel," as did
Pope Pius IX, impatient at the obstinacy
of the comte de Chambord. In the midst of
the general confusion only one thing seemed
feasible if governmental anarchy were to be
avoided, namely, the prorogation of Mac-
Mahon's authority, as a rampart against ris-
ing democracy and a permanent republic.
This condition the Orleanist Right Centre
turned to their advantage. By a vote of No-
vember 20, the executive power was conferred
for a definite period of seven years on the
marechal de Mac-Mahon. Thus a head of the
nation was provided who might perhaps out-
last the Assembly. The vote might be inter-
preted either as the beginning of a permanent
THE ADMINISTRATION OF MAC-MAHON 55
republican regime, as it proved to be, or as the
establishment of a definite interlude in antici-
pation of a new attempt to set up a mon-
archy, this time to the advantage of the
younger branch. Many hoped that the comte
de Chambord would soon be dead, his white
flag forgotten, and the way open to the comte
de Paris. The Orleanists were pleased by this
latter idea, the Republicans were glad to have
the republican regime recognized for, at any
rate, seven years to come, accompanied by
the promise of a constitutional commission of
thirty members. The Legitimists alone were
disappointed, and, oblivious of the fact that
the comte de Chambord had lost through his
folly, they were before long ready to vent their
wrath on Mac-Mahon and his adviser, the
due de Broglie, who was responsible for the
presidential prorogation.
The pretender had been completely taken
aback at the impression produced by his let-
ter. Convinced of his divinely inspired omni-
science, and certain that he was the foreor-
dained ruler of France, he had thought that
the Assembly would give way on the question
of the flag, or that the army would follow him,
56 THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
or that Mac-Mahon would yield. His state
coach had been made ready and a military
uniform awaited him at a tailor's. He has-
tened in secret to Versailles, where he re-
mained for a while in retirement to watch
events, and where Mac-Mahon refused to see
him. Then, after the vote on the presidency,
he sadly returned into exile forever.
Never was a greater service done to France
than when the comte de Chambord refused to
give up his flag. Completely out of touch with
the country through a life spent in exile, in-
spired with the feeling of his divine rights and
their superiority to the will of democracy, he
would scarcely have ascended the throne be-
fore some conflict would have broken out and
the history of France would have registered
one revolution more.
The due de Broglie had considered it good
form to resign after the vote of November 20,
but Mac-Mahon immediately entrusted to
him the selection of a second Cabinet. In this
Cabinet the portfolio of Foreign Affairs was
given to the due Decazes, a skilled diplomat,
but the Legitmiists were offended by some of
the cabinet changes and their dislike of the
THE ADMINISTRATION OF MAC-MAHON 57
due de Broglie gradually became more acute.
Finally, after several months of parliamen-
tary skirmishing the second Broglie Cabinet
fell before a coalition vote of Republicans and
extreme Royalists with a few Bonapartists,
on May 16, 1874. The Right Centre and Left
Centre had unsuccessfully joined in support
of the Cabinet. The nation was taking an-
other step toward republican control and the
overthrow of the conservatives.
From now on, Mac-Mahon's task became
increasingly difficult. After the split in the
conservative majority it was necessary to rely
on combination ministries, representing differ-
ent sets and harder to reconcile or to propitiate.
The result of Mac-Mahon's first efforts was a
Cabinet led by a soldier. General de Cissey,
and having no pronounced political tendencies.
Party differences were becoming accentu-
ated. The downfall of the Broglie Cabinet had
been largely due to the extreme Royalists and
the Orleanists could not forgive them. The
situation was made worse by differences in
interpretation of the law of November 20,
establishing the "septennat" of the marechal
de Mac-Mahon. Some of the Monarchists
58 THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
maintained the "septennat personnel," namely,
the election of one specific person to hold office
for seven years, with the idea that he could
withdraw at any time in favor of a king.
Others interpreted the law as establishing a
"septennat impersonnel," a definite truce of
seven years, which should still hold even if
Mac-Mahon had to be replaced before the
expiration of the time by another President.
Then, they hoped, their enemy Thiers would
be dead. The Republicans were, of course,
desirous of making the impersonal "septen-
nat" lead to a permanent republic, and de-
clared that Mac-Mahon was not the President
of a seven years' republic, but President, for
seven years, of the Republic.
In this state of affairs the Bonapartists now
became somewhat active again. Strangely
enough, the disasters of 1870 were already
growing sufficiently remote for some of the
anti-Republicans to turn again to the prospect
of empire. This menace frightened the mod-
erate Royalists into what they had kept hesi-
tating to do; that is to say, into spurring to
activity the purposely inactive and dilatory
constitutional commission.
THE ADMINISTRATION OF MAC-MAHON 69
The stumbling-block was the recognition of
the Republic itself and the admission that the
form of government existing in France was to
be permanent. There was much parliamentary
skirmishing over various plans, rejected one
after the other, inclining in turn toward the
Republic and a monarchy. Finally, some of
the Monarchists, discouraged by the rising
tide of "radicalism," and frightened lest un-
willingness to accept a conservative republic
now might result still worse for them in the
future, rallied in support of the motion of M.
Wallon, known as the "amendement Wallon,"
which was adopted by a vote of 353 to 352
(January, 1875): "The President of the Re-
public is elected by absolute majority of votes
by the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies
united as a National Assembly. He is chosen
for seven years and is re-eligible."
In this vote the fateful statement was made
concerning the election of a President other
than Mac-Mahon and the transmission of
power in a republic. The third Republic re-
ceived its definite consecration by a majority
of one vote.
The vote on the Wallon amendment dealt
6o THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
with only one article of a project not yet voted
as a whole, but it was the crossing of the Rub-
icon. The other articles were adopted by in-
creased majorities.
The Ministry of General de Cissey had al-
ready resigned upon a minor question, but had
held over at the President's request. Mac-
Mahon now asked the Monarchist M. Buffet
to form a conservative conciliation Cabinet,
which was made up ahnost entirely from the
Right Centre (Orleanists) and the Left Centre
(moderate Republicans) and accepted at first
by the Republican Left. By this Cabinet still
one more step was taken toward Republican
preponderance.
During the Buffet Ministry three impor-
tant matters occupied public attention. One
was the completion of the new constitution.
A second was the creation of "free" universi-
ties, not under control of the State. This
step was advocated in the name of intellectual
freedom, but the whole scheme was backed
by the Catholics and merely resulted in the
creation of Catholic faculties in several great
cities. A third matter was the intense anxiety
over the prospect of a rupture with Germany.
THE ADMINISTRATION OF MAC-MAHON 6i
Bismarck was renewing his policy of pin-pricks.
The French army had been strengthened by
a battalion to every regiment, and so Bismarck
complained of the strictures of French and Bel-
gian bishops on his anti-papal policy. Whether
he only meant to humiliate France still more,
or whether he actually desired a new rupture
so as to crush the country finally, is not clear.
At any rate, with the aid of England and es-
pecially of Russia, France showed that she
was not helpless, and Bismarck protested that
he was absolutely friendly.
By the close of 1875, the measures consti-
tuting the new Government had been voted
and, on December 31, the Assembly, which
had governed France since the Franco-Prus-
sian War, was dissolved to make way for the
new legislature. During the succeeding elec-
tions M. Buffet's Cabinet, antagonized by the
Republicans and rent by internal dissensions,
went to pieces. M. Buffet personally suffered
disastrously at the polls. The slate was clear
for a totally new organization. The Assembly
had done many a good service, but its dilatori-
ness in establishing a permanent government,
its ingratitude to M. Thiers, its clericalism,
62 THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
and its stubbornness in trying to foist a king
on the people made it pass away unregretted
by a country which had far outstripped it in
republicanism.
The "Constitution of 1875," under which,
with some modifications, France is still gov-
erned, is not a single document constructed
a priori, like the Constitution of the United
States. It was partly the result of the evolu-
tion of the National Assembly itself, partly
the result of compromises and dickerings be-
tween hostile groups. Particularly, it expressed
the jealousy of a monarchical assembly for a
President of a republic, and the desire, there-
fore, to keep power in the hands of its own leg-
islative successor. The Assembly took it for
granted that the Chamber of Deputies would
have the same opinions as itself. As a matter
of fact, the political complexion of the legis-
lature has been consistently toward radical-
ism, and the result has hindered a strong exec-
utive and promoted legislative demagogy.
The Constitution of 1875 may be considered
as consisting of the Constitutional Law of
February 25, relating to the organization of
the pubHc powers (President, Senate, Cham-
THE ADMINISTRATION OF MAC-MAHON 63
ber of Deputies, Ministers, etc.); the Con-
stitutional Law of the previous day, Febru-
ary 24, relating to the organization of the
Senate; the Constitutional Law of July 16,
on the relations of the public powers. Subsi-
diary "organic laws" voted later determined
the procedure for the election of Senators and
Deputies. The vote of February 25 was the
crucial one in the definite establishment of
the Republican regime. The Constitution has
undergone certain slight modifications since
its adoption.
By the Constitution of 1875 the government
of the French Republic was vested in a Sen-
ate and a Chamber of Deputies. The Senate
consisted of 300 members, of whom 75 were
chosen for life by the expiring Assembly, their
successors to be elected by co-optation in the
Senate itself. The other 225, chosen for nine
years and renewable by thirds, were to be
elected by a method of indirect selection. In
1884, the choice of life Senators ceased and
the seats, as they fell vacant, have been dis-
tributed among the Departments of the coun-
try. The Deputies were elected by universal
suffrage for a period of four years. Unless a
64 THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
candidate obtained an absolute majority of
the votes cast, the election was void, and a
new one was necessary. Except during the
period from 1885 to 1889, the Deputies have
represented districts determined, unless for
densely populated ones, by the administra-
tive arrondissements. From 1885 to 1889, the
scrutin de liste was in operation: the whole
Department voted on a ticket containing as
many names as there were arrondissements.
The prerogatives of the two houses were iden-
tical except that financial measures were to
originate in the Chamber of Deputies. As a
matter of fact, the Senate has fallen into the
background, and the habit of considering the
vote of the Chamber rather than that of the
Senate as important in a change of Ministry
has made it the true source of government
in France. The two houses met at Versailles
until 1879; since then Paris has been the cap-
ital, except for the election of a President.
After separate decision by each house to do
so, or the request of the President, they could
meet in joint assembly as a Constitutional
Convention to revise the constitution.
The Senate and Chamber, united in joint
THE ADMINISTRATION OF MAC-MAHON 65
session as a National Assembly, were to choose
a President for a definite term of seven years,
not to fill out an incomplete term vacated
by another President. The President could be
re-elected. With the consent of the Senate
he could dissolve the Chamber, but this re-
striction made the privilege almost inopera-
tive in practice. He was irresponsible, the
nominal executive and figurehead of the State,
but all his acts had to be countersigned by
a responsible Minister, by which his initiative
was greatly reduced. In fact the President
had really less power than a constitutional
king.
The real executive authority was in the
hands of the Cabinet, headed by a Premier or
President du conseil} The Ministry was re-
sponsible to the Senate and Chamber (in
practice, as we have seen, to the Chamber),
and was expected to resign as a whole if put
by a vote in the minority. By custom the
President selects the Premier from the major-
ity and the latter selects his colleagues in the
Cabinet, trying to make them representatives
* Before the Constitution of 1875, the Premier was only vice-
president du conseil.
66 THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
of the wishes of the Parhament. The French
RepubUc is therefore managed by a parlia-
mentary government.
The first elections under the new constitu-
tion resulted very much as might be expected :
the Senate became in personnel the true suc-
cessor of the Assembly, the Chamber of
Deputies contained most of the new men. The
Senate was conservative and monarchical,
the Chamber was republican. Therefore, the
President of the Republic entrusted the for-
mation of a Ministry to M. Jules Dufaure, of
the Left Centre, the views of which group
differed hardly at all from those of the Right
Centre, except in a full acceptance of the new
conditions. Unfortunately, M. Dufaure found
it impossible to ride two horses at once and to
satisfy both the conservative Senate and the
majority in the Chamber of more advanced
Republicans than himself. He mistrusted the
Republican leader Gambetta, though the
latter was now far more moderate, and he
sympathized too much with the Clericals to
suit the new order of things. So his Cabinet
resigned (December 2, 1876), less than nine
months after its appointment, and the mare-
THE ADMINISTRATION OF MAC-MAHON 67
chal de Mac-Mahon felt it necessary, very
much against his will, to call to power Jules
Simon. He had previously tried unsuccess-
fully to form a Cabinet from the Right Centre
under the due de Broglie.
The due de Broglie remained, however, the
power behind the throne. The President was
under the political advice of the conservative
set, whose firm conviction he shared, that the
new Republic was advancing headlong into
irreligion. The course of political events now
took on a strong religious flavor. Jules Simon
was a liberal, which was considered a misfor-
tune, though he announced himself now as
"deeply republican and deeply conservative.'*
But people knew his unfriendly relations with
Gambetta, which dated from 1871, when he
checkmated the dictator at Bordeaux. It was
hoped that open dissension might break out
in the Republican party which would justify
measures tending to a conservative reaction,
and help tide over the time until 1880. Then
the constitution might be revised at the ex-
piration of Mac-Mahon's term and the mon-
archy perhaps restored.
Gambetta was, however, now a very differ-
68 THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
ent man. Discarding his former unbending
radicalism, he was now the advocate of the
*'pohtical poUcy of results," or opportunism, a
method of conciliation, of compromise, and
of waiting for the favorable opportunity.
This was to be, henceforth, the policy closely
connected with his name and fame. So Jules
Simon soon was sacrificed.
The efforts of the Clerical party bore chiefly
in two directions: control of education and
advocacy of increased papal authority, par-
ticularly of the temporal power of the Pope,
dispossessed of his states a few years before
by the Government of Victor Emmanuel.
This latter course could only tend to embroil
France with Italy. So convinced was Gam-
betta of the unwise and disloyal activities
of the Ultramontanes that on May 4, in a
speech to the Chamber, he uttered his famous
cry: "Le clericalisme, voila I'ennemi!"
Jules Simon found himself in a very difficult
position. Desirous of conciliating Mac-Mahon
and his clique, he adopted a policy somewhat
at variance with his former liberal religious
views. On the other hand, he could not satis-
fy the President, who had always disliked him,
THE ADMINISTRATION OF MAC-MAHON 69
or those who had determined upon his over-
throw. The crisis came on May 16, 1877,
when Mac-Mahon, taking advantage of some
very minor measures, wrote a haughty and
indignant letter to Jules Simon, to say that
the Minister no longer had his confidence.
Jules Simon, backed up by a majority in the
Chamber, could very well have engaged in a
constitutional struggle with Mac-Mahon, but
he rather weakly resigned the next day.^ Thus
was opened the famous conflict known in
French history, from its date, as the *'Seize-
Mai."
No sooner was Jules Simon out of the way
than Mac-Mahon appointed a reactionary
coalition Ministry of Orleanists and Imperial-
ists headed by the due de Broglie, and held
apparently ready in waiting. The Ministers
were at variance on many political questions,
but united as to clericalism. The plan was to
dissolve the Republican Chamber with the
co-operation of the anti-Republican Senate,
in the hope that a new election, under official
^ The Chamber, on May 12, had expressed itself in favor of the
publicity of meetings of municipal councils, during the absence
of the Minister of the Interior. On May i5, it had passed the
second reading of a law, opposed by Jules Simon, on the freedom
of the press.
70 THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
pressure, would result in a monarchical lower
house also. The Chamber of Deputies was
therefore prorogued until June 16 and then
dissolved. At the meeting of May 18, the
Republicans presented a solid front of 363 in
their protest against the high-handed action
of the marechal de Mac-Mahon.
The new Cabinet began by a wholesale re-
vocation of administrative officials throughout
the country, and spent the summer in unblush-
ing advocacy of its candidates. Those favored
by the Government were so indicated and
their campaign manifestoes were printed on
official white paper. ^ The Republicans united
their forces to support the re-election of the
363 and gave charge of their campaign to a
committee of eighteen under the inspiring
leadership of Gambetta. In a great speech at
Lille, Gambetta declared that the President
would have to "give in or give up"(5e sou-
metire ou se demettre), for which crime of lese-
majeste he was condemned by default to fine
and imprisonment. In September, Thiers,
the great leader of the early Republic, died,
and his funeral was made the occasion of
1 In France only official posters may be printed on white paper.
LfeON GAMBETTA
THE ADMINISTRATION OF MAC-MAHON 71
a great manifestation of Republican unity.
Finally, in spite of governmental pressure and
the pulpit exhortations of the clergy, the elec-
tions in October resulted in a new Republican
Chamber. The reactionary Cabinet was face
to face with as firm an opposition as before.
The due de Broglie, in view of this crushing
defeat, was ready to withdraw, and Mac-
Mahon, after some hesitation, accepted his
resignation. Mac-Mahon's own fighting blood
was up, however, and he tried the experiment
of an extra-parliamentary Ministry led by
General de Rochebouet, the members of
which were conservatives without seats in
Parliament. But the Chamber refused to enter
into relations with it, and as the budget was
pressing and the Senate was not disposed to
support a second dissolution, Mac-Mahon
had to submit and the Rochebouet Cabinet
withdrew.
Thus ended Mac-Mahon's unsuccessful
attempt to exert his personal power. The
Seize-Mai has sometimes been likened to an
abortive coup d'etat. The parallel is hardly
justifiable. Mac-Mahon would have welcomed
a ret^irn of the monarchy at the end of his term
72 THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
of office, but he intended to remain faithful
to the constitution, however much he might
strain it or interpret it under the advice of his
Clerical managers, and though he might have
been willing to use troops to enforce his wishes.
One unfortunate result ensued: the crisis left
the Presidency still more weak. Any repeti-
tion of Mac-Mahon's experiment of dissolv-
ing the Chamber would revive accusations
against one of his successors of attempting a
coup d'etat. There have been times when the
country would have welcomed the dissolu-
tion by a strong President of an incompe-
tent Chamber. Unfortunately, Mac-Mahon
stood for the reactionaries against the Repub-
lic. His course of action would be a dangerous
precedent.
The new order of things was marked by the
advent of another Dufaure Ministry, very
moderate in tendency, but acceptable to the
majority. Most of the high-handed doings
of the Broglie Cabinet were revoked, much
to the disgust of Mac-Mahon, who frequently
lost his temper when obliged to sign documents
of which he disapproved. Finally, in Janu-
ary, 1879, in a controversy with his Cabinet
THE ADMINISTRATION OF MAC-MAHON 78
over some military transfers, Mac-Mahon re-
signed, over a year before the expiration of
his term of ofTice. Moreover, at the recent
elections to the Senate the Republicans had
obtained control of even that body. Thus he
was alone, with both houses and the Minis-
try against him.
In spite of the unfortunate endless internal
dissensions, France made great strides in
national recovery during the Presidency of
Mac-Mahon. His rank and military title gave
prestige to the Republic in presence of the dip-
lomats of European monarchies, the German
crisis of 1875 showed that Bismarck was not
to have a free hand in crushing France, the
participation of France in the Congress of
Berlin enabled the country to take a place
again among the European Powers. Finally,
the International Exhibition of 1878 was an
invitation to the world to witness the recovery
of France from her disasters and to testify to
her right to lead again in art and industry.
The Presidency of Mac-Mahon shows the
desperate efforts of the Monarchists to over-
throw the Republic, and then to control it
in view of an ultimate Restoration, either
74 THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
by obstructing the vote of a constitution or
by hindering its operation. Throughout, the
Monarchists and the Clericals work together
or are identical. The end of his term of office
found the whole Government in the hands of
the Republicans.
CHAPTER V
THE ADMINISTRATION OF JULES GREW
January, 1879, to December, 1887
The resignation of the marechal de Mac-
Mahon was followed by the immediate gath-
ering, in accordance with the constitution, of
the National Assembly, which chose as Presi-
dent for seven years Jules Grevy. The new
chief magistrate, elected without a competitor,
was already seventy-two, and had in his long
career won the reputation of a dignified and
sound statesman, in whose hands public
affairs might be entrusted with absolute
safety. He represented a step beyond the
military and aristocratic regime which had
preceded him. The embodiment of the old
bourgeoisie, he had, along with its qualities,
some of its defects. Eminently cautious, his
statesmanship had been at times a non-com-
mittal reserve more than constructive genius.
His parsimony soon caused people to accuse
him of unduly saving his salary and state al-
lowances, while his personal dislikes led him
76 THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
to err grievously in his choice of advisers, or
rather in his elimination of Gambetta, to whom
circumstances now pointed.
Jules Grevy hated Gambetta, undeniably
the leading figure in the Republican party
since the death of Thiers, and neglected to
entrust to him the formation of a Cabinet.
Thiers himself had shown greater wisdom. He,
too, had disliked the raging and apparently
futile volubility of the young tribune during
the Franco-Prussian War, but Thiers got over
calling Gambetta a "fou furieux." On the
contrary, just after the Seize-Mai and before
his own death, when Thiers was expecting to
return to the Presidency as successor to a dis-
credited Mac-Mahon, he had intended to make
Gambetta the head of his Cabinet. For Gam-
betta with maturity had become more mod-
erate. Instead of drastic political remedies
he was gradually evolving, as already stated,
the policy of "Opportunism" so closely linked
with his name, the method of gradual advance
by concessions and compromises, by taking ad-
vantage of occasions and making one's general
policy conform with opportunity.
If Gambetta, as leader of the majority group
THE ADMINISTRATION OF GREVY 77
in the Republican party, which had evicted
Mac-Mahon, had become Prime Minister, it
is conceded that the precedent would have
been set by the new administration for parlia-
mentary government with a true party leader-
ship, as in Great Britain. Instead, Grevy en-
trusted the task of forming a Ministry to an
upright' but colorless leader named Wadding-
ton, at the head of a composite Cabinet, more
moderate in policy than Gambetta, who became
presiding officer of the Chamber of Deputies.
The consequence was that, after lasting less
than a year, it gave way to another Cabinet
led by the great political trimmer Freycinet,^
until in due time it was in turn succeeded by
the Ministry of Jules Ferry in September, 1880.
It must not be inferred that nothing was
accomplished by the Waddington and Frey-
cinet Ministries. Indeed, Jules Ferry, the
chief Republican next to Gambetta, was him-
self a member of these two Cabinets before
leading his own.
* Gambetta's former assistant during the national defence
after the first disasters; a brilliant organizer, but in general pol-
icy a nolonte, to use the term Gambetta coined about him on the
basis of the word volonle. As Minister of Public Works he ini-
tiated at this period great improvements in the interned develop-
ment of France, especially in the railways.
78 THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
The lining-up of Republican groups, as
opposed to the Monarchists, under the new
administration was: the Left Centre, com-
posed as in the past of ultra-conservative
Republicans, constantly diminishing numeri-
cally; the Republican Left, which followed
Jules Ferry; the Republican Union of Gam-
betta; and, finally, the radical Extreme Left,
which had taken for itself many of the ad-
vanced measures advocated by Gambetta
when he had been a radical. One of its leaders
was Georges Clemenceau. Between the two
large groups of Ferry and Gambetta there was
little difference in ideals, but Gambetta was
now the Opportunist and Ferry made his own
Gambetta's old battle-cry against clericalism.
The Chamber elected after the Seize-Mai
was by reaction markedly anti-Clerical, and
the Waddington Cabinet, to begin with, con-
tained three Protestants and a freethinker.
Obviously steps would soon be taken to defeat
the "enemy." In this movement Jules Ferry
was from the beginning a leader, by direct
action as well as by the educational reforms
which he carried out as Minister of Public
Instruction. Jules Ferry became, more than
JULES FERRY
THE ADMINISTRATION OF GREVY 79
Gambetta, the great bugbear of the Clericals
and the author of the "lois scelerates."
During the Waddington Ministry Jules
Ferry began his efforts for the reorganization
of superior instruction, and among his meas-
ures carried through the Chamber of Deputies
the notorious "Article 7" indirectly aimed at
Jesuit influence in secondary teaching as well:
*'No person can direct any public or private
establishment whatsoever or teach therein if
he belongs to an unauthorized order." The
Jesuits had at that time no legal footing in
France, but were openly tolerated. The Sen-
ate rejected this article under the Freycinet
Ministry and the law was finally adopted
thus apparently weakened. But Jules Ferry,
nothing daunted, immediately put into opera-
tion the no less notorious decrees of March,
1880, reviving older laws going back even to
1762, which had long since fallen into disuse.
By these decrees the Jesuit establishments
were to be closed and the members dispersed
within three months. Moreover, every un-
authorized order was, under penalty of ex-
pulsion, to apply for authorization within a
like limit of time. The expulsion of the Jesuits
8o THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
was carried out with a certain spectacular dis-
play of passive resistance on the part of those
evicted. Later in the year similar steps were
taken against many other organizations.
It is evident from the above that the promo-
tion of educational reform under Republican
control was definitely connected with meas-
ures directed against clerical domination. The
French Catholic Church, on its part, treated
every attempt toward laicization as a form of
persecution. But Jules Ferry unhesitatingly
extended his policy when he became Prime
Minister. His measures were genuinely neu-
tral, but his reputation as a Voltairian free-
thinker and a freemason inevitably afforded
his opponents an excuse for their charges.
Jules Ferry's reforms in education, extend-
ing over several Cabinet periods as late as
1882, included secondary education for girls,
and free, obligatory, lay, primary instruction.
To Americans accustomed to such methods of
education it is difficult to conceive the strug-
gles of Jules Ferry and his assistant on the
floor of the House, Paul Bert, in carrying
through these measures for the training of the
democracy.
THE ADMINISTRATION OF GREVY 8i
In foreign affairs Jules Ferry inaugurated a
more active policy symptomatic of the return
of France to participation in international
matters. At the Congress of Berlin, France
had avoided entanglements, but, even at that
early period, Lord Salisbury had hinted to
M. Waddington, present as French delegate,
that no interference would be made by Eng-
land, were France to advance claims in Tunis.
This suggestion came, perhaps, originally from
Bismarck, who was not averse to embroiling
France with Italy. That country longed for
Tunis so conveniently situated near Sicily.
England, moreover, was probably not desirous
of seeing the Italians thus strategically en-
sconced in the Mediterranean.
In 1881, financial manoeuvres and the plun-
dering expeditions into Algeria of border
tribes called Kroumirs afforded a pretext for
intervention, to the indignation of Italy, which
was thus more than ever inclined to seek al-
liances against France, even with Germany.
Here, indeed, was the germ of the Triple
Alliance. An easy advance to Tunis forced the
Bey to accept a French protectorate by the
Treaty of the Bardo on May 12, 1881. Later in
82 THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
the year the situation became rather serious,
and new and rather costly miUtary operations
became necessary, including the occupation
of Sfax, Gabes, and Kairouan.
Thus France came into possession of valu-
able territories, but at the cost of Italian in-
dignation. Moreover, Jules Ferry, who was
always one of the most hated of party leaders
in his own country, reaped no advantage to
himself. His enemies affected to believe that
the whole Tunisian war was a game of capi-
talists, or was planned for effect upon elections
to the new Chamber. The boulevards refused
to take the Kroumirs seriously and joked about
"Cherchez le Kroumir." Finally, on Novem-
ber 9, 1881, the personal intervention of Gam-
betta before the newly elected Chamber of
Deputies saved the Cabinet on a vote of con-
fidence. Jules Ferry none the less determined
to resign, and Gambetta, in spite of Grevy's
aversion, was the inevitable man for the for-
mation of a new Cabinet.
Gambetta's great opportunity had come
too late to be effective. The undoubted leader
of the Republic, he had grown in statesman-
ship since his early days, but was still hated
THE ADMINISTRATION OF GREVY 83
by men like Grevy who could not get over their
old prejudices. Then the advanced radicals,
or intransigeants, thought him a traitor to his
old platforms or programmes.^ They blamed
his Opportunism and said that he wanted
power without responsibility. Gambetta's ene-
mies, whether the due de Broglie or Clemen-
ceau, talked of his secret influence (pouvoir
occulie), and accused him of aspiring to a dic-
tatorship, in fact if not in name. Their sus-
picions were somewhat deepened by Gam-
betta's ardent advocacy of the scrutin de liste
instead of the existing scrutin d^arrondisse-
ment.^
It was asserted that Gambetta wanted to
diminish the independence of local represen-
tation and marshal behind himself a subser-
vient majority. To Gambetta the scrutin de
liste was the truly republican form of repre-
sentation, the one existing under the Na-
^ Especially as to the unlimited revision of the constitution and
the immediate separation of Church and State.
2 Gambetta's contempt for the parochialism of the elections
by district was great. He felt that departmental tickets would
favor the choice of better men. One must remember how large a
proportion of the French Deputies are physicians to appreciate
the scorn of Gambetta's saying that the scrutin d'arrondissement
produced a lot of sous-veterinaires, that is, men who were not even
decent "horse-doctors."
84 THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
tional Assembly and abolished by the reac-
tionaries under the new constitution.
Thus, Gambetta had against him, during
the campaign for renewal of the Chamber of
Deputies in the summer of 1881, not only the
anti-Republicans but also timid liberals like
Jules Simon, the influence of President Grevy,
and the intransigeants. The Senate was averse
to the scrutin de liste and rejected, in the spring
of 1881, the measure which Gambetta carried
through the Chamber. Gambetta, formerly
the idol of the working classes of Paris, met
with opposition, was hooted in one of his own
political rallies, and was re-elected on the first
ballot in one only of the two districts in which
he was a candidate.
The elections of the Chamber of 1881 re-
sulted in a strongly Republican body, in which,
however, the majority subdivided into groups.
Gambetta's "Union republicaine" was the
most numerous, followed by Ferry's ''Gauche
republicaine," and the extremists. A certain
fraction of Gambetta's group, including Henri
Brisson and Charles Floquet, also tended to
stick together. They were the germ of what
became in time the great Radical party.
THE ADMINISTRATION OF GREVY 85
It had been hoped that Gambetta would
bring into his Cabinet all the other leaders of
his party, and at last form a great governing
ministry. But men like Leon Say and Frey-
cinet refused their collaboration because of
divergence of views or personal pride. Gam-
betta then decided to pick his collaborators
from his immediate friends and partisans,
some of whom had yet a reputation to make.
The anticipated "Great Ministry" turned
out to be, its opponents said, a "ministere
de commis," a cabinet of clerks. The fact that
it contained men like Waldeck-Rousseau,
Raynal, and Rouvier showed, however, that
Gambetta could discover ability in others.
But it was declared that the "dictator" was
marshalling his henchmen. The extremists,
especially, were furious because Gambetta
also magnanimously gave important posts to
non-Republicans like General de Miribel and
the journalist J.-J. Weiss.
The "Great Ministry" remained in office
two months and a half and came to grief on
the proposed revision of the constitution, in
which Gambetta wished to incorporate the
scrutin de liste. In January, 1882, it had to
86 THE THIRD FRENCH REPURLIC
resign and Gambetta died on the last day of
the same year. Thus, the third Republic lost
its leading statesman since the death of Thiers.
The year 1882 was filled by the two ineffec-
tive Cabinets of Freycinet (second time) and
of Duclerc. Under the former, France made
the mistake, injurious to her interests and
prestige, of withdrawing from the Egyptian
condominium with Great Britain and allowing
the latter country free play for the conquest
and occupation of Egypt. Thus the fruits of
De Lesseps' piercing of the Isthmus of Suez
went definitely to England. The death of
Gambetta under the Duclerc-Fallieres Min-
istry ^ seemed to reawaken the hopes of the
anti-Republicans, and Jerome Napoleon, chief
Bonapartist pretender since the decease of the
Prince Imperial, issued a manifesto against
the Republic. Parliament fell into a ludicrous
panic, various contradictory measures were
proposed, and in the general confusion the
Cabinet fell after an adverse vote.
In this contingency President Gre"\v did
what he should have done before, and called
to office the leading statesman. This was now
^ M. Fallieres took the place of Duclerc as President of the
Council during the last days.
THE ADMINISTRATION OF GREIVY 87
Jules Ferry. At last France had an adminis-
tration which lasted a little over two years.
But Ferry was still intensely unpopular. He
had become the successor of Gambetta and
the exponent of the policy of Opportunism,
which he tried to carry out with even more
constructive statesmanship. But he was to-
tally wanting in Gambetta's magnetism, and
his domineering ways made him hated the
more. The Clericals opposed him as the ''per-
secutor" of the Catholic religion, and the Rad-
icals thought he did not go far enough in his
hostility to the Church. For Jules Ferry saw
that the times were not ripe for disestablish-
ment, and that the system of the Concordat, in
vogue since Napoleon I, really gave the State
more control over the Clergy than it would have
in case of separation. The State would lose
its power in appointments and salaries. Jules
Ferry knew that the Church could be useful
to him, and the politic Leo XIII, very differ-
ent from Pius IX, was ready to meet him part
way, though the Pope himself had to humor
to a certain extent the hostility to the Repub-
lic of the French Monarchists and Clericals.
Jules Ferry, like Gambetta, also had to put
88 THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
up with the veiled hostihty of President Grevy,
working in ParUament through the intrigues
of his son-in-law Wilson. Moreover, Ferry
was made to bear the odium for a long period
of financial depression, which had lasted
since 1882, starting with the sensational fail-
ure (krach) of a large bank, the Union generale.
So his career was made a torture and he was
vilified perhaps more than any man of the
third Republic.
The extremists had in time another griev-
ance against Jules Ferry in his opposition to
a radical revision of the constitution. The
enemies of the Republic still feigned to believe,
especially when the death of the comte de
Chambord in 1883 had fused the Legitimists
and Orleanists, that an integral revision would
pave the way for a monarchical restoration.
The Radicals demanded the suppression of
the power of the Senate, whose consent was
necessary to summon a constitutional conven-
tion. A Congress was summoned in 1884 at
which the very limited programme of the
Ministry was put through. The changes
merely eliminated from the constitution the
prescriptions for senatorial elections. After
THE ADMINISTRATION OF GREVY 89
this, by an ordinary statute, life-senatorships
were abolished for the future, and some
changes were made in the choice of senatorial
electors.
Jules Ferry was what would to-day be called
an imperialist. In this he may have been un-
wise, for the French, though intrepid explorers,
do not care to settle permanently far from the
motherland. The north coast of Africa might
have been a sufficient field for enterprise. But
Jules Ferry thought that the Triple Alliance
of Germany, Austria, and Italy, formed in
1882, was going to isolate France permanently
in Europe. So she was to regain her prestige
by territorial annexations in the Sudan, the
Congo, Madagascar, Annam, and Tonkin.
The French had some nominal rights on
Tonkin since 1874, and disturbances there
had caused a revival of activities. When the
French officer Riviere was killed in an ambus-
cade in May, 1883, Jules Ferry sent heavy
reinforcements and forced the King of Annam
to acknowledge a French protectorate. This
stirred up the Chinese, who also claimed An-
nam, and who caused the invasion of Tonkin
by guerillas supported by their own troops.
90 THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
After various operations in Tonkin the Treaty
of Tien-tsin was signed with China in May,
1884, by which China made the concessions
called for by the French. Within a month
Chinese troops ambuscaded a French column
at Bac-Le and the Government decided on
a punitive expedition. Thus France was en-
gaged in troublesome warfare with China,
without direct parliamentary authorization.
The bombardment of Foo-chow, the attack on
the island of Formosa, and the blockade of the
coast dragged along unsatisfactorily through
1884 and 1885.
While Jules Ferry in the spring of 1885 was
actually negotiating a final peace with China
on terms satisfactory to the French, the ces-
sion of Annam and Tonkin with a commercial
treaty, and while he was categorically affirm-
ing in the Chamber of Deputies the success of
military operations in Tonkin, a sudden dis-
patch from the East threw everything into a
turmoil. General Briere de ITsle telegraphed
from Tonkin that the French had been disas-
trously defeated at Lang-son and General de
Negrier severely wounded. The news proved
to be a grievous exaggeration which was con-
THE ADMINISTRATION OF GREVY 91
tradicted by a later dispatch some hours after,
but the damage was done. On March 30, in
the Chamber of Deputies, Jules Ferry was
insulted and abused by the leaders of a coali-
tion of anti-Republicans and Radicals. The
"Tonkinois," as his vilifiers called him, dis-
gusted and discouraged, made little attempt
to defend himself, and his Cabinet fell by a
vote of 306 to 149. On April 4, the prelimi-
naries of a victorious treaty of peace were
signed with China.
The fall of Jules Ferry was a severe blow to
efficient government. It marked the end, for a
long time, of any effort to construct satisfac-
tory united Cabinets led by a strong man. It
set a precedent for innumerable short-lived
Ministries built on the treacherous sands of
shifting groups. It paved the way for a deteri-
oration in parliamentary management. It ac-
centuated the bitter hatred now existing be-
tween the Union des gauches, as the united
Gambetta and Ferry Opportunist groups
called themselves, on the one hand, and the
Radicals and the Extreme Left on the other.
The Radicals, in particular, were influential,
and one of their more moderate members,
92 THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
Henri Brisson, became the head of the next
Cabinet. Brisson's name testified to an ad-
vance toward radicaUsm, but the Cabinet con-
tained all sorts of moderate and nondescript
elements, dubbed a "concentration" Cabinet.
Its chief function was to tide over the elec-
tions of 1885, for a new Chamber of Deputies.
In anticipation of this election Gambetta's
long-desired scrutin de liste had been rather
unexpectedly voted.
The workings of the new method of voting
were less satisfactory than had been antici-
pated. Republican dissensions and a greater
union of the opposition caused a tremendous
reactionary landslide on the first ballot. This
was greatly reduced on the second ballot, so
that the Republicans emerged with a large
though diminished majority. But the old Left
Centre had practically disappeared and the
Radicals were vastly more numerous. The
great divisions were now the Right, the mod-
erate Union des gauches, the Radicals, and
the revolutionary Extreme Left. The Brisson
Cabinet was blamed for not "working" the
elections more successfully and it resigned at
the time of President Grevy's re-election. He
THE ADMINISTRATION OF GREVY gS
had reached the end of his' seven years' term
and was chosen again on December 28, 1885.
He was to have troublesome experiences during
the short time he remained in the Presidency.
The Freycinet, Goblet, and Rouvier Cabi-
nets, which fill the rest of Grevy's Presidency,
were largely engrossed with a new danger
in the person of General Boulanger. He first
appeared in a prominent position as Minister
of War in the Freycinet Cabinet. A young,
brilliant, and popular though unprincipled
officer, he soon devoted himself to demagogy
and put himself at the head of the jingoes who
called Ferry the slave of Bismarck. The ex-
peditions of Tunis and Tonkin had, moreover,
thrown a glamour over the flag and the army.
Boulanger began at once to play politics and
catered to the advanced parties, who adopted
him as their own. He backed up the spectacular
expulsion of the princes, which, as an answer
to the monarchical progress, drove from
France the heads of formerly reigning families
and their direct heirs in line of primogeniture,
and carried out their radiation from the army.
The populace cheered the gallant general on
his black horse, and when Bismarck com-
gH THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
plained that he was a menace to the peace of
Europe Boulanger's fortune seemed made.
At a certain moment France and Germany
were on the brink of war in the so-called
Schnaebele affair.^ So, when Boulanger was
left out of the Rouvier Cabinet combination in
May, 1887, as dangerous, he played more than
ever to the gallery as the persecuted saviour of
France and, on being sent to take command
of an army corps in the provinces at Clermont-
Ferrand, he was escorted to the train by thou-
sands of enthusiastic manifestants.
Meanwhile, President Grevy was nearing a
disaster. In October, 1887, General CalTarel,
an important member of the General Staff, was
arrested for participating in the sale of deco-
rations. When Boulanger declared that the
arrest of Caffarel was an indirect assault on
himself, originally responsible for Caffarel's
appointment to the General Staff, the affair
got greater notoriety. . The scandal assumed
national proportions when it was found to
involve the President's own son-in-law Daniel
Wilson, well known to be a shady and tricky
* The French claimed that a government official had been lured
over the frontier and illegedly arrested.
THE ADMINISTRATION OF GREVY 95
politician, who had the octogenarian Presi-
dent under his thumb. The matter reached
the scale of a Cabinet crisis, since it was by an
overthrow of the Ministry that the President
could best be reached. Unfortunately, Grevy
could not see that the most dignified thing for
him to do was to resign, even though he was
in no way involved in Wilson's misdemeanors.
For days he tried to persuade prominent men
to form a Cabinet; he tried to argue his right
and duty to remain. But finally the Chamber
and Senate brought actual pressure upon him
by voting to adjourn to specific hours in the
expectation of a presidential communication.
He bowed to the inevitable and retired from
the Presidency with the reputation of a dis-
credited old miser, instead of the great states-
man he had appeared on beginning his term of
office.
CHAPTER VI
THE ADMINISTRATION OF SADI CARNOT
December, 1887, to June, i8q4
The successor of Jules Grevy was Sadi Carnot,
in many ways the best choice. As has been
seen, the transition was less easy than the
two ballots of the National Assembly seemed
to indicate (Decembers, 1887). The intrigues
of the so-called "nuits historiques" (Novem-
ber 28-30) had been an endeavor of the Radi-
cals to keep Grevy, in order to ward off Jules
Ferry as his successor. Finally, Carnot was
a compromise candidate, or "dark horse," a
Moderate acceptable to the Radicals still un-
willing to endure the leading candidate Ferry.
President Carnot, hitherto known chiefly as
a capable civil engineer and a successful Cabi-
net ofTicer, was the heir to the name and tradi-
tions of a great republican family. His integ-
rity was a guarantee of honesty in office, and
his personal dignity was bound to heighten
the prestige of the chief magistracy, somewhat
weakened by his predecessor Grevy. On the
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SADI CARNOT
THE ADMINISTRATION OF CARNOT 97
other hand, Carnot's conception of the consti-
tutional irresponsibility or neutrality of his
office was an insufficient bulwark to the State
against the intrigues of petty politicians and
the inefficiencies of the parliamentary regime.
Consequently his term of office saw the Repub-
lic exposed to two of the worst crises in its
history, the Boulanger campaign and the Pan-
ama scandals, while the legislative history re-
cords the overthrow of successive cabinets.
These followed each other without definite
constructive policy, and aimed chiefly at keep-
ing power by constant dickerings and playing
off group against group.
The demoralization of parliamentary life
had reached a climax. The Republicans were
divided into the Moderates, former followers
of Gambetta, the Radicals with Floquet and
Brisson, the Extreme Left with Clemenceau and
Pelletan, the Socialists with Millerand, Basly,
and Clovis Hugues. The Royalists and Bona-
partists worked against the Government and
the Boulangists took advantage of the chaos to
push their cause. The Socialists, in particular,
were a new group in the Chamber, destined in
later years to hold the centre of the stage. In
98 THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
their manifesto of December, 1887, signed by
seventeen Deputies, they advocated, in addi-
tion to innumerable specific reforms or practi-
cal innovations, schemes for the reorganization
of society : state monopolies, nationalization of
property, progressive taxation, and the like.
The year 1888, characterized by intense
political and social unrest, was critical. The
trial and conviction of Grevy's son-in-law Wil-
son involved washing dirty linen in public.
The steady growth of Boulangism testified to
dissatisfaction, even though, as it proved, the
enemies of the established order had united on
a worthless adventurer as their leader.
General Boulanger had been first "invented"
as a leader by the extreme Radicals, and es-
pecially by Clemenceau, the demolisseur or
destroyer of ministries. Then, being gradually
abandoned by them, he went over to the anti-
Republicans and took heavy subsidies from
the Monarchists, while continuing to advocate,
at least openly, an anti-parliamentary, plebis-
citary Republic.
Early in 1888, in February, the candidacy of
Boulanger to the Chamber was started in sev-
eral departments. The electioneering activities
THE ADMINISTRATION OF CARNOT 99
of a general in regular service and sundry deeds
of insubordination on his part finally caused
the Government, as a disciplinary measure,
to retire him. The result was that his partisans
raised a cry of persecution, and his actual
retirement gave him the liberty to engage in
politics which his service on the active list had
prevented. In April Boulanger was elected
Deputy in the southern department of la
Dordogne and the northern le Nord. His plan
of campaign was to be candidate for Deputy
in each department successively in which a
vacancy occurred, thus indirectly and gradu-
ally obtaining a plebiscite of approval from the
country. At the same time he raised the cry in
favor of militarism, not for the sake of war, he
said, but for defence. He attacked the impo-
tence of Parliament and, as a remedy, called
for the dissolution of the Chamber and the con-
vocation of a Constituent Assembly to revise
the constitution. His opponents raised the
answering cry of dictatorship and Caesarism.
The election in the Nord was particularly
alarming because of Boulanger's majority.
Boulanger now had both Moderates and
many Radicals against him, including the
100 THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
Prime Minister Floquet, and was, on the other
hand, supported openly or secretly by the Im-
perialists and Monarchists, advocates for vary-
ing purposes of the plebiscite. The Royalists,
who thought their chances of success the most
hopeful, wanted to use Boulanger as a tool to
further their designs for the overthrow of the
Republic. Not only did he receive funds from
the pretender, the comte de Paris, but an
ardent Royalist lady of rank, the duchesse
d'Uzes, squandered millions of francs in fur-
thering Boulanger's political schemes as leader
of the Boulangists: the "National Party" or
"Revisionists."
In June, 1888, Boulanger brought forward in
the Chamber a project for a revision of the con-
stitution. He advocated a single Chamber, or,
if a Senate were conceded, demanded that it
be chosen by popular vote. The power of the
Chamber was to be diminished, that of the
President increased, and laws were to be sub-
ject to ratification by plebiscite or referendum.
The measure was naturally rejected, but Bou-
langer renewed the attack in July by demand-
ing the dissolution of the Chamber. In the
excitement of the debate the lie was passed be-
THE ADMINISTRATION OF CARNOT loi
tween Boulangerand the President of the Coun-
cil of Ministers, Floquet. Boulanger resigned
his seat and in a duel, a few days later, between
Floquet and Boulanger, the dashing general,
the warrior of the black horse, and the hero of
the popular song "En rev'nant d'la revue,"
was ignominiously wounded by the civilian
politician.
But Boulanger's star was not yet on the
wane. He continued to be elected Deputy in
different departments, and the efforts of the
Ministry to cut the ground from under his feet
by bringing in a separate revisionary project
did not undermine his popularity with the
rabble, the jingo Ligue des Patriotes of Paul
Deroulede, and the anti-Republican malcon-
tents. In January, 1889, after a fiercely con-
tested and spectacular campaign, he was elected
Deputy for the department of the Seine, con-
taining the city of Paris, nerve-centre of France.
It is generally, conceded that if Boulanger had
gone to the Elysee, the presidential mansion,
on the evening of his election, and turned out
Carnot, he would have had the Parisian popu-
lace and the pohce with him in carrying out a
coup d'etat. Luckily for the country his judg-
RIVER3:DE
102 THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
ment or his nerve failed him at the crucial mo-
ment, and from that time his influence dimin-
ished. The panic-stricken Government was
able to thwart his plebiscitary appeals by re-
establishing the scrutin d'arrondissement, or
election by small districts instead of by whole
departments. Moreover, when the Floquet
Cabinet fell soon after on its own revisionary
project, the succeeding Tirard Ministry was
able to pass a law preventing simultaneous
multiple candidacies, and impeached Bou-
langer, with some of his followers, before the
Senate as High Court of Justice. Instead of
facing trial, Boulanger and his satellites Dil-
lon and Henri Rochefort fled from France. In
August they were condemned in absence to
imprisonment. Boulanger never returned to
France, and with diminishing subsidies his
following waned. The elections of 1889 resulted
in the return of only thirty-eight Boulangists
and, when in September, 1891, Boulanger com-
mitted suicide in Brussels at the grave of his
mistress, most Frenchmen merely gave a sigh
of relief at the memory of the dangers they had
experienced not so long before.
The International Exposition of 1889 af-
THE ADMINISTRATION OF CARNOT io3
forded a breathing spell in the midst of poUtical
anxieties, and helped, by its evidence of the
Republic's prosperity, to weaken Boulanger's
cause. But unsettled social and religious prob-
lems remained troublesome. The successive
cabinets after the Floquet Ministry, and fol-
lowing the general election of 1889, pursued a
policy of "Republican concentration," com-
bining Moderate and Radical elements, disap-
pearing often without important motives, and
replaced by cabinets of approximately the same
coloring. The Clerical Party was hand-in-
glove with the Royahsts and the Boulangists.
It took advantage of governmental instabihty
to try to undermine the Republic, but its own
harmony of purpose was in due time diminished
by the new policy of Leo XIII. That astute
Italian diplomat was himself temperamentally
an Opportunist. He conceived the idea of con-
trolling France by advances to the Republic
and by feigning to accept it in order to get
hold of its policies, especially the educational
and military laws. He realized, too, the harm
done to the Vatican by the stubbornness of
many French Catholics. He felt the necessity
of making amends for the behavior of the
io4 THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
Catholic Royalists in the Boulanger affair.
Certain prelates, including the Archbishop of
Aix, Monseigneur Gouthe-Soulard, attacked
the Government violently at the end of 1891
in connection with disturbances by French
pilgrims to Rome who had manifested in favor
of the Pope and written "Vive le Pape-Roi!"
at the tomb of Victor Emmanuel. The French
Catholics tended to resent the interference
of the Pope, but the latter, who had for some
months received the support of Cardinal La-
vigerie. Archbishop of Algiers and Primate of
Africa, tried to bring pressure on the leaders
of the French clergy. In February, 1892, as a
rejoinder to a manifesto by five French cardi-
nals, came his famous encyclical letter advo-
cating the established order of things. "The
civil power considered as such is from God
and always from God. . . . Consequently, when
new governments representing this new power
are constituted, to accept them is not only
permitted but demanded, or even imposed,
by the needs of the social good." This en-
cyclical was followed by a letter to the French
cardinals in May and by other manifestations
of his wishes. Thus a certain number of Cath-
THE ADMINISTRATION OF CARNOT io5
olics, among whom the comte de Mun and
Jacques Piou were leaders, cut adrift from the
Right and adhered to the RepubHc, forming
the small group of "Rallies." They were never
very numerous or powerful, and the Dreyfus
affair, a few years later, showed how the Pope's
desire to rally the Catholics to the Republic
was thwarted by the French clergy and the
reactionaries.
The procedure of Leo XIII was thus a proof
that the Vatican wanted to be on good terms
with the Republic. The rapprochement with
Russia was another proof that France, in spite
of its troubles, was to be reckoned with in Eu-
rope. France and Russia felt it necessary to
draw together in answer to the noisy renewal
of the Triple Alliance. There had been tension
in the spring of 1891, in which the French were
not wholly blameless, as a result of the private
visit to Paris of the dowager empress of Ger-
many, the Empress Frederick. In the summer
of 1891 a French fleet under Admiral Ger-
vais was invited to Russian waters. It visited
Cronstadt, and the Czar and the President
exchanged telegrams of sympathy. On the
return to France the same fleet visited Ports-
io6 THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
mouth by invitation, and was welcomed by the
Queen and the authorities. The visit to Eng-
land did not, however, have the same meaning
as the Russian one. "Portsmouth" meant an
expression of England's freedom of action face-
to-face with the Triple Alliance, and an en-
deavor to smooth French susceptibilities re-
cently ruffled by Lord Salisbury. After an
Anglo-French compact, in August, 1890, for
the partition of protectorates and zones of
influence in Africa, the British Prime Minister
alluded rather scoffingly in the House of Lords
to the lack of value of the Sahara assigned to
the French. " Cronstadt," as opposed to " Ports-
mouth," meant an active understanding, to
be followed in 1892 by a military defensive
compact negotiated in St. Petersburg by
General de Boisdeffre, head of the French
General Staff.
The return visit of the Russians took place
at Toulon in 1893, and Admiral Avellan with
his staff visited Paris, which went wild with
enthusiasm. At that moment French relations
with Italy were strained, partly because the
Italian Government was jealous of the cor-
diality between the Pope and the Republic.
THE ADMINISTRATION OF CARNOT 107
The Franco-Russian manifestation was a new
veiled warning.
In 1892, under the leadership of Jules Meline,
the Chamber adopted a protective tariff policy.
This resulted in several tariff disputes and en-
gendered bad feeling with various countries,
including Italy.
The desperate attack of the Royalists, en-
gineered mainly against the Republic in the
Panama scandals, helped to bring the Pope
and the State still closer together, so that at
certain times the Rallies or Republican Cath-
olics and the Royalists fought each other vio-
lently. The Panama scandal was planned in
view of the elections of 1893. During the decade
following 1880 Ferdinand de Lesseps, the suc-
cessful builder of the Suez Canal, had organized
and tried to finance a company to construct a
canal at Panama. The prestige of Lesseps's
name and the memory of his previous achieve-
ment made countless Frenchmen invest huge
sums in the company. But the expenses were
enormous and the financial maladministration
apparently extraordinary, for the directors
of the company were led into illegal steps
in order to influence legislation, or pay hush
io8 THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
money to the press to hide the condition of af-
fairs, and then were blackmailed into further
outlays. The company failed in 1888, and ef-
forts to put it on its feet proved abortive. Hints
of the scandals leaked out, and the Government
played into the hands of its opponents by trying
to conceal matters.
In November, 1892, some Royalist members
of the Chamber brought matters to a head
and the Government was obliged to do some-
thing. It was decided to proceed against Fer-
dinand de Lesseps, his son Charles de Lesseps,
Henri Cottu, Marius Fontane, members of
the board of directors, and G. Eiffel, an en-
gineer and contractor and the builder of the
famous Eiffel Tower. At this juncture a well-
known Jewish banker of Paris, Baron Jacques
de Reinach, died suddenly and most mysteri-
ously on November 20. He was openly charged
with being the bribery agent of the company,
and his sudden death was by some called sui-
cide, while others hinted that he had been put
out of the way because of his dangerous knowl-
edge.
Under these exciting conditions a Boulang-
ist Deputy named, Delahaye made an inter-
THE ADMINISTRATION OF CARNOT 109
pellation in the Chamber hinting at the cam-
paign of corruption carried on by the company
through the agency of Reinach and two other
Jews of German origin, Arton and Cornehus
Herz, the latter a naturalized American citizen.
By this campaign it was charged that three
million francs had been used to corrupt more
than a hundred and fifty Deputies, and much
more had been spent in other ways.
A commission of thirty-three was appointed
under the chairmanship of Henri Brisson. The
Royalists and Radicals were having their in-
nings against the Government, and their news-
papers continued to publish rumors and "revel-
ations." The commission called for the autopsy
of Reinach. The Loubet Cabinet, refusing to
grant it, was voted down and resigned. The
Ribot Ministry was then constituted, but at
intervals lost successively two of its most
prominent members, Rouvier and Freycinet,
accused of complicity in the scandals. Even
the leaders of the Radicals, Clemenceau and
Floquet, in time found themselves involved.
The former was charged with tricky dealings
with Cornelius Herz, the latter was shown to
have demanded money from the company,
no THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
when Minister, in order to use it for political
subsidies.
In December the Cabinet decided to arrest
Charles de Lesseps, Marius Fontane, Henri
Cottu, and a former Deputy, Sans-Leroy, ac-
cused of having accepted a bribe of two hun-
dred thousand francs. At the same time, on
the basis of the seizure of twenty-six cheque
stubs at the bank used by the baron de Rein-
ach, the Minister of Justice proceeded against
ten prominent Deputies and Senators, among
whom was Albert Grevy, former Governor-
General of Algeria, and brother of Jules Grevy.
The Government seemed panic-stricken in its
readiness to sacrifice, on mere suspicion, promi-
nent members of its party. All the parliament-
aries accused were, in due time, exonerated.
The directors of the company came up for
trial twice. The first time, with M. Eiffel, in
January-February, 1893, and the second time,
with other defendants, in March, before dif-
ferent jurisdictions on varying charges, they
were condemned to fine and imprisonment.
On appeal, in April, these condemnations were
revised or annulled. One person became the
scapegoat, a former Minister of Public Works
THE ADMINISTRATION OF CARNOT iii
named Baihaut, condemned to civil degrada-
tion, five years' imprisonment, and a heavy
fine.
Scandal was, however, not satisfied with these
names. There was also talk of a mysterious
list of one hundred and four Deputies charged
with accepting bribes from Arton. Moreover,
it was felt that quashing the indictments
against prominent men Uke Rouvier and Albert
Grevy was poor policy. If they were innocent
they could prove their innocence. Under the
circumstances suspicion would still be rife.
The state of general anarchy was also revealed
by the evidence of the wife of Henri Cottu,
who testified that agents of the Government
had offered her husband immunity if he would
implicate a member of the Opposition.^
The Panama scandal was largely the work
^ The Panama affair was a violent shock to the Republic. Peo-
ple were amazed at the charges of widespread corruption and the
tendency on the part of the Government to smooth things over.
Suspicions aroused were not fully satisfied because Reinach was
dead and Herz and Arton in flight. Cornelius Herz successfully
fought extradition from England on the plea of illness. Arton waa
arrested in iSgB and extradited. His arrest caused a renewal of
talk about Panama and the newspaper la France undertook to
print the famous list of one hundred and four Deputies. This
publication was recognized to be a case of blackmail and its pro-
moters were punished. Arton was also condemned to a term of hard
labor, but his trial did not bring out the longed-for revelations.
112 THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
of the Monarchists angry at the failure of the
Boulanger campaign. It did them no good, as
the elections to the new Chamber proved. On
the other hand, it worked havoc among the
leaders of the Moderates, who, innocent or
blameworthy, fell under popular suspicion, and
were in many cases relegated to the background
in favor of new leaders. Moreover, it helped
the Socialists, and even, by throwing discredit
on parliamentarism, it encouraged lawless out-
breaks of anarchists.
New men in party leaderships came in the
composite Cabinet of Moderate leanings led by
Charles Dupuy in April, 1893. He seemed at
first to incline toward the Conservatives and
treated with considerable severity some street
disturbances. A prank of art students at their
annual ball (Bal des quaV-z-arts) was mag-
nified into a street riot and was not quelled
until after the loss of a life. The Bourse du
travail (Workmen's Exchange) was closed by
the Government after other disturbances.
The elections in August and September re-
sulted in a large Republican majority and a
corresponding decline in the anti-Republican
Right. On the other hand, the Radicals rose to
THE ADMINISTRATION OF CARNOT ii3
about a hundred and fifty, and the Socialists
were about fifty, forming for the first time a
large party able to make its influence felt.
The "Socialistic-Radicals" represented an
effort toward a compromise between the ad-
vanced groups.
The desire of the Moderate leaders of the
Republic to meet the Pope halfway in his pol-
icy of conciliation was expressed in a note-
worthy speech made in the Chamber in March,
1894, by the then Minister of Public Worship,
Eugene Spuller. Answering the query of a
Royalist Deputy, the Minister declared that
the time had come to put an end to fanaticism
and sectarianism, and that the country could
count on the vigilance of the Government to
maintain its rights, and on the new frame of
mind (esprit nouveau) which inspired it, which
tended to reconcile all French citizens and
bring about a revival of common sense, jus-
tice, and charity.
But the anarchists were not moved by any
spirit of conciliation. Borrowing methods of
violence from the Russian nihilists, they used
bomb-throwing to draw attention to the vices
of social organization and to themselves. Dur-
ii4 THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
ing 1892, 1893, and 1894 they tried to terrorize
Paris. The deeds of various criminals, including
Ravachol, Vaillant (who threw a bomb in the
Chamber of Deputies),^ Emile Henry, among
others, culminated at last in the cruel murder
of President Carnot. On June 24, 1894, while
at Lyons, whither he had gone to pay a state
visit to an international exhibition. President
Carnot was fatally stabbed by an underwitted
Italian anarchist named Caserio Santo, and
died within a few hours. Never were more
futile and abominable crimes committed than
those which sacrificed Carnot and McKinley.
^ M. Dupuy, then President of the Chamber, got much credit
for his calmness and his remark, as the smoke of the bomb cletired
away, "La s^eince continue."
CHAPTER VII
THE ADMINISTRATIONS OF JEAN CASIMIR-PERIER
June, 1894, to January, 1896
AND OF FELIX FAURE
January, 1895, to February, 1899
The customary promptness in the choice of
a President, so unfamiliar to American cam-
paigns, was observed in the election of Carnot's
successor. The historic name and the social
and financial position of the new chief mag-
istrate, Jean Casimir-Perier, seemed to the
monarchical sister-nations a guarantee of na-
tional stability and dignity. In reality the elec-
tion brought about a more definite cleavage
between rival political tendencies. Casimir-
Perier, grandson of Louis-Philippe's great
minister, obviously represented the Moderates,
most of whom tried in all sincerity to carry out
the esprit nouveau and a policy of good-will
toward the Catholic Church. The Radicals said
that this was playing into the hands of the
Clericals, and to the Socialists Casimir-Perier
was merely a hated capitalist. He was, more-
ii6 THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
over, unfortunately unfit for the acrimonies
of political life. High-strung and emotional,
he writhed under misinterpretation and abuse,
and rebelled against the constitutional power-
lessness of his ofTice. He had never really
wanted the Presidency and had accepted it
chiefly through the personal persuasion of his
friend the statesman Burdeau, who unfortun-
ately died soon after his election. The brief
Presidency of Casimir-Perier, lasting less than
a year, was destined to see the beginning of the
worst trial the French Republic had yet ex-
perienced, the famous Dreyfus case.
The Administration, in which Dupuy re-
mained Prime Minister, began by repressive
measures, laws directed against the anarchists
and the trial en masse of thirty defendants
ranging from Utopian theorists to actual crimi-
nals. Most of them were acquitted, but the
procedure did not ingratiate the Government
with the advanced parties. Toward the end
of 1894 the Dreyfus case began to be talked of,
an affair which was destined to develop into a
tremendous struggle of the leaders of the army
and the Church to obtain control of the nation.
In September, 1894, an officer named Henry,
ADMINISTRATION OF CASIMIR-PERIER 117
of the spy service of the French army, came
into possession of a document pieced together
from fragments stolen from a waste-paper
basket in the German Embassy. This docu-
ment, containing a bordereau or memorandum
of information largely about the French artil-
lery offered to the German military attache,
Schwartzkoppen, was anonymous, but Henry
undoubtedly recognized, sooner or later, the
handwriting' of a friend, Major Esterhazy, a
soldier of fortune in the French army, of bad
reputation and shady character. Unable to de-
stroy the document, which had been seen by
others, Henry tried to fasten it on somebody
else. Indeed, many people believe that Henry
was an accomplice of Esterhazy in German
pay. By a strange coincidence it happened that
the handwriting of the bordereau somewhat re-
sembled that of a brilliant young Jewish officer
of the General Staff named Alfred Dreyfus. He
belonged to a wealthy Alsatian family, and
from antecedent probability would not seem
to need to play a traitor's part, but he was
intensely unpopular among his fellows because
of many disagreeable traits of character. More-
over, anti-Semitism, formerly non-existent in
ii8 THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
France, was now rife. It had been largely fo-
mented by the anti-Jewish agitator Edouard
Drumont, with his book la France juive (1886)
and his newspaper the Libre Parole (1892).
Prejudice against the Jews as tricky financiers
had been prepared and encouraged by the sen-
sational failure of the great bank, the Union
generale, a Catholic rival of the Rothschilds,
in 1882, and by the Panama scandals with
the doings of Jacques de Reinach, Cornelius
Herz, and Arton. The Libre Parole had worked
against Jewish ofTicers in the army, an activity
which culminated in some sensational duels,
particularly one between Captain Mayer and
the marquis de Mores (1892), in which the Jew
was killed.
So, in the present instance, the Minister of
War, General Mercier, who had recently com-
mitted some much-criticized administrative
blunders, and who now wished to show his
efficiency, caused the arrest of Dreyfus. Then,
egged on by anti-Semitic newspapers which
had got hold of Dreyfus's name, Mercier
brought him before a court-martial. The trial
was held in secret, and the War Department
sent to the officers constituting the tribunal,
ADMINISTRATION OF CASIMIR-PERIER 119
without the knowledge of the prisoner or his
counsel Maitre Demange, a secret dossier, a
collection of trumped-up incriminating docu-
ments. Demange devoted himself to proving
that Dreyfus was not the author of the border-
eau, but the members of the court-martial, be-
lieving in' the genuineness of the additional
documents, unhesitatingly convicted him of
treason. Consequently, in spite of his pro-
testations of innocence, Dreyfus was publicly
degraded on January 5, 1895, and hustled
off to solitary confinement on the unhealthy
Devil's Isle, off the coast of French Guiana.
Meanwhile the whole French people sincerely
believed that a vile traitor had been justly
condemned and that the secrecy of the case
was due to the advisability of avoiding dip-
lomatic complications with Germany. With
dramatic unexpectedness, only ten days later
(January 15), Casimir-Perier resigned the
Presidency.
During the whole Dreyfus affair Casimir-
Perier had chafed because his ministers had con-
stantly acted without keeping him informed,
particularly when he was called upon by the
German Government to acknowledge that it
120 THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
had had nothing to do with Dreyfus. He had
lost by death the support of his friend Burdeau;
he was discouraged by the campaign of abuse
against him, especially the election as Deputy
in Paris of Gerault-Richard, one of his most ac-
tive vilifiers. In particular he felt that his own
Cabinet, and above all its leader Dupuy, were
false to him. A discussion in the Chamber
concerning the duration of the state guar-
antees to certain of the great railway com-
panies ended in a vote unfavorable to the Cabi-
net, which resigned, whereupon Casimir-Perier
seized the opportunity to go too. The Social-
ists declared that Dupuy had provoked his
own defeat in order to embarrass the Presi-
dent by the difficulty of forming a new Cabinet,
and make him resign as well.
Two days later the electoral Congress met
at Versailles. The Radicals supported Henri
Brisson. The Moderates and the Conserva-
tives were divided between Waldeck-Rous-
seau and Felix Faure, but Waldeck-Rousseau
having thrown his strength on the second
ballot to Faure, the latter was elected.
The new President, recently Minister of the
Navy, was a well-meaning man, but full of
ADMINISTRATION OF FELIX FAURE 121
vanity and naively delighted with his own rise
in the world from a humble position to that of
chief magistrate. The extent to which his judg-
ment was warped by his temperament is shown
by the later developments of the Dreyfus case.
Felix Faure's first Cabinet was led by the
Republican Moderate Alexandre Ribot. It
lasted less than a year and its history was
chiefly noteworthy, at least in foreign affairs,
by the increasing openness of the Franco-Rus-
sian rapprochement at the ceremonies of the
inauguration of the Kiel Canal. In internal
affairs there were some violent industrial dis-
turbances and strikes.
In October, 1895, the Moderates gave way
to the Radical Cabinet of Leon Bourgeois. It
was viewed with suspicion by the moneyed in-
terests, who accused it of gravitating toward the
Socialists. The cleavage between the two ten-
dencies of the Republican Party became more
marked. The Moderates joined forces with the
Conservatives to oppose the schemes for so-
cial and financial reforms of the Radicals and
of the representatives of the working classes.
Prominent among these was the proposal for
a progressive income tax. The Senate, natu-
122 THE THIRD FRENCH REPURLIG
rally a more conservative body, was opposed to
the Bourgeois Cabinet, which had a majority,
though not a very steadfast one, in the Cham-
ber of Deputies. The Senate, usually a nonen-
tity in determining the fall of a cabinet, for
once successfully asserted its power and, by
refusing to vote the credits asked for by the
Ministry for the Madagascar campaign, caused
it to resign in April, 1896. The enemies of the
Senate maintained that the Chamber of Depu-
ties, elected by direct suffrage, was the only
judge of the fate of a cabinet. But Bourgeois's
hold was at best precarious and he seized the
opportunity to withdraw.
The Meline Cabinet which followed was
a return to the Moderates supported by the
Conservatives. Its opponents accused it of
following what in American political parlance
is called a "stand-pat" policy, but it remained
in office longer than any ministry up to its
time, a little over two years. It afforded, at
any rate, an opportunity for the adversaries
of the Republic to strengthen their posi-
tions and encouraged the transformation of
the Dreyfus case into a political instead of a
purely judicial matter.
ADMINISTRATION OF FELIX FAURE 128
In foreign affairs the most spectacular events
were the visit of the Czar and Czarina to
France in 1896 and the return visit of the
French President to Russia in 1897. At the
banquet of leave-taking on the French war-
ship Pothuau, in their prepared speeches, the
Czar and the President made use of the same
expression "friendly and allied nations," thus
publicly proclaiming to Europe the alliance
suspected since 1891.
In spite of the unanimous feeling of Drey-
fus's guilt, his family did not lose faith in him,
and his brother Mathieu set about the appa-
rently impossible task of rehabilitation. But it
chanced that one other person began to have
doubts of the justice of Dreyfus's condemna-
tion. This was Lieutenant-Colonel Picquart,
who had been present at the court-martial as
representative of the War Department, and
who had since become chief of the espionage
service, and Henry's superior. Another docu-
ment stolen from a waste-paper basket at the
German Embassy, an unforwarded pneumatic
despatch (petit bleu), was brought to him, and
directed his suspicions to Esterhazy, to whom
it was addressed. At first he did not connect
i2/i THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
Esterhazy and Dreyfus, but on obtaining speci-
mens of Esterhazy's handwriting he was struck
by the Ukeness with that of the bordereau.
Then, examining the secret dossier, to which
he now had access, he was stupefied to see its
insignificance.
From this time on, Picquart worked, with
extraordinary tenacity of purpose and against
all obstacles, for the rehabilitation of a stranger.
Everybody was against him. His chief subor-
dinate Henry dreaded revelations above all
things, and set his colleagues against him. His
superiors disliked any suggestion that an army
court could have made a mistake, the remedy-
ing of which would help a Jew.
Gradually, however, the agitation started
by Mathieu Dreyfus was becoming stronger.
He had won the help of a skilled writer Bernard
Lazare; a daily paper succeeded in obtaining
and publishing a facsimile of the bordereau.
But Picquart was sent away from Paris on a
tour of inspection, and when the matter came
up in the Chamber, through an interpellation,
the Minister of War, General Billot, declared
that the judgment of 1894 was absolutely legal
and just. Matters thus seemed settled again.
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ADMINISTRATION OF FELIX FAURE i25
But a prominent Alsatian member of Parlia-
ment, Scheurer-Kestner, one of the Vice-Presi-
dents of the Senate, was half-persuaded by
Mathieu and Bernard Lazare. When Picquart's
friend and legal adviser, Leblois, rather inju-
diciously, from a professional point of view,
confided to him his client's suspicions, he was
thoroughly convinced and the two separate cur-
rents of activity now coalesced. Yet the greater
the agitation in favor of Dreyfus, the greater
grew the opposition. The anti-Semites shrieked
with rage against Judas, the "traitor." The
upper ranks of the army were honeycombed by
Clerical influences. An enormous proportion
of the officers belonged to reactionary fami-
lies and the Chief of Staff himself. General de
Boisdeffre, was under the thumb of the Pere
Du Lac, one of the most prominent Jesuits
in France. The Clericals and anti-Semites,
therefore, joined forces, and, by calling the
Dreyfus agitation an attack on the honor of
the army and a play into the hands of Ger-
many, they won over all the jingoes and former
Boulangists, who formed the new party of
Nationalists. This was the so-called alliance
of "the sword and the holy-water sprinkler'*
126 THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
(le sabre ei le goupillon). Above all, certain re-
ligious associations, particularly the Assump-
tionists, under the name of religion, organized
a campaign of slander and abuse against all
who ventured to speak for Dreyfus. By a
ludicrous counter-play the scoundrel Ester-
hazy had defenders as an injured innocent, the
more so that Henry and the clique at the War
Office found it to their interest to support him.
Matters reached a crisis when, on Novem-
ber 15, 1897, Mathieu Dreyfus denounced
Esterhazy to the Minister of War as author of
the bordereau and as guilty of the treason for
which his brother had been condemned. This
was partly a tactical mistake, because, even if
Esterhazy were proved to have written the
bordereau, it would still be necessary to show
him guilty of actual treason. It made it pos-
sible to swerve the discussion from the con-
viction of Dreyfus as a res adjudicata (chose
Jugee) to vague charges against Esterhazy.
The later called for a vindication, he was tri-
umphantly acquitted by a court-martial early
in January, 1898, and Picquart was put under
arrest on various charges of indiscipline in con-
nection with the whole affair.
ADMINISTRATION OF F^LIX FAURE 127
Few and far between as they now seemed,
the lovers of justice were still to be counted
with. They consisted at first of a small num-
ber of much-derided intelleduels, scholars and
trained thinkers, who used their judgment and
not their prejudices. One of these was the
famous novelist Emile Zola, who, to keep the
case under discussion, published in the Aurore
on January 13, a few days after Esterhazy's
acquittal, his famous letter, J'accuse. In
this article Zola denounced the guilty mach-
inations of Dreyfus's adversaries seriatim^
blamed the Dreyfus court-martial for convict-
ing on secret evidence and the Esterhazy court
for acquitting a guilty man in obedience to or-
ders. Zola was not in possession of all the facts,
since his precise aim was to have them brought
out, and in his charges against the Esterhazy
court he was technically and legally at fault.
But he courted prosecution and got it.
On February 7 Zola was brought to trial.
The crafty authorities eliminated all references
to the trial of 1894 as a chose jugee and prose-
cuted Zola for having declared that Esterhazy
was acquitted by order. Their tool, the pre-
siding magistrate Delegorgue, seconded their
128 THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
efforts by ruling out every question which
might throw hght on the Dreyfus case, in spite
of the attempts of Zola's chief lawyer Labori.
Party passion was at its height, hired gangs of
men were posted about the court-house to hoot
and attack the Dreyfusites, members of the
General Staff appeared in full uniform to inter-
rupt the trial and bulldoze the jury by myste-
rious hints of war with Germany. Finally Zola
was condemned to fine and imprisonment.
At this trial for the first time mention was
mysteriously but openly made of a new docu-
ment, understood to be a communication al-
luding to Dreyfus between the Italian and the
German military attaches at Paris. Zola ap-
pealed, the higher court broke the verdict on
the ground that the prosecution should have
been instigated by the offended court-martial
and not by the Government, he was brought to
trial again on a change of venue at Versailles,
was unsuccessful in interposing obstacles to an
inevitable condemnation, and so fled to Eng-
land (July).
Meanwhile, public opinion was becoming
yet more violently excited. France was divided
into two great camps, the line of cleavage often
ADMINISTRATION OF FfiLIX FAURE 129
estranging the closest friends and relatives. On
the one side was a vast majority consisting
of the Clericals, the jingoes or Nationalists,
the anti-Semites, and the unreflecting mass of
the population. On the other were ranged the
''intellectuals," the Socialists who were now
rallying to the cause of tolerance, the Jews, and
the few French Protestants. The League of the
Rights of Man stood opposed to the associa-
tion of the Patrie Fran^aise. In the midst of
this turmoil were held the elections of May,
1898, for the renewal of the Chamber of Depu-
ties. The political coloring of the new body was
not sensibly changed, but the open Dreyfus-
ites were all excluded. The Moderates now
generally dubbed themselves "Progressists.'*
None the less at the first session the now long-
lived Meline Cabinet resigned after a vote re-
questing it to govern with fewer concessions
to the Right.
The next Cabinet was Radical, headed by
Henri Brisson. His mind was not yet definitely
made up on the matter of revision, and he gave
concessions to the Nationalists by appointing
as Minister of War Godefroy Cavaignac. This
headstrong personage, proud of an historic
i3o THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
name, undertook to manage the Cabinet and to
prove once for all to the Chamber the guilt of
Dreyfus. In his speech he relied mainly on the
letter mentioned at the Zola trial as written by
the Italian to the German attache.
Once more the Dreyfus affair seemed per-
manently settled, and once more the con-
trary proved to be the case. In August Cav-
aignac discovered, to his dismay, that the
document he had sent to the Chamber, with
such emphasis on its importance, was an out-
and-out forgery of Henry. The latter was put
under arrest and committed suicide. Discus-
sion followed between Brisson, now converted
to revision, and Cavaignac, still too stubborn
to change his mind with regard to Dreyfus,
in spite of his recent discovery. Cavaignac
resigned as Minister of War, was replaced by
General Zurlinden, who withdrew in a few
days and was in turn succeeded by another
general, Chanoine, thought to be in sym-
pathy with the Cabinet. He in turn played his
colleagues false and resigned unexpectedly
during a meeting of the Chamber. Weakened
by these successive blows the Brisson Cabinet
itself had to resign, but its leader had now
ADMINISTRATION OF F^LIX FAURE i3i
forwarded to the supreme court of the land, the
Cour de Cassation, the petition of Dreyfus's
wife for a revision of his sentence. The first
step had at last been taken. The Criminal
Chamber accepted the request and proceeded
to a further detailed investigation.
The Brisson Ministry was followed by a third
Cabinet of the unabashed Dupuy. It became
evident that the Cruninal Chamber of the
Court of Cassation was inclining to decide on
revision. Wishing to play to both sides and,
yielding in this case to the anti-revisionists,
early in 1899 Dupuy brought in a bill to take
the Dreyfus affair away from the Criminal
Chamber in the very midst of its deliberations
and submit it to the Court as a whole, where
it was hoped a majority of judges would reject
revision. Between the dates of the passage
of this bill by the Chamber and by the
Senate, President Faure died suddenly and
under mysterious circumstances on February
16, 1899. He had opposed revision and his
death, attributed to apoplexy, was a gain to the
revisionists who were accused by his friends of
having caused his murder. On the other hand,
stories, which it is unnecessary to repeat here,
i32 THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
found an echo some years later in the scandals
repeated at the sensational trial of Madame
Steinheil.
During the turmoil over the Dreyfus affair,
France underwent a humiliating experience
with England. The colonial rivalry of the two
countries had of late gone on unchecked,
embittered as it had been by the ousting of
France from the Suez Canal and Egypt. To
many Frenchmen "Perfidious Albion" was, far
more than Germany, the secular foe. In 1896
a French expedition under Captain Marchand
was sent from the Congo in the direction of the
Nile. The English afterwards argued that its
purpose was to cut their sphere of influence and
hinder the Cape-to-Cairo project; the French
declared they merely wished to occupy a post
which should afford a basis for general diplo-
matic negotiations for the partition of Africa.
The mission was numerically insufficient; it
struggled painfully for two years through the
heart of the continent, and at last the small
handful of intrepid Frenchmen established
themselves at Fashoda on the upper waters
of the Nile in July, 1898. At once General
Kitchener arriving from the victory of Omdur-
ADMINISTRATION OF FfiLIX FAURE i33
man appeared on the scene to occupy Fashoda
for the Egyptian Government. England as-
sumed a viciously aggressive attitude and,
under veiled threats of war, France was obliged
to recall Marchand (November 4). The out-
burst of fury in France against England at this
humiliation was tremendous. No sane man
would have then ventured to predict that in a
few years the hands of the two countries would
be joined in the clasp of the Entente cordiale.
CHAPTER VIII
THE ADMINISTRATION OF EMILE LOUBET
February, 1899, to February, 1906
The successor of Felix Faure, Emile Loubet,
was elected on February 18, 1899, by a good
majority over Jules Meline, the candidate of
the larger number of the Moderates or "Pro-
gressists" and of the Conservatives. Loubet
was himself a man of Moderate views, but he
was thought to favor a revision of the Dreyfus
case. Among the charges of his enemies was
that, as Minister of the Interior in 1892, he
had held, but had kept secret, the famous list
of the "Hundred and Four" and had prevented
the seizure of the papers of Baron de Reinach
and the arrest of Arton. So Loubet's return to
Paris from Versailles was amid hostile cries of
"Loubet-Panama" and "Vive I'armee!"
On February 23, after the state funeral of
President Faure, a detachment of troops led
by General Roget was returning to its bar-
racks in an outlying quarter of Paris. Sud-
denly the Nationalist and quondam Boulangist
THE ADMINISTRATION OF LOUBET i35
Paul Deroulede, now chief of the Ligue des Pa-
triotes and vigorous opponent of parUamen-
tary government, though a Deputy himself,
rushed to General Roget, and, grasping the
bridle of his horse, tried to persuade him to
lead his troops to the Elysee, the presidential
residence, and overthrow the Government.
Deroulede had expected to encounter General
de Pellieux, a more amenable leader, and one
of the noisy generals at the Zola trial. General
Roget, who had been substituted at the last
moment, refused to accede and caused the
arrest of Deroulede, with his fellow Deputy
and conspirator Marcel Habert.
Meanwhile the Dreyfus case had been taken
out of the hands of the Criminal Chamber and
given to the whole Court. To the dismay of
the anti-Dreyfusites the Court, as a body, an-
nulled, on June 3, the verdict of the court-
martial of 1894, and decided that Dreyfus
should appear before a second military court
at Rennes for another trial.
Thus party antagonisms were becoming
more and more acute. In addition Dupuy, the
head of the Cabinet, seemed to be spiting the
new President. On the day after the verdict
i36 THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
of the Cour de Cassation, at the Auteuil races,
President Loubet was roughly jostled by a
band of fashionable young Royalists and struck
with a cane by Baron de Christiani. A week
later, at the Grand Prize races at Longchamps,
on June 11, Dupuy, as though to atone for his
previous carelessness, brought out a large
array of troops, so obviously over-numerous as
to cause new disturbances among the crowd
desirous of manifesting its sympathy with the
chief magistrate. More arrests were made and,
at the meeting of the Chamber of Deputies the
next day, the Cabinet was overthrown by an
adverse vote.
The ministerial crisis brought about by the
fall of Dupuy was as important as any under
the Third Republic because of its consequences
in the redistribution of parties. For about ten
days President Loubet was unable to fmd a
leader who could in turn form a cabinet. At
last public opinion was astounded by the mas-
terly combination made by Waldeck-Rousseau,
Gambetta's former lieutenant, who of recent
years had kept somewhat aloof from active
participation in politics. He brought together
a ministry of ''defense republicaine," which its
RENE WALDECK-ROUSSEAU
THE ADMINISTRATION OF LOUBET iSt
opponents, however, called a cabinet for the
"Uquidation" of the Dreyfus case. The old
policy of "Republican concentration" of Op-
portunists and Radicals was given up in
favor of a mass formation of the various
advanced groups of the Left, including the
Socialists.
Waldeck-Rousseau was a Moderate Repub-
lican, whose legal practice of recent years had
been mainly that of a corporation lawyer, but
he was a cool-headed Opportunist. He real-
ized the ill-success of the policy of the *' esprit
nouveau," and saw the necessity of making
advances to the Socialists, who more and more
held the balance of power. He succeeded in
uniting in his Cabinet Moderates like himself,
Radicals, and, for the first time in French par-
liamentary history, an out-and-out Socialist,
Alexandre Millerand, author of the famous
"Programme of Saint-Mande" of 1896, or
declaration of faith of Socialism. Still more as-
tounding was the presence as Minister of War,
in the same Cabinet with Millerand, of Gen-
eral de Galliffet, a bluff, outspoken, and dash-
ing aristocratic officer, a favorite with the
whole army, but fiercely hated by the prole-
i38 THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
tariat because of his part in the repression of
the Commune.
The first days of the new Cabinet were
stormy and its outlook was dubious. The task
of reconciUng such divergent elements, even
against a common foe, seemed an impossibil-
ity, until at last the Radicals under Brisson
swung into line. Such was the beginning of a
Republican grouping which later, during the
anti-Clerical campaign, was known as le Bloc,
the united band of Republicans.
The Waldeck-Rousseau Ministry took up
the Dreyfus case with a queer combination of
courage and weakness. Insubordinate army
officers were summarily punished for injudi-
cious remarks, but in order to appear neutral
and to avoid criticism, the Cabinet held so
much aloof that the anti-Dreyfusites were able
to bring their full forces to bear on the court-
martial. For a month at Rennes, beginning
August 7, an extraordinary trial was carried on
before the eyes of an impassioned France and
angry onlooking nations. Witnesses had full
latitude to indulge in rhetorical addresses and
air their prejudices; military officers like Roget,
who had had nothing to do with the original
THE ADMINISTRATION OF LOUBET 189
trial, were allowed to take up the time of the
court. Galliffet, though convinced of the inno-
cence of Dreyfus, was unwilling to exert as
much pressure as his colleagues in the Cabinet
desired. It soon became evident that, regard-
less of the question involved, the issue was one
between an insignificant Jewish officer on the
one hand and General Mercier, ex-Minister of
War, on the other. The judges were army offi-
cers full of caste-feeling and timorous of offend-
ing their superiors. Thus, on September 9,
Dreyfus was a second time convicted, though
with extenuating circumstances, by a vote of
5 to 2, and condemned to ten years' detention.
This verdict was a travesty of justice, and a
punishment fitting no crime of Dreyfus, since
he was either innocent or guilty of treason be-
yond extenuation. The Ministry, perhaps re-
gretting too late its excessive inertia, immedi-
ately caused the President to pardon Dreyfus,
partly on the ostensible grounds that Dreyfus
by his previous harsher condemnation had al-
ready purged his new one. This act of clem-
ency was, however, not a legal clearing of the
victim's honor, which was achieved only some
years later.
i4o THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
During the turmoil of the Dreyfus affair the
Cabinet was, it seemed to many, unduly anx-
ious over certain conspirators against the
Republic. The symptoms of insubordination
in high ranks in the army, linked with the
Clerical manoeuvres, had encouraged the other
foes of the Republic (spurred on by the Royal-
ists), whether sincere opponents of the parlia-
mentary regime like Paul Deroulede, or venal
agitators such as the anti-Semitic Jules Guerin.
But, certainly, above all objectionable were the
proceedings of the Assumptionists, a religious
order which had amassed enormous wealth,
and which, by the various local editions of its
paper la Croix, had organized a campaign of
venomous slander and abuse of the Republic
and its leaders.
The Government, having got wind of a proj-
ect of the conspirators to seize the reins of
power during the Rennes court-martial, antici-
pated the act by wholesale arrests on August
12. Jules Guerin barricaded himself with some
friends in a house in the rue de Chabrol in
Paris, and defied the Government to arrest
him without perpetrating murder. The gro-
tesque incident of the "Fort Chabrol" came to
THE ADMINISTRATION OF LOUBET i4i
an end after thirty-seven days when the author-
ities had surrounded the house with troops
to starve Guerin out and stopped the drains.
In November a motley array of conspirators,
ranging from Andre Buffet, representative of
the pretender the Duke of Orleans, to butchers
from the slaughter-houses of La Villette, were
brought to trial before the Senate acting as a
High Court of Justice, on the charge of con-
spiracy against the State. After a long trial
lasting nearly two months, during which the
prisoners outdid each other in declamatory
insults to their enemies, the majority were
acquitted. Paul Deroulede and Andre Buffet
were condemned to banishment for ten years
and Jules Guerin to imprisonment for the same
term. Two others. Marcel Habert and the
comte de Lur-Saluces, who had taken flight,
gave themselves up later and were condemned
in 1900 and 1901, respectively, amid a public
indifference which was far from their liking.
Thus the year 1899 had proved itself one of
the most dramatically eventful in the history
of the Republic. It was also to be one of the
most significant in its consequences. For the
new grouping of mutually jealous factions
i42 THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
against a common danger had, in spite of the
fiasco of the second Dreyfus case, shown a way
to victory. And exasperation against the in-
trigues of the Clericals and the army officers
was going to turn the former toleration of the
"esprit nouveau" into active persecution, espe-
cially as the Socialists and Radicals formed the
majority of the new combination.
In November, 1899, Waldeck-Rousseau laid
before Parliament an Associations bill to regu-
late the organization of societies, which was
intended indirectly to control religious bodies.
The leniency of the Government hitherto and
the commercial energy of many religious or-
ders, manufacturers of articles varying from
chartreuse to hair-restorers and dentifrice, had
enabled them to amass enormous sums held
in mortmain. The power of this money was
great in politics and the anti-Clericals cast
envious eyes on these vague and mysterious
fortunes. There were in France at the time
almost seven hundred unauthorized " congrega-
tions." Against the Assumptionists in particu-
lar the Government took direct measures early
in 1900, such as legal perquisitions, arrests,
and prosecution as an illegal association.
THE ADMINISTRATION OF LOUBET i43
The campaign went on through the year
1900, the Exposition of that year helping to
act as a partial truce. The expedition of the
Allies to China to put down the Boxer rebellion
also diverted attention. Waldeck-Rousseau
was sincerely desirous of bringing about a
pacification of feeling in the country, and he
felt bitter practically only against the Jesuits
and the Assumptionists. He even succeeded in
carrjdng through Parliament an amnesty bill
dealing with the Dreyfus case and destined to
quash all criminal actions in process, whether
of Dreyfusites or anti-Dreyfusites. The former
fought the project vigorously on the ground
that it opposed a new obstacle to ultimate dis-
covery of the truth, but they were unsuccess-
ful. Waldeck-Rousseau remained at heart,
none the less, a believer in Dreyfus's innocence
and in spite of his amnesty project, he could
not always hide his true feelings. In conse-
quence he offended his Minister of War, Gen-
eral de Galliffet, Dreyfusite as well, but tired
of the struggle now that the Rennes trial had
made the task of rehabilitation apparently
hopeless. Galliffet resigned his office and was
succeeded by General Andre, a politician sol-
i44 THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
dier, who started out at once to purge the army
drastically of its Clericalism.
Waldeck-Rousseau's Associations project
was fairly mild. He had no desire for a violent
break with the Vatican, and the wily and diplo-
matic Leo XIII probably so understood well
enough in spite of his protests. But, as debate
and discussion went on, the measure became
more severe. Waldeck-Rousseau had origi-
nally planned a bill dealing with authorization
and incorporation of associations in general,
in which he refrained from any specific allusion
to religious bodies of monks and nuns, thereby
assimilating them with other groups. As fi-
nally voted and promulgated in July, 1901, the
law made provisions for the privilege of asso-
ciation in general, but made the important
additional stipulations that no religious order
or "congregation" could be formed without
specific authorization by law, that a religious
order could be dissolved by ministerial decree,
and that no one belonging to an unauthorized
order could direct personally, or by proxy, an
educational establishment, or even teach in
one. Thus the enemies of the lay Republic
who, under cover of the "esprit nouveau," and
THE ADMINISTRATION OF LOUBET i45
by years of manipulation of the feeding sources
of army and navy officers, had hoped to grasp
power, and had made a supreme effort at the
time of the Dreyfus agitation, now saw them-
selves thwarted, and faced the prospect of
severer treatment.
Matters had progressed even further than
Waldeck-Rousseau himself perhaps desired. In
the spring of 1902, new legislative elections
took place for the renewal of the Chamber of
Deputies. The policy of the Waldeck-Rousseau
Ministry was endorsed by a sound majority,
and yet at this moment of triumph, after the
longest rule as Prime Minister of any hith-
erto in the history of the Republic, Waldeck-
Rousseau resigned his post without an adverse
vote. Undoubtedly the state of his personal
health was partly responsible for his departure
from office and he was destined not to live
beyond 1904. The last important events of his
administration were a visit of the Czar to
France and a return visit of President Loubet
to Russia.
Waldeck-Rousseau's successor as Prime
Minister was Emile Combes, a strong foe of
the Church. Combes had himself been a former
i46 THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
theological student and had, in his youth, writ-
ten a thesis on the philosophy of St. Thomas
Aquinas. He now had all the vindictiveness of
one who burns what he formerly worshipped.
Encouraged by the recent elections, he turned
more and more against the Vatican and im-
pelled by the more violent members of the
Bloc, he drifted toward the rupture which his
predecessor had tried to avoid. A committee
of the different groups supporting the Cabinet,
called the "delegation des gauches," had in
time been instituted to formulate policies with
the Prime Minister, who often had to obey it
instead of guiding. Waldeck-Rousseau had
intended not to apply his law retroactively.
He had planned to spare educational establish-
ments already in existence before July, 1901,
when his measure went into operation, and
had winked at lack of compliance on the part
of many others. Combes applied the letter of
the law ruthlessly. Amid public protestations
and disturbances he closed a large number of
these unauthorized schools; firstly, those which
had actually been opened without permission
since the promulgation of the law, then the
many schools which were older than the law.
THE ADMINISTRATION OF LOUBET i/i?
In so doing he was called a persecutor, because
the directors of the schools declared that they
had allowed the time limit of application for
authorization to go by, only through the under-
standing with the previous Administration that
they were not to be interfered with. Now they
could not help themselves.
Emboldened by success Combes next took
up the applications of the congregations which
had duly followed the law and were seeking
authorization. By decree, as was his right, he
first promptly closed unlicensed schools of
recognized orders. Then came the applica-
tions of orders seeking authorization. Legal
procedure demanded laws to reject as well as
laws to accept applications. A recommenda-
tion/GZ707*ec? by the Government but rejected by
the Chamber of Deputies would not go before
the Senate. On the other hand, an unfavorable
opinion of the Government ratified by the
House would still have to go before the Senate.
A way would thus be open for prolonged
chicanery.
Combes cut matters short. He lumped fifty-
four individual applications into three batches,
teaching orders, preaching orders, and the com-
i48 THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
mercial order of the Chartreux, manufacturers
of the liqueur called "chartreuse." Then, pre-
senting these batches of applications collec-
tively instead of individually to the Chamber,
he caused their rejection and proceeded to
dissolve the orders and close their fifteen hun-
dred establishments. Through the spring of
1903 there were turbulent scenes in conse-
quence in various parts of France, the monks
trying sometimes passive resistance, some-
times actual violence. In the reactionary dis-
tricts the population attempted to stir up riots.
Occasionally, even, a military officer whose
duty it was to evict the monks refused to obey
orders. But, nothing daunted. Combes went
on, with the support of the Chambers, to reject
a large mass of applications from teaching
orders of women. Even Waldeck-Rousseau
was led in time publicly to declare that he had
never contemplated the transformation of his
Associations law of 1901 from a measure of
regulation to one of exclusion, nor the assump-
tion by the State of expensive educational
charges hitherto carried on by religious orders.
At last the law of July, 1904, put a complete
end to all kinds of instruction by religious
THE ADMINISTRATION OF LOUBET i/ig
bodies, thereby insuring, after a lapse of time
for liquidation, the disappearance of all teach-
ing orders.
These measures against the religious groups
were, in spite of outcries of persecution, after
all matters of internal administration. But,
meanwhile, causes for direct dissension with
the Vatican had arisen over questions involv-
ing the Concordat regulating the relations of
Church and State.
The first dispute was about the method of
appointing bishops. The Concordat gave to
the Government the right of appointing bish-
ops, subject to the papal ratification of the
appointee's moral and theological qualifica-
tions. During the Third Republic the habit
had grown up of mutual consultation before
appointments were made, a practice which led
the Vatican to assume that its initial influence
was as great as that of the Government, and
finally to make use of the formula nobis nomi-
naviU or nominaverit, as though the Govern-
ment merely proposed a candidate subject to
the Vatican's free right to accept or to reject.
The keen-scented Combes took an early oppor-
tunity to raise this issue by making certain
i5o THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
appointments to bishoprics without previously
consulting the Vatican. In the midst of the
discussions Leo XIII died in July, 1903, and
was succeeded by Pius X, whose character was
utterly different from that of his predecessor.
His primitive faith saw in France the home of
heretics like the Modernist, the Abbe Loisy;
and his Secretary of State, the ultramontane
Cardinal Merry del Val, was as hostile to
France, as his predecessor Cardinal Rampolla
had, on the whole, been well disposed to the
*' eldest daughter of the Church." Between
Merry del Val and Combes no agreement was
possible. So matters went from bad to worse.
In the autumn of 1903 the King of Italy
made a visit to France, and in 1904 it was
deemed advisable to have President Loubet re-
turn this visit to emphasize the new cordiality
between France and Italy, the settlement of
long-standing difficulties, and to cultivate as
much as possible one member of the Triple
Alliance. The Pope protested violently against
this visit to his enemy in Rome and made it
clear that he would refuse to see Loubet. The
diplomatic crisis became acute and the French
Ambassador to the Vatican was recalled.
THE ADMINISTRATION OF LOUBET i5i
Soon came a complete rupture over the
treatment by the pontifical authorities of two
French bishops, Geay of Laval and Le Nordez
of Dijon. They had shown themselves loyal
Republicans and had become the object of
attack in their own dioceses until personal
scandals were imagined or raked up against
them. Combes took the part of the bishops
and, to punish the Vatican for interfering with
the French prelates, definitely broke off diplo-
matic relations in July, 1904, withdrawing even
the charge d'affaires who had been left after
the departure of the ambassador.
For some time, plans for the separation of
Church and State had been under discussion
in a somewhat academic way by a committee
or Commission of the Chamber, under the gen-
eral guidance of Ferdinand Buisson and Aris-
tide Briand. The latter had even drawn up a
preliminary project. But Combes, in spite of
his vehemence in words against the Church,
hesitated to involve the Ministry. He knew
that the country at large was fully satisfied
with the maintenance of the Concordat and
that some of his own colleagues in the Cabinet,
as well as Loubet, preferred not to disturb it.
i52 THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
Suddenly a great scandal broke out. The
enemies of the Ministry got hold of the fact
that General Andre, through some of his sub-
ordinates in the War Office, was carrying on a
regular system of espionage upon army officers
suspected of luke-warm republicanism or of
Clerical sympathies, and was using as spies
members of Masonic lodges or even subordi-
nate Masonic army officers throughout France.^
These spies had filed innumerable notes or
memoranda known as fiches, containing infor-
mation, rumor, or scandal concerning the per-
sons involved, their families and intimacies.
The discovery that leading members of the
Cabinet had been countenancing methods as
reprehensible as those of the worst of their
opponents, caused an uproar. The Cabinet
seemed on the point of being overthrown when
one of its enemies did it a great service. A wild
and blatant anti-Ministerialist named Syveton
rushed up to the Minister of War and struck
him two blows in the face during a meeting of
the Chamber. The effect of this deed was to
cause a temporary reaction in favor of the
* It should be remembered that, in France, the Freemasons
are an anti-religious political quite as much as a benevolent order.
THE ADMINISTRATION OF LOUBET i53
Ministry, but also to draw Combes more to the
Radicals, and he promptly brought forward
his own governmental separation plan, which
was considerably at variance with the Briand
project. The respite was, however, only mo-
mentary, and, after sacrificing General Andre,
Combes gave up the struggle and resigned in
January, 1905, without being actually put in
the minority.
It cannot be denied that there was a con-
siderable deterioration in government dur-
ing the regime of Combes. In attempting to
thwart the Clerical Party he let himself lapse
into methods as objectionable as theirs. His
anti-clericalism breathed the spirit of persecu-
tion, as much as did the intrigues of the clergy
during the early days of the Republic. He
transformed Waldeck-Rousseau's plans for the
regulation of religious orders into a measure of
proscription. He countenanced underhanded
intrigues, and allowed his Minister of War to
undermine army discipline by his methods of
political espionage almost as much as it had
been undermined in the days of the supremacy
of the Clericals. The concessions of the Min-
isters of War and of Marine to the Socialists
i54 THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
and pacifists considerably weakened the effi-
ciency of both army and navy. Combes's
administration was pre-eminently one of self-
seeking pohticians.
Yet, on the other hand, certain very praise-
worthy achievements may be registered to its
credit. One of these was the act of General
Andre, in 1903, instituting a new private in-
vestigation of the Dreyfus case. It resulted in
the discovery of material sufficient to justify a
new demand for revision, which the Gour de
Cassation admitted in March, 1904. Another
achievement was the rapprochement with Eng-
land known as the Entente cordiale or friendly
understanding, which following the new amity
with Italy greatly strengthened France face-
to-face with Germany. The Russian alliance
had given France one definite European ally,
and the cordiality with Italy, a member of
the Triple Alliance, cleared the situation in
the Mediterranean and on the frontier of the
Alps. The Entente cordiale was engineered by
Edward VII as a result of his visit to Paris in
1903. The accord of April, 1904, was really due
to English as well as French fear of German
aggression. It Uquidated all the old conten-
THE ADMINISTRATION OF LOUBET i55
tions between England and France, one of
which, the French Shore Dispute over New-
foundland fishing rights, dated back to the
Treaty of Utrecht in the early eighteenth cen-
tury. But, above all, France definitely gave
up her Egyptian claims in return for freedom
of action in Morocco guaranteed by England.
For France was anxious to add Morocco to her
African sphere of influence. A secret arrange-
ment with Spain gave that country reversion-
ary claims to certain parts of Morocco. By the
agreement with England the bad blood caused
by the Fashoda incident was wiped away, a
new intimacy sprang up between "Perfidi-
ous Albion" and "Froggy," and through the
natural drawing together of England and
France's ally Russia, the Triple Entente came
into being some years later, which was destined
to face Germany and Austria in the Great
European War.
Combes's successor as Prime Minister was a
member of his own Cabinet, Maurice Rouvier.
More moderate in views than Combes, he
would have been content to let the Separation
bill rest, but the Radicals were in the saddle
and he let things take their course. The dis-
i56 THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
cussions over the project went on through most
of the year 1905, under the guidance of the
Minister of Worship, Bienvenu-Martin, and
particularly of Aristide Briand, the rapporteur
or spokesman for the Commission in the Cham-
ber. The bill, again and again modified in a
spirit of conciliation and leniency under the
guidance of Briand, finally resulted, as pro-
mulgated on December 9, in a sincere effort
for a compromise between different views on
religion. It showed a desire, since Church and
State were to be divorced, to treat the former
fairly. Provision was made, when the budget
for religious purposes should be suppressed,
for the legal inventory of ecclesiastical prop-
erty, the pension of superannuated clergy, and
the formation of legal corporations to insure
public worship {associations culiuelles). It must
be remembered that the new measure applied
quite as much to the Protestants and to the
Jews as to the Catholics. Before the separation
the Protestant pastors and the Jewish rabbis
were maintained by the State no less than the
Catholic clergy. Their numerical insignificance
made them of little importance in the general
combat over the Clerical question. Nor could
THE ADMINISTRATION OF LOUBET 167
they fairly be accused of intrigue against the
RepubUc.
The year 1905 is noteworthy for two other
important events. One was the reduction of
the term of compulsory military service from
three to two years. This measure was carried
through largely under the auspices of General
Andre and proved an over-dangerous conces-
sion to the anti-militarists and pacifists, since
it was destined so soon to be repealed. The
other was the sensational diplomatic dispute
with Germany over Morocco, which resulted
at first for France in a worse humiliation than
Fashoda.
Germany under Bismarck had encouraged
the numerous French colonial schemes, as a
way of keeping her busy abroad and of divert-
ing her thoughts from Alsace-Lorraine. But
as the Empire began to develop its Pan-
Germanism and its aspirations to world-power
under William II, it grew jealous of England
and France and of their arrangement of 1904
to settle the interests of Morocco. Forthwith
Germany began to intrigue with the Sultan of
Morocco against the French, and declared
that, as it had not been officially informed of
i58 THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
the agreements between England, France, and
Spain, it intended to disregard them. The de-
feat of Russia by Japan, in particular, encour-
aged Germany to feel that France, deprived of
its ally, could be bullied with impunity. On
March 31, Emperor William landed at Tangier
and proclaimed that his visit was to the Sultan
as an "independent sovereign." Germany also
called for the convocation of an international
meeting to regulate the Moroccan question.
The French Minister of Foreign Affairs,
Delcasse, objected to the thwarting of his
plans, but because of the deterioration of the
army and navy and the lack of hoped-for
Russian support, Rouvier was obliged under
German threats to drop him from his Cabinet
and to agree to the convocation of the Confer-
ence of Algeciras.^
1 The pro-German position, expressed in such works as E. D.
Morel's Morocco in\ Diplomacy (1912), is that Sir Edward Grey
and M. Delcasse were engaged in tricky schemes to dispose of
Morocco without regard for German interests; that Germany
was not officially notified by France of the public agreements
with England (April, 1904) and with Spain (October, igod); that
these two agreements were both accompanied by secret ones which
nullified their effect; that M. Delcass6 resigned, not under Ger-
man pressure, but at M. Rouvier's wish, for having unduly in-
volved and compromised France.
CHAPTER IX
THE ADMINISTRATION OF ARMAND FALLIlfeRES
February, 1906, to Februeiry, iqiS
The international conference for the regula-
tion of the Moroccan question met at Algeciras
in southern Spain, in January, 1906. Twelve
powers participated, including the United
States. The negotiations were prolonged until
the end of March owing to the unconciliatory
German attitude, and resulted in an arrange-
ment which the Germans looked upon as
totally unsatisfactory to themselves. In the
shaping of the general results the United States
had considerable influence. The agreement
put out of discussion the sovereignty of the
Sultan, the integrity of the empire, and the
principle of commercial freedom, and was
largely devoted to the question of the estab-
lishment of a state bank and the organization
of the police in international ports of entry. In
the bank France was to have special privileges,
and the police was to be under the supervision
of France and Spain. Germany was eliminated.
i6o THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
In the midst of the uncertainty over the
outcome of the Conference two important
events took place in France, the second of
which came near seriously weakening the
French position. These were the election of a
successor to President Loubet and the down-
fall of the Rouvier Ministry.
M. Loubet's term expired in February and
he did not desire re-election. The two chief
candidates were Armand Fallieres and Paul
Doumer. M. Fallieres was an easy-going, good-
natured, and well-meaning but second-rate
statesman. Doumer was far more brilliant and
vigorous, but was accused of self-seeking and
was thought a less safe person to elect. Unfor-
tunately, M. Fallieres, when chosen, had his
master, and was largely under the control of
Clemenceau.
Meanwhile the almost unprincipled vacilla-
tion of M. Rouvier and his spineless policy
caused increased dissatisfaction to the Cham-
ber. During the discussion of a riotous episode
connected with the enforcement of the Separa-
tion law, which had resulted in the death of a
man, Rouvier was overthrown. He was suc-
ceeded by a colorless person, Sarrien, who in-
THE ADMINISTRATION OF FALLIERES i6i
eluded Clemenceau in his Cabinet as Minister
of the Interior. The latter gradually pushed
his chief aside and finally replaced him before
the end of the year as Prime Minister.
Clemenceau showed himself during his
lengthy control of power an astute politician.
In the public eye ever since the days of the
Commune, he had had success during the
eighties as a destroyer of cabinets. Driven into
the background by the Panama scandals, he
now came forward again to try his fortune in
holding the power from which he had often
driven others. With a Cabinet thoroughly
under his dictatorial control, he announced a
programme which was to depend for success
on the Radicals, rather than on the Moderates
or the Socialists. It was a departure from the
policy of the Bloc, though to conciliate the ad-
vanced parties he created the new Ministry of
Labor and put M. Viviani, a Socialist, in charge
of it. In practice, Clemenceau's policy was that
of one determined to stay in office, showing
alternately conciliation and severity, explain-
ing his actions to the Chamber often with a
flippancy which seemed out of place and did not
help the prestige of parliamentary government.
i62 THE THIRD, FRENCH REPUBLIC
Apart from the diplomatic tension with Ger-
many, which was not settled by the Act of
Algeciras, the history of the Fallieres Adminis-
tration is largely taken up with the final dispo-
sition of the religious controversy and with
labor questions. The constant advance toward
radicalism and socialism, the lack of great
statesmen in Parliament and the presence of
professional politicians, the progress of anti-
militarism and the relegation of the question
of Alsace-Lorraine to the background, left a
free field for the growth of social unrest. The
tendency was encouraged by the elections for
the renewal of the Chamber of Deputies in
May, 1906. To the religious disturbances and
the efforts of the Conservatives to prove them-
selves persecuted, the country answered at the
polls by an increased anti-Clerical majority.
In 1906 the Dreyfus case was at last settled.
The Cour de Cassation finally annulled the
verdict of the Rennes court-martial. In conse-
quence Dreyfus was restored to the army with
the rank of Major which he would normally
have reached had it not been for his great
ordeal. Colonel Picquart, to whom more than
to any one he owed his rehabilitation, who
THE ADMINISTRATION OF FALLIERES i63
had been driven from the army in 1898, was
now made Brigadier-General. Promoted a few
weeks later to Major-General, he became Min-
ister of War in Clemenceau's Cabinet. The
remains of Emile Zola were also transferred to
the Pantheon. Such were the dramatic changes
wrought in half a dozen years.
The troubles over the application of the law
for the disestablishment of the Church lasted
more than two years. The Vatican was deter-
mined to make itself a martyr. It would un-
doubtedly have been glad to see a forcible
closing of the churches in order to cause a reac-
tion in its favor. Moreover, it objected to the
diminution of priestly power and the participa-
tion of the laity as prescribed in the forma-
tion of the new associations cultuelles. The
Ministry, and particularly Briand, were just
as determined not to give it an opportunity to
raise the cry of persecution.
The first opportunity for a conflict came
when the Government tried to make inven-
tories of religious property, including valua-
bles. This measure was for the protection of
the Church, but the Clericals chose to call it
inquisitorial and a first step to confiscation.
i64 THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
In some parts of France armed resistance,
often systematically prepared, was made to
the authorities, army officers again occasion-
ally refused to carry out orders, and on March
6, at Boeschepe, a man was killed. It was this
incident which caused the downfall of the
Rouvier Cabinet.
It was the policy of M. Briand, entrusted
with the application of the new law, to employ
the most conciliatory means face to face with
the Vatican, determined to be persecuted. As
a matter of fact the French bishops, after plen-
ary consultation, had decided by a consider-
able majority, to accept the law in a good spirit,
with reservations as to its justice, and to or-
ganize the associations cultuelles. Suddenly the
Pope intervened by an encyclical directed
against any such acceptance, and prescribed a
continuation of the contest. These orders the
bishops felt constrained to obey.
Therefore, at the advent of the Clemenceau
Cabinet in October, 1906, M. Briand had
achieved nothing but compulsory inventories.
He got Parliament to allow the legality of the
proposed religious organizations under the
Associations Law of 1901 or under the general
THE ADMINISTRATION OF FALLIERES i65
law of 1881 on public meetings, as well as under
the special legislation of 1905. Again the Holy
See refused to obey, and ordered the clergy to
continue their occupancy of the churches, but
to refrain from any legal declaration or regis-
tration whatsoever. Then M. Briand did away
with the declaration. So the contest went on
without agreement until it finally lapsed. The
clergy continued to occupy the churches, but
without legal claim to them, under the law of
1881 on public meetings, amended by the law
of March 28, 1907, suppressing the formality
of a declaration. The Catholic Church was
stripped, by its own unwillingness to help
organize holding bodies, of all its possessions.
By the good-will of the Government it con-
tinued to occupy the religious edifices, but the
maintenance and repair of these was depend-
ent on the good-will of the commune or admin-
istrative division in which the churches were
situated. On the other hand, nothing has
materialized of the prophesied religious perse-
cutions, civil war, and martyrdoms.
Apart from the annoyances caused by the
separation of Church and State, the history of
the Clemenceau Ministry deals largely with
i66 THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
labor disturbances and social unrest. This was
partly due to parliamentary demagogy. A suc-
cession of weak and ineffective ministries had
been followed by Clemenceau's incoherencies
and alterations of policy, though it remained
consistently Radical and not socialistic. The
Ministers were often at loggerheads (even
Clemenceau and Briand over the Separation
bill), and the Deputies were often mediocre
politicians, quick to vote themselves an in-
crease of salary, but dilatory in other achieve-
ments. The growth of socialism, with its
theories of pacifism and international brother-
hood, encouraged the anti-militarists. The
brilliant leader Jaures openly advocated the
abolition of the army and the creation of a
national militia. Some anti-militarists, like
Herve, carried their theories beyond all bounds
and rhetorically talked of dragging the na-
tional flag in the mire. Meanwhile the pohtical
methods in the past of men like Andre in the
War Department and Camille Pelletan in the
Navy had weakened those services, as Del-
cass6 had found to his cost in the controversy
with Germany. The battleship Una blew up
in March, 1907, there was a suspicious fire at
THE ADMINISTRATION OF FALLlfiRES 167
the Toulon Arsenal, and many other things
disquieted people.
The Government tried to cater to the labor
parties, brought forward plans for an income
tax and for old-age pensions, and carried
through a law making compulsory one day of
rest out of seven for workingmen. Especially
active were the efforts of the syndicalists and
the organizers of the anarchistic Confederation
generale du travail, or "C.G.T.," to promote
every contest between capital and labor and to
bring about, if possible, a general strike of all
labor. There were strikes of miners, longshore-
men, sailors, electricians among others. Even
more alarming was the formation of unions,
afTiliated with the C.G.T., among state em-
ployees such as school teachers and postmen,
and efforts to disorganize the public service.
These different movements Clemenceau met
with his customary seesaw of friendliness and
harshness, and the Government was usually
victorious. Not less troublesome but some-
what more picturesque was the quasi-revolu-
tionary movement, in 1907, of the wine-makers
of the South, driven to desperation by over-
production and low prices, attributed to the
i68 THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
competition of adulterated wines. The muni-
cipalities where these disturbances occurred
were often in sympathy with the creators of
disturbance, not only in small towns, but in
large places like Beziers, Perpignan, Narbonne,
and Carcassonne. Municipal officials resigned
or refused to carry out their duties, and some
regiments, made up of men recruited from
one of the districts, mutinied. The troubles at
last quieted down.
In the beginning of 1909 an important agree-
ment was signed with Germany which seemed
to promise an end to the long disputes over
Morocco. The Moroccan question had con-
tinued to dominate French foreign policy even
after Algeciras and that conference had not
ended the commercial rivalries of the two
countries. In March, 1907, a Frenchman,
Dr. Mauchamp, was murdered by natives at
Marrakesh and the French in reply occupied
Ujda near the Algerian frontier. In July, after
the murder of some European workmen at
Casablanca, the French sent a landing corps.
In 1908 the Sultan Abd-el-Aziz, a friend of the
French, was overthrown by a rival, Muley-
Hafid, egged on by the Germans. These also
THE ADMINISTRATION OF FALLIERES 169
raised a dispute over some deserters from the
French Foreign Legion at Casablanca, who
had taken refuge at the German Consulate
and whom the Germans claimed as their sub-
jects. For a moment war clouds seemed to
appear on the horizon until dissipated by mu-
tual expressions of regret and after a refer-
ence to the Hague Tribunal, which, on the
whole, justified the French. It was, therefore,
good news for Europe to hear of the agreement
of February, 1909, which acknowledged the
predominance of French political claims, and
tried to facilitate economic co-operation in-
stead of rivalry between France and Germany.
Unfortunately, this agreement was destined to
prove ineffective.
The Clemenceau Cabinet lasted until July,
1909. During a discussion on the Navy, Cle-
menceau and Delcasse had an altercation as to
their relative responsibilities for the French
surrender to Germany in 1905 when Delcasse
was driven from the Rouvier Ministry. The
Chamber sided with Delcasse and Clemenceau
discovered that his sarcasm had overreached
itself. The new Premier was Briand, the So-
cialist and former bugbear of the moneyed
170 THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
classes, who had shown by his management of
the Separation bill the abilities of a true states-
man and who became more and more moderate
in his views under the increasing responsibili-
ties of power.
The history of the Briand Ministry was
largely taken up by internal questions and the
elections of May, 1910, for the renewal of the
Chamber of Deputies. To propitiate the elec-
torate the expiring Parliament passed a law
providing old-age pensions for workingmen.
The elections left the Radicals and the Social-
istic Radicals (as opposed to the Socialists) on
the whole masters of the situation, but the
general parliamentary instability continued to
prevail. The country felt the reaction. In the
autumn of 1910 far-reaching railway strikes
broke out, resulting in violence and injury
to railway property or sabotage. Briand met
the difficulty energetically by mobilizing the
employees still subject to military duty, and
making them perform their work under mili-
tary orders. The act of "dictatorship" was
approved by the Chamber, but Briand went
through the ceremony of resigning and ac-
cepting the mission to form a new Cabinet. It
THE ADMINISTRATION OF FALLIERES 171
proved not very homogeneous and withdrew
in February, 1911. The Monis Cabinet, of
more advanced SociaHstic-Radical principles,
lasted only a few months and faced new dis-
turbances with wine-producers. This time the
trouble was in the East, where many were
dissatisfied with the artificial limitation of
districts entitled to produce wines labelled
"champagne." The Socialistic-Radical Min-
istry of Joseph Caillaux (June, 1911) en-
countered a new and dangerous crisis in the
relations with Germany.
The mutual agreement between the two
countries for the economic development of
Morocco had, through financial rivalries, not
worked well. There was also friction over
similar attempts for the development of the
French Congo. In this state of affairs, the
French sent a military expedition to Fez in the
early summer of 1911 for the ostensible purpose
of protecting the Sultan from attack by rebels
and of relieving the French military mission.
The Germans, backed up, indeed, by the
French anti-militarist press, declared that
this was a mere pretext for encroachment.
Spain also took the opportunity of asserting
172 THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
its rights to parts of the North in accordance
with its reversionary claims by the Treaty of
1904. Thereupon Germany declared that the
agreements of Algeciras and of 1909 had
been nullified by France and demanded com-
pensations. The gunboat Panther suddenly
appeared in the port of Agadir (July 1) and
the Germans began to call for their share in
the partition of Morocco.
Difficult negotiations were carried on be-
tween France and Germany through the sum-
mer of 1911, and at moments the two countries
were on the very brink of war. The English
Government backed up France. Lloyd George
and Premier Asquith made public declara-
tions to that effect. French capitalists also
began calling in their funds invested in Ger-
many and a financial crisis threatened that
country.
Thus brought to terms the Germans be-
came more moderate in their demands, and it
was finally possible to reach a compromise,
unsatisfactory to both parties. Germany def-
initely gave up all political claim to Morocco
and acknowledged France as paramount there.
On the other hand, a territorial readjustment
THE ADMINISTRATION OF FALLIERES 178
was made in the Congo by which Germany
added to the Cameroons about two hundred
and thirty thousand square kilometres of land
with a million people, and the new frontiers
made annoying salients into the French Congo.
The treaty was signed in November, 1911, but
the Pan-Germanists were angry at any conces-
sions to France, the Colonial Minister resigned,
and the Emperor, who had thrown his influ-
ence on the side of peace, lost much prestige
for a while. On the other hand, the French
were correspondingly dissatisfied at the losses
in the Congo. The opponents of the Prime
Minister, Caillaux, had often taunted him with
too close a relation between his official acts and
his private financial interests. They now ac-
cused him of tricky concessions to Germany in
connection with the Congo adjustments. M.
Caillaux denied in the Chamber that he had
ever entered into any private dealings apart
from the negotiations of the ministry of For-
eign Affairs. However, Clemenceau asked the
Foreign Minister, M. de Selves, point-blank
if the French Ambassador at Berlin had not
complained of interference in the diplomatic
negotiations. M. de Selves refused to answer.
174 THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
thus implicitly giving the lie to M. Caillaux.
The consequence was a cabinet crisis and the
resignation of the Ministry (January, 1912).
The upshot of the Agadir crisis was in-
creased irritation between France and Ger-
many and the feeling in each country that the
other was seeking trouble. The French were
now convinced that, some day or other, war
would inevitably result and the nation dropped
its strong pacifist tendencies and rallied to the
army. The Germans were, above all, furious
against the English, whom they considered
responsible for their humiUation.
So far as Morocco was immediately con-
cerned, the French took steps to develop their
new privileges. In March, 1912, they imposed
a definite protectorate on the Sultan Muley-
Hafid and soon replaced him by his brother
Muley-Yussef. They came to an agreement
with Spain as to the latter's claims in the North
and entrusted to General Lyautey the ad-
ministrative and military reorganization of the
country. The pacification of the hostile tribes
was not an easy task and went on laboriously
through 1912 and 1913.
After the downfall of M. Caillaux, Raymond
THE ADMINISTRATION OF FALLIERES 175
Poincare became head of a Cabinet more
moderate than its predecessor, the Socialistic
Radicals seeming somewhat discredited in
public opinion. M. Poincare was a strong
partisan of proportional representation, and
a measure for the modification of the method of
voting was, under his auspices, passed by the
Chamber, though it failed the following year
in the Senate.
In foreign affairs, Morocco having dropped
into the background, the Eastern question
became acute. Fear lest the conflict in the
Orient should involve the rest of Europe led
France to draw again closer to Russia and
England.
CHAPTER X
THE ADMINISTRATION OF RAYMOND POINCARE
February, 19 13
M. Fallieres' term expired on February 18,
1913. The two leading candidates were Ray-
mond Poincare, head of the Ministry, and
Jules Pams, who was supported by the ad-
vanced Radicals. M. Poincare's election was
looked upon, because of his personal vigor, as
a triumph of sound conservative republican-
ism, and it was predicted that he would prove
a strong leader, able to give prestige to the
Presidency and to bring order out of chaos.
The early months of his Administration were
less productive of results than had been hoped,
but the European War came too soon to make
definitive judgment safe.
After M. Poincare's election, M. Fallieres
made M. Briand President of the Council dur-
ing the last weeks of his term, and M. Poin-
care kept the same Cabinet. M. Briand, like
M. Poincare, advocated proportional repre-
sentation. As the Chamber failed to take a
THE ADMINISTRATION OF POINCARE 177
vigorous position in support of the measure,
and defeated the Ministry on a vote of con-
fidence, the latter withdrew (March, 1913).
Louis Barthou next became Prime Minister,
and the important legislative measure of the
year was the new military law. The Germans
having largely increased their army, it was
deemed necessary, in spite of the violent op-
position of the Socialistic Radicals and the
Socialists and the attempts of the syndicalists
of the Confederation generate da travail to work
up a general strike, to abrogate the Law of
1905 and to return to three years of military
service without exemption. M. Barthou pushed
the three-years bill already supported by the
Briand Cabinet. France took upon herself an
enormous financial burden, coupled with a
corresponding loss of productive labor, yet
events soon proved the wisdom of the step.
The opposition to the Cabinet was virulent.
There were now two great groupings of the
chief political parties.^ The Radicals and
* It must be obvious to the reader, after following all the
changes in nomenclature recorded in this volume, that in France
party-names give little hint of party- views: " In French political
parlemce * Progressivs' ar retrograde, ' Liberals ' ar conservativ,
' Conservativs' ar revolutionary in aim and methods, ' Radicals '
01 trimmers and time-servers, whilst one of the most reactionary
178 THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
Socialistic Radicals, under the name of "Uni-
fied Radicals" waged war against the Presi-
dent and the Ministry. They were under the
inspiration of men like Clemenceau and the
active leadership of Joseph Caillaux and tried
to revive the methods of the old Bloc of
Combes. They declared their intention of re-
pealing the three-years law and proclaimed the
tenets of their faith at the Congress of Pau.
The Briand-Barthou-Millerand group, sup-
porters of Poincare, soon formed a Moder-
ate Party with a programme of conciliation
and reform known as the "Federation of the
Lefts."
The Barthou Cabinet had been overthrown
early in December, 1913, after a vote on a
government loan. President Poincare had to
call in a Radical Cabinet led by Gaston Dou-
mergue, the programme of which Ministry was,
administrations of recent years was heded by three ' Socialists.* "
A.-L. Gu^rard in Pub. Mod. Lang. Assoc, of America, vol. xxx,
p. 624. Compare also the following: " Suivant les regions de la
France, c'est-^-dire selon la moyenne de I'opinion locale et les
termes de comparaison ou les traditions propres h chaque prov-
ince, les mots changent de signification. Dans le Var un radical
passe pour un moder6, dans I'ouest un r^publicain est consid6r6
par certains comme un r^volutionnaire, aUleurs les candidats qui
ne sont pas au moins radicaux-socialistes ne sont pas tenus pour
de bons r^publicains." L. Jacques, Les partis poliiiques sous la
troisitme republique, p. 429.
THE ADMINISTRATION OF POINCARfi 179
after all, less "advanced" than the Pau pro-
gramme, especially as to the three-years bill.
M. Caillaux, the master-spirit of the Radicals,
was the Minister of Finance and the object of
the hostility of the Moderates. They claimed
that he used his position to cause speculation
at the Stock Exchange, and accused him of
"selling out" to Germany in the settlement
after Agadir. The Figaro, edited by Gaston
Calmette, began a violent campaign. Among
the charges was that during the prosecution in
1911 of Rochette, a swindling promoter, the
then Prime Minister Monis, now Minister of
Marine, had, at Caillaux's instigation, held up
the prosecution for fraud, during which delay
Rochette had been able to put through other
swindles.
In the midst of the public turmoil over these
charges Caillaux's wife went to Calmette's
editorial offices and killed him with a revolver.
Caillaux resigned and, the Rochette case hav-
ing come up for discussion in the Chamber,
when Monis denied that he had ever influ-
enced the law, Barthou produced a most
damaging letter. A parliamentary commis-
sion later decided that the Monis Cabinet
i8o THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
had interfered to save Rochette from prose-
cution.
It was under such circumstances that the
Deputies separated for the general elections.
Three chief questions came before the vot-
ers, the three-years law, the income tax, and
proportional representation. The results of
the elections were inconclusive and the new
Chamber promised to be as ineffective as its
predecessor. On the second ballots the Social-
ists made a good many gains.
The Doumergue Ministry resigned soon
after the elections which it had carried through.
President Poincare offered the leadership to
the veteran statesman Ribot, who with the
co-operation of Leon Bourgeois, formed a
Moderate Cabinet with an inclination toward
the Left. This Ministry was above the aver-
age, but its leaders were insulted and brow-
beaten and overthrown on the very first day
they met the Chamber of Deputies. So then
a Cabinet was formed, led by the Socialist
Rene Viviani, who was willing, however, to
accept the three-years law, though he had
previously opposed it. But this victory for
national defence was weakened by parlia-
THE ADMINISTRATION OF POINCARE i8i
mentary revelations of military unprepared-
ness.
In mid-July President Poincare and M.
Viviani left France for a round of state visits
to Russia and Scandinavia. Paris was en-
grossed by the sensational trial of Madame
Caillaux, which resulted in her acquittal, but
this excitement was suddenly replaced by the
European crisis, and President Poincare cut
short his foreign trip and hastened home.
France loyally supported her ally Russia, and,
on August 3, Baron von Schoen, the German
Ambassador, notified M. Viviani of a state of
war between Germany and France.
Indeed, no sooner had the Moroccan ques-
tion been settled than danger had loomed in
the Orient, in which France was likely to be
involved through her alliance with Russia.
Moreover, Germany had not got over the
Agadir fiasco and was furious with England as
well as France. Thus the European balance
of power had long been in danger through the
hostility of the Triple Alliance and the Triple
Entente. It is beyond the scope of the present
volume to analyze in detail the Balkan ques-
tion. The role of France was consistent in the
i82 THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
interest of peace by helping to maintain the
balance of power, but obviously she was loyal
toward her partners of the Triple Entente and
acted in solidarity with them.
So far as the outbreak of the war in 1914 is
concerned, France stands with a clear con-
science. She had nothing to do with the dis-
putes between Austria and Serbia, or between
Austria, Germany, and Russia. Once war
proved inevitable France faithfully accepted
the responsibilities of the Russian alliance.
Against France, Germany was an open ag-
gressor. Germany's strategic plans for the
quick annihilation of France, before attacking
Russia, are well known to the world. Every-
body is aware how scrupulously France
avoided every hostile measure, and, during the
critical days preceding the war, withdrew all
troops ten kilometres from the frontier to pre-
vent a clash. The Germans were obliged, in or-
der to justify their advance, to invent prepos-
terous tales of bombs dropped by aeroplanes
near Nuremberg or of the violation of Belgium
neutrality by French officers in automobiles.
France had no idea of invading Belgium. All
the French strategic plans aimed at the protec-
THE ADMINISTRATION OF POINCARfi i83
tion of the direct frontier, and they were dis-
located by the dishonest move of Germany
through Belgium.
In 1914 France was not even prepared for
war. The pacification of Morocco immobi-
lized thousands of her troops. Revelations in
Parliament as late as July 13 showed, as men-
tioned above, great deficiencies in equipment.
Public attention was taken up by the Caillaux
trial and by political strife apparently reaching
the proportions of national weakness.
Since Agadir it is true that France, con-
scious of the constantly provocative attitude
of Germany, had seen the folly of plans for
disarmament. Love for the army had grown
again, through realization of its necessity.
But no nation ever looked forward with more
horror and dread to military conflict than the
French. They had been the last victims of a
great European war, of which the memories
were still alive. However much the loss of
Alsace-Lorraine rankled in their hearts, they
knew too well the madness of war to seek it
again. A new generation had grown up rec-
onciled to fate and willing to let bygones be
bygones.
i84 THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC
But Germany would not. The new Em-
pire, a Bourgeois gentilhomme among nations,
but without even the breeding of the parvenu,
dreamed of world-supremacy. As the boor in
society makes himself conspicuous, so it was
one of the tenets of Pan-Germanism to let no
international agreement take place without
German interference.
Some people, reading the annals of forty-
four years since the Franco-Prussian War,
have been disposed to sneer at France. Some
have called the country degenerate because
of its small birth-rate, its fiction sometimes
brutal, sometimes neurotic, its inefTicient
Parliament, its vindictive political and reli-
gious contests. Such critics should remember
that the French Government is the result of
tactical compromise in presence of the Mon-
archical Party. Nobody denies that it might
be improved. As to religious persecution,
Americans might remember their own right-
eous feelings toward fellow citizens with "hy-
phenated" allegiance, when they rebuke the
French for fighting vast organizations work-
ing against their Government under foreign
orders.
THE ADMINISTRATION OF POINCARE i85
In 1914 France, bearing on her shoulders
proportionably the greatest burden of all the
Allies, presented to the world a spirit of firm-
ness, unity, and national resolve that won
the admiration of neutral nations. Religious
persecution and clerical manoeuvre were alike
put aside. France forgot all lassitude and dis-
couragement. Atheist, Protestant, and Catho-
lic felt a great wave of spiritual as well as of
patriotic fervor, and took as symbol of love of
country the heroic peasant girl of Lorraine,
Jeanne d'Arc, who, coming from the people
and leading the nation's army, sought to drive
from the soil its foes and invaders.
THE END
APPENDIX
APPENDIX
PRESIDING OFFICERS OF FRENCH
CABINETS
VICE-PRESIDENTS DU CONSEIL
Administration of Thiers
Feb. 19, 1871, Jules Dufaure.
May 18, 1873, Jules Dufaure.
Administration of Mac-Mahon
May 25, 1873, Due de Broglie.
Nov. 26, 1873, Due de Broglie.
May 22, 1874, General de Cissey.
TVT L ir^ -lorrc (LOUlS Buffet.
^^^^^l^'l^^^'l Jules Dufaure.
PRESIDENTS DU CONSEIL
Administration of Mac-Mahon (continued)
March 9, 1876, Jules Dufaure.
Dec. 12, 1876, Jules Simon.
May 17, 1877, Due de Broglie.
Nov. 23, 1877, General de Rochebouet.
Dec. 13, 1877, Jules Dufaure.
Administration of Jules Grivy
Feb. 4, 1879, William-Henry Waddington.
Dec. 28, 1879, Charles de Freycinet.
Sept. 23, 1880, Jules Ferry.
Nov. 14, 1881, Leon Gambetta.
Jan. 30, 1882, Charles de Freycinet.
igo APPENDIX
Aug. 7, 1882, Eug&ne Duclerc.
Jan. 29, 1883, Armand Falli^res.
Feb. 21, 1883, Jules Ferry.
April 6, 1885, Henri Brisson.
Jan. 7, 1886, Charles de Freycinet.
Dec. 11, 1886, Rene Goblet.
May 30, 1887. Maurice Rouvier.
Administration of Carnot
Dec. 12, 1887, Pierre-Emmanuel Tirard.
April 3, 1888, Charles Floquet.
Feb. 22, 1889, Pierre-Emmanuel Tirard.
March 17, 1890, Charles de Freycinet.
Feb. 27, 1892, Emile Loubet.
Dec. 6, 1892, Alexandre Ribot.
Jan. 11, 1893, Alexandre Ribot.
April 4, 1893, Charles Dupuy.
Dec. 3, 1893, Jean Casimir-Perier.
May 30, 1894. Charles Dupuy.
Administration of Casimir-Perier
July 1, 1894, Charles Dupuy.
Administration of Felix Fame
Jan. 26, 1895, Alexandre Ribot.
Nov. 1, 1895, Leon Bourgeois.
April 29, 1896, Jules MeUne.
June 28, 1898, Henri Brisson.
Nov. 1, 1898, Charles Dupuy.
Administration of Emile Loubet
Feb. 18, 1899, Charles Dupuy.
June 22, 1899, Rene Waldeck-Rousseau.''
June 7, 1902, Emile Combes.
Jan. 24, 1905, Maurice Rouvier.
APPENDIX 191
Administration of Armand Fallihes
Feb. 18, 1906, Maurice Rouvier.
March 14, 1906, Ferdinand Sarrien.
Oct. 25, 1906, Georges Clemenceau.
July 23, 1909, Aristide Briand.
March 2, 1911, Ernest Monis.
, July 27, 1911, Joseph Caillaux.
Jan. 13, 1912, Raymond Poincare.
Jan. 21, 1913, Aristide Briand.
Administration of Raymond Poincari
Feb. 18, 1913, Aristide Briand.
March 21, 1913, Louis Barthou.
Dec. 2, 1913, Gaston Doumergue.
June 9, 1914, Alexandre Ribot.
June 13, 1914, Ren6 Viviani.
Aug. 26, 1914, Ren6 Viviani.
Oct. 29, 1915, Aristide Briand.
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Barclay, Thomas. Thirty Years. Anglo-French Remi-
niscences (1876-1906). 1914.
Beyens, Baron. L'Allemagne avant la guerre. Les
causes et les responsabilites. 1915.
BoDLEY, J. E. C. The Church in France. 1906.
BoDLEY, J. E. C. France. 2 vols. 1898.
Brisson, H. Souvenirs. 1908.
Cambridge Modern History. (Vol. xii, The Latest Age.
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Chuquet, a. La Guerre, 1870-1871. 1895.
Coubertin, p. de. UEvolution franqaise sous la
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Daniel, Andre (Andr6 Lebon). U Annie politique.
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Daudet, E. Souvenirs de la Presidence du marechal
de Mac-Mahon. 1879.
Debidour, a. UEglise catholique et VEtat sous la
troisieme Republique. 2 vols. 1909.
Denis, Samuel. Histoire contemporaine. 4 vols. 1897-
1903.
Despagnet, Frantz. La Republique et le Vatican
(1870-1906). 1906.
DiMNET, E. France Herself Again. 1914.
Dutrait-Crozon, H. Precis de r Affaire Dreyfus. 1909.
FiAux, Louis. Histoire de la guerre civile de 1871.
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George, W. L. France in the Twentieth Century. 1908.
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Gu6rard, A.-L. French Civilization in the Nineteenth
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Hanotaux, G. Histoire de la France contemporaine.
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HippEAU, E. Histoire diplomatique de la troisihme
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Jacques, L eon. Les partis politiques sous la troisieme
republique. 1912.
Lavisse et Rambaud, editors. Histoire ginerale du IV'
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INDEX
INDEX
Abd-el-Aziz, 168.
Africa, 89, 104, 106, 132.
Agadir, 172, 174, 179, 181, 183.
Aix, 104.
Albert of Saxony, 15, 16, 18.
Alexander III, Czar, 105.
Algeciras, 158, 159, 162, 168,
172.
Algeria, 81, 110, 168.
Algiers, 104.
Alsace, 11, 13, 34, 35, 43, 157,
162, 183.
Amiens, 23.
Andre, General, 143, 152, 153,
154, 157, 166.
Annam, 89, 90.
Antony of Hohenzollern, 8, 9.
Arques, 54.
Arton, 109, 111, 118, 134.
Artenay, 19, 22.
Asquith, 172.
Aurelle de Paladines, General
d' 22 23 39
Austria, '3, 4, 52, 89, 155, 182.
Auteuil, 136.
Avellan, Admiral, 106.
Bac-Le, 90.
Baihaut, 111.
Bapaimae, 24.
Barthou, Louis, 177, 178, 179.
Basly, 97.
Bazaine, 13, 14, 15, 16, 20, 21.
Beaugency, 23.
Beaumont, 16.
Beaune-la-Rolande, 22.
Belfort, 24, 25, 34.
Belgium, 4, 16, 182, 183.
Benedetti, 7, 8, 9, 10.
Berlin, 11, 51, 73, 81.
Bert, Paul, 80.
Beule, 51.
Beziers, 168.
Bienvenu-Martin, 156.
Billot, General, 124, 126.
Bismarck, 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 9, 10,
11, 18, 21, 26, 28, 34, 51, 61,
73, 81, 93, 157.
Bitche, 24.
Blanqui, 38.
BcEschepe, 164.
Boisdeffre, General de, 106, 125.
Bordeaux, 22, 31, 35, 36, 40, 43,
45, 46.
Borny, 14,
Boulanger, General, 93, 94, 98,
99, 100, 101, 102, 103.
Bourbaki, General, 23, 24, 25.
Bourgeois, Leon, 121, 122, 180.
Briand, Aristide, 151, 153, 156,
163, 164, 165, 166, 169, 170,
176, 177, 178.
BriSrede I'lsle, 90.
Brisson, Henri, 84, 92, 97, 109,
120, 129, 130, 131, 138.
Broglie, due de, 48, 51, 55, 56,
57, 67, 69, 71, 72, 83.
Brussels, 35, 102.
Buffet, Andre, 141.
Buffet, Louis, 48, 60, 61.
Buisson, Ferdinand, 151.
Burdeau, 116, 120.
Busch, Moritz, 11.
Buzenval, 27.
Caffarel, General, 94.
Cahors, 20.
CaUlaux, Joseph, 171, 173, 174,
178, 179.
Caillaux, Madame, 179, 181,
183.
Calmette, Gaston, 179.
Cameroons, 173.
Canrobert, Marshal, 21.
202
INDEX
Carcassonne, 168.
Carnot, President, 96-114.
Casablanca, 168, 169.
Caserio Santo, 114.
Casimir-Perier, President, 115-
120.
Cayaignac, Godefroy, 129, 130.
Chalons, 14.
Chambord, comte de, 45, 50, 51,
52, 53, 55, 56, 88.
Champigny, 23, 26.
Chanoine, General, 130.
Chanzy, General, 20, 23, 24.
Chateaudun, 19.
Chatillon, 18.
Chesnelong, 53, 54.
China, 90, 91, 143.
Christiani, Baron de, 136.
Cissey, General de, 57, 60.
Clemenceau, Georges, 78, 83,
97, 98, 109, 160, 161, 163,
164, 165, 166, 167, 169, 178.
Clermont-Ferrand, 94.
Clinchant, 25.
Cluseret 40.
Combes.' Emile, 145, 146, 147,
148, 150, 151, 153, 154, 155,
178.
Congo, 132, 171, 173.
Cottu, Henri, 108, 110, 111.
Coulmiers, 22.
Courbet, Gustave, 42.
Cremieux, 19.
Cronstadt, 105, 106.
Crown Prince of Prussia, 12,
13, 15, 16, 18.
Decazes, due, 56.
Delahaye, 108.
Delcasse, 158, 166, 169.
Delegorgue, 127.
Delescluze, Charles, 37.
Demange, Maitre, il9.
Denfert-Rochereau, 24.
Deroulede, Paul, 101, 135, 140,
141.
DevU's Isle, 119.
Dijon, 151.
Dillon, 102.
Dombrowski, 41.
Dordogne, 99.
Douay, Abel, 13.
Doimier, Paul, 160. i
Doumergue, Gaston, 178, 180.
Dreyfus, Alfred, 105, 116, 117,
118, 119, 120, 122, 123, 124,
125, 126, 127, 128, 130, 134,
135, 137, 138, 139, 140, 142,
143, 145, 154, 162.
Dreyfus, Madame, 131.
Dreyfus, Mathieu, 123, 124,
125, 126.
Drumont, Edouard, 118.
Duclerc, 86.
Ducrot, 16, 22.
Dufaure, Jules, 66, 72.
Du Lac, Pfere, 125.
Dumas fils, Alexandre, 42.
Dupuy, Charles, 112, 114, 116,
120, 131, 135, 136.
Edward VII, 154.
Egypt, 86, 132, 155.
Eiffel, G., 108, 110.
Ems, 8, 9.
England, 17, 61, 86, 106, 111,
128, 132, 133, 154, 155, 157,
158, 174, 181.
Ernoul, 49.
Esterhazy, 117, 123, 124, 126,
127.
Eugenie, Empress, 1, 3, 6, 12,
15, 17, 20.
Evans, Dr., 17.
Faidherbe, General, 23, 24.
FaCly, General de, 16.
Fallieres, Armand, 86, 159-175,
176.
Fashoda, 132, 133. 155, 157.
Faure, Felix, 115-133, 134.
Favre, General, 23.
Favre, Jules, 17, 18, 25, 27, 28,
29.^
Ferrieres, 18.
Ferry, Jules, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81,
82, 84, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 93,
96.
Fez, 171.
Fiaux, 42.
INDEX
203
Floquet, Charles, 84, 97, 100,
101, 102, 103, 109.
Flourens, Gustave, 37, 40.
Fontane, Marius, 108, 110.
Foo-chow, 90.
Forbach, 13.
Formosa, 90.
Fourichon, Admiral, 19.
Francis I, 45.
Frankfort, 35, 43.
Frederick, Empress, 105.
Frederick the Great, 3.
Frederick Charles, 12, 13, 15,
21.
Freycinet, Charles de, 20, 24,
30, 77, 79, 85, 86, 93, 109.
Frohsdorf, 52.
Froschwiller, 13.
Frossard, 13.
Gabes, 82.
Galliffet, General de, 137, 139,
143.
Gambetta, Leon, 17, 19, 20, 22,
23, 25, 28, 29, 31, 33, 44, 47,
66, 67, 68, 70, 76, 77, 78, 79,
82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 91, 92,
97. 136.
Garibaldi, 24, 25.
Geay, Monseigneur, 151.
Gerault-Richard, 120.
Germany, 31, 34, 48, 60, 81, 89,
94, 119, 128, 132, 154, 155,
157, 158, 159, 162, 166, 168,
169, 171, 172, 173, 174, 179,
182, 183, 184.
Gervais, Admiral, 105.
Glais-Bizoin, 19.
Goblet, 93.
Gouthe-Soulard, 104.
Gramont, due de, 6, 7, 9.
Gravelotte, 15.
Grevy, Albert, 110, 111.
Gr6vy, Jules, 32, 75-95, 96, 110.
Grey, Sir Edward, 158.
Guerard, A.-L., 178.
Guerin, Jules, 140, 141
Habert, Marcel, 135, 141.
Henry IV, 45.
Henry, Colonel, 116, 117, 123,
124, 126, 130.
Henry, Emile, 114.
Hericourt, 25.
Herve, Gustave, 166.
Herz, Cornelius, 109, 111, 118.
Hugues, Clovis, 97.
Italy, 81, 89, 106, 107, 150, 154.
Ivry, 54.
Jacques, L., 178.
Japan, 158.
Jaures, Jean, 166.
Jeanne d'Arc, 45, 185.
Jerome Napoleon, 86.
Josnes, 23.
Kairouan, 82.
Kiel Canal, 121.
Kitchener, 132. [
Koniggratz, 4.
Kroumirs, 81, 82.
Labori, 128.
La Cecilia, 41.
La Motterouge, 19.
Lang-son, 90.
Laval, 24, 151.
Lavigerie, Cardinal, 104.
La Villette, 141.
Lazare, Bernard, 124, 125.
Leblois, Maitre, 125.
Le Boeuf, Marshal, 12, 21.
Le Bourget, 26.
Lecomte, General, 39.
Le Mans, 24.
Le Nordez, Monseigneur, 151.
Leo XIII, 87, 103, 104, 105,
106, 107, 113, 144, 150.
Leopold of HohenzoUern-Sig-
maringen, 5, 7, 8, 9.
Lesseps, Charles de, 108, 110.
Lesseps, Ferdinand de, 86, 107,
108.
Lille, 70.
Lisaine, 25.
Lloyd George, 172.
Loigny, 22.
Loir, 24.
204
INDEX
Loire, 19, 22, 23.
Loisy, Abbe, 150.
London, 26.
Longchamps, 136.
Lorraine, 11, 13, 34, 35, 43, 157,
162, 183, 185.
Loubet, Emile, 109, 134-158,
160.
Louis XIV, 26, 36.
Louis XVL 45.
Louis-Philippe, 115.
Luneville, 13.
Lur-Saluces, comte de, 141.
Luxembourg, Duchy of, 4.
Lyautey, General, 174.
Lyons, 114.
McKinley, 114.
Mac-Mahon, marecheJ de, 13,
14, 15, 16, 40, 49, 50-74, 75,
77.
Madagascar, 89, 122.
Madrid, 21.
Mainz, 13.
Marchand, Captain, 132, 133.
Marne, 22.
Marrakesh, 168.
Mars-la-Tour, 14.
Mauchamp, Dr., 168.
Mayer, Captain, 118.
Mediterranean, 81.
Meline, Jules, 107, 122, 129,
134.
Mercier, General, 118, 139.
Merry del Val, Cardinal, 150.
Metz, 14, 15, 16, 19, 20, 21, 22,
34.
Meuse, 16.
Mexican expedition, 1.
Millerand, Alexandre, 97, 137,
178.
Miribel, General de, 85.
Moltke, 18, 26.
Monis, Ernest, 171, 179.
Montbeliard, 25.
Montmartre, 39, 52.
Montmedy, 16.
Montretout, 27.
Morel, E. D., 158.
Mores, marquis de, 118.
Morocco, 155, 157, 158, 159,
168, 171, 172, 174, 181, 183.
Muley-Hafid, 168, 174.
Muley-Yussef, 174.
Mim, comte de, 105.
Nancy, 13.
Napoleon I, 1, 87.
Napoleon III, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 11,
12, 14, 15, 16, 17, 20, 35.
Narbonne, 168.
Negrier, General de, 90.
New Caledonia, 42.
Newfoundland, 155.
Nicholas II, Czar, 123, 145.
NUe, 132.
Nord, 99.
North Germany, 4, 12.
Nuremberg, 182.
Offenbach, 3.
OUivier, Emile, 6, 8, 9.
Omdurman, 132.
Orleans, 19, 22, 26.
Orleans, Duke of, 141.
Palikao, comte de, 14, 15, 17.
Pams, Jules, 176.
Panama, 97, 107, 111, 134, 161.
Paray-le-Monial, 52.
Paris, 2, 9, 12, 14, 15, 16. 17, 19,
21, 22, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 32,
33, 34, 35, 36. 38, 39, 40, 46,
64, 84, 101, 105, 106, 120,
128, 134, 140, 154, 181.
Paris, comte de, 44, 52, 53, 55,
100.
Patay, 22.
Pau, 178, 179.
PeUetan, Camille, 97, 166.
Pellieux, General de, 135.
Pere-Lachaise, 41.
Peronne, 24.
Perpignan, 168.
Picquart, General, 123, 124,
125, 126, 162, 163.
Pie, Monseigneur, 52.
Piou, Jacques, 105.
Pius IX, 54, 68, 87.
Pius X, 150, 164. ,
INDEX
205
Poincare, Raymond, 175, 176-
185.
Poitiers, 52.
Pont-Noyelles, 24.
Portsmouth, 105, 106.
Prince Imperial, 13, 86.
Prussia, 3, 4, 5, 7, 10, 11, 12.
Rampolla, Cardinal, 150.
Ravachol, 114.
Raynal, 85.
Regnier, 21.
Reichsoffen, 13.
Reims, 16.
Reinach, Jacques de, 108, 109,
110. Ill, 118, 134.
Remusat, Charles de, 48.
Rennes, 135, 138, 140, 143, 162.
Rezonville, 14, 15.
Rhenish provinces, 2.
Rhine, 2, 4.
Ribot, TVlexandre, 109, 121, 180.
Rigault, Raoul, 37.
Riviere, 89.
Rochebouet, General de, 71.
Rochefort, Henri, 102.
Rochette, 179, 180.
Roget, General, 134, 135, 138.
Rome, 150.
Rossel, 40.
Rouvier, 85, 93, 94, 109, 111,
155, 158, 160, 164, 169.
Russia. 61, 105, 121, 123, 145,
154, 155, 158, 181, 182.
Saarbriicken, 12, 13.
Sadowa, 4, 6.
Saint-Cloud, 2.
Saint-jVIande, 137.
Saint-Privat, 15.
Saint-Quentin, 24, 27.
St. Petersburg, 106.
Salisbury, Lord, 81, 106.
Salzburg, 53.
Sans-Leroy, 110.
Sarrien, Ferdinand, 160.
Say, Leon, 85.
Scandinavia, 181.
Scheurer-Kestner, 125.
Schnaebele, 94.
Schoen, Baron von, 181.
Schwartzkoppen, Colonel, 117,
128, 130.
Sedan, 16, 17, 49.
Selves, M. de, 173.
Serbia, 182.
Sfax, 82.
Sicily, 81.
Simon, Jules, 28, 67, 68, 69,
84.
South Germany, 4, 7, 12.
Spain, 5, 8, 155, 158, 159, 171,
174.
Spicheren, 13.
Spuller, Eugene, 113.
Steinheil, Madame, 132.
Steinmetz, 12, 13, 15.
Strassburg, 11, 18.
Sudan, 89.
Suez, 86, 107, 132.
Switzerland, 26.
Syveton, 152.
Tangier, 158.
Thiers, Adolphe, 17, 18, 31-49,
50, 51, 58, 61, 70, 76, 86.
Thomas, General Clement, 39.
Tien-tsin, 90.
Tirard, 102.
Tonkin, 89, 90, 93.
Toulon, 106, 167.
Tours, 19, 22.
Trochu, General, 17, 19, 22, 27,
29, 52.
Tuileries, 2, 17.
Tunis, 81, 93.
Ujda, 168.
United States, 62, 159.
Uzes, duchesse d', 100.
VaiUant, 114.
Var, 178.
Vendome, 24.
Verdun, 14.
Versailles, 18, 27, 34, 36, 40, 41,
56, 64, 120, 128, 134.
Victor-Enunanuel H, 68, 104.
Victor-Eknmanuel III, 150.
Victoria, 106.
206
INDEX
ViUepion, 22.
Villers-Bretonneux, 23.
Villersexel, 25.
ViUiers, 23.
Villorceau, 23.
Vinoy, General, 27.
Vionville, 14.
Viviani, Rene, 161, 180, 181.
Von der Thann, 22.
Vosges, 12, 25.
Waddington, 77, 78, 79, 81.
Waldeck-Rousseau, 85, 120, 136,
137, 138, 142, 143, 144, 146,
146, 148, 153.
WaUon, 59.
Weiss, J.-J., 85.
Welschinger, 30.
WUUam I, 3, 5, 7, 8, 9, 10, 13,
18, 26, 35.
William II, 157, 158, 173.
Wilson, Daniel, 88, 94, 98.
Wimpffen, General de, 16.
Wissembovu-g, 12, 13.
Worth, 13.
Wrobleski, 41.
Zola, Emile, 127, 128, 130, 135,
163.
Ziirlinden, General, 130.
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