A History of the Third French Republic

by C. H. C. Wright

In 1881, financial manœuvres and the plundering 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 alliances 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 the year the situation became rather serious, and new and rather costly military operations became necessary, including the occupation of Sfax, Gabès, and Kairouan.

Thus France came into possession of valuable territories, but at the cost of Italian indignation. 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 capitalists, 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 November 9, 1881, the personal intervention of Gambetta before the newly elected Chamber of Deputies saved the Cabinet on a vote of confidence. Jules Ferry none the less determined to resign, and Gambetta, in spite of Grévy's aversion, was the inevitable man for the formation 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 statesmanship since his early days, but was still hated by men like Grévy who could not get over their old prejudices. Then the advanced radicals, or intransigeants, thought him a traitor to his old platforms or programmes.[10] They blamed his Opportunism and said that he wanted power without responsibility. Gambetta's enemies, whether the duc de Broglie or Clemenceau, talked of his secret influence (pouvoir occulte), and accused him of aspiring to a dictatorship, in fact if not in name. Their suspicions were somewhat deepened by Gambetta's ardent advocacy of the scrutin de liste instead of the existing scrutin d'arrondissement.[11]

It was asserted that Gambetta wanted to diminish the independence of local representation and marshal behind himself a subservient majority. To Gambetta the scrutin de liste was the truly republican form of representation, the one existing under the National Assembly and abolished by the reactionaries 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 Grévy, 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 resulted in a strongly Republican body, in which, however, the majority subdivided into groups. Gambetta's "Union républicaine" was the most numerous, followed by Ferry's "Gauche républicaine," 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.

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 Léon Say and Freycinet refused their collaboration because of divergence of views or personal pride. Gambetta 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 "ministère 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 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 ineffective 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-Fallières Ministry[12] 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 Grévy did what he should have done before, and called to office the leading statesman. This was now Jules Ferry. At last France had an administration 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 totally wanting in Gambetta's magnetism, and his domineering ways made him hated the more. The Clericals opposed him as the "persecutor" of the Catholic religion, and the Radicals thought he did not go far enough in his hostility to the Church. For Jules Ferry saw that the times were not ripe for disestablishment, 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 different 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 Republic of the French Monarchists and Clericals. Jules Ferry, like Gambetta, also had to put up with the veiled hostility of President Grévy, working in Parliament 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 failure (krach) of a large bank, the Union générale. So his career was made a torture and he was vilified perhaps more than any man of the third Republic.