A History of the Third French Republic

by C. H. C. Wright

By the Constitution of 1875 the government of the French Republic was vested in a Senate 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 distributed among the Departments of the country. The Deputies were elected by universal suffrage for a period of four years. Unless a 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 administrative 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 identical 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 capital, 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 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 restriction made the privilege almost inoperative 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 Président du conseil.[6] The Ministry was responsible 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 majority and the latter selects his colleagues in the Cabinet, trying to make them representatives of the wishes of the Parliament. The French Republic is therefore managed by a parliamentary government.

The first elections under the new constitution resulted very much as might be expected: the Senate became in personnel the true successor 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 formation 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 maréchal de Mac-Mahon felt it necessary, very much against his will, to call to power Jules Simon. He had previously tried unsuccessfully to form a Cabinet from the Right Centre under the duc de Broglie.

The duc 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 misfortune, 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 expiration of Mac-Mahon's term and the monarchy perhaps restored.

Gambetta was, however, now a very different man. Discarding his former unbending radicalism, he was now the advocate of the "political policy 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, particularly 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 Gambetta 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 cléricalisme, voilà l'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 satisfy the President, who had always disliked him, or those who had determined upon his overthrow. 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.[7] 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 Orléanists and Imperialists headed by the duc 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 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 maréchal de Mac-Mahon.