FRANCE 



Jan., 1871, the city capitulated, 

 and peace was made. France sur- 

 rendered Alsace and part of Lor- 

 raine, and paid an indemnity of 

 200,000,000. 



France, however, recovered 

 quickly, after the bloody episode of 

 the Paris Commune. The republi- 

 can form of government was tried 

 for the third time, and to that form 

 the country has remained constant 

 ever since. Yet it was not for many 

 years that the Third Republic could 

 be considered stable. The monarch- 

 ist party kept up unceasing efforts 

 to upset it. Fortunately the royal 

 pretenders to the throne which had 

 been abolished were such poor crea- 

 tures that they were never able to 

 gain a serious following. 



In France the Republic was ac- 

 cepted not so much because it was 

 liked as because it seemed to offer 

 the best hope of internal quiet. 

 Under it the nation worked hard, 

 paid off the indemnity much sooner 

 than was expected, and reached a 

 higher degree of general well-being 

 than it had ever reached before. 

 Political strife was unceasing and 

 fierce, but the mass of people paid 

 small attention to it. So long as 

 they could go about their business 

 with confidence, and so long as there 

 was no danger of France being 

 embroiled in foolish foreign adven- 

 tures, they let the politicians talk. 

 Boulanger and Dreyfus 



The moment of greatest danger 

 through which the Republic has 

 passed occurred in 1889, when 

 General Boulanger reached the pin- 

 nacle of his curious, meteoric career. 

 If Boulanger had been anything 

 more than a popularity- hunter, he 

 might have caused a revolution. 

 But when it was rumoured that the 

 government intended to order his 

 arrest, he fled. 



A decade later France was again 

 divided into two camps by the case 

 of Alfred Dreyfus (q,v. ). In the end 

 Dreyfus was pardoned and Ester- 

 hazy, the wretched creature who 

 was proved to be the forger of the 

 evidence against Dreyfus, became 

 the obj ect of popular detestation in 

 his place. 



For all these years the affair had 

 coloured politics, and its result was 

 to weaken once more the parties of 

 intolerance and reaction. That 

 there was still life left in them, 

 however, was the belief of those 

 who resolved early in the century 

 upon the separation of Church and 

 State, and the suppression of the 

 religious orders. All who held 

 anti-clerical opinions maintained 

 that Clericalism had been strongly 

 against the innocent Dreyfus. The 

 politicians who were taking turns 

 at holding office saw that a favour- 

 able opportunity had come for 



3300 



weakening the influence of the 

 Church. There was much agitation 

 against the new laws, and some dis- 

 turbances. There was, however, no 

 general protest, which was taken to 

 show that the Church had no great 

 hold upon the Frenchman of the 

 twentieth century. At the same 

 time there were many young men 

 of sincere religious conviction in 

 the forefront of the forward move- 

 ment which began to be noticeable 

 within politics and literature about 

 1911. This had for one of its 

 objects the freeing of France from 

 the pin-pricks of Germany. When 

 Germany set about putting itself 

 into a state of greater readiness for 

 war, the reply of France was to in- 

 crease the term of military service 

 from two years to three. 



For a long time there had been 

 an alliance between republican 

 France and the Russian autocracy. 

 The tsar had borrowed enor- 

 mously from the thrifty French 

 peasants, and had undertaken in 

 return that France should not 

 again be isolated as in 1870. 



For some years also Britain 

 had encouraged the Dual Alliance 

 to look to her for support if it 

 should be attacked. Yet when the 

 attack came in 1914 the French 

 people showed no enthusiasm for 

 war ; they did not trust their poli- 

 ticians ; they did not feel at all sure 

 how things would go. Until the 

 first battle of the Marne their un- 

 easiness grew. After this they stif- 

 fened into that solidity of resist- 

 ance which carried them through 

 the long ordeal of Verdun. During 

 the later stages they were less 

 troubled by misgivings because 

 they had put into power a man 

 who ruled energetically and made 

 them feel that all was going well. 

 This man was Clemenceau. Amid 

 the throng of doubters and dissem- 

 blers which filled the political stage 

 the figure of the aged " Tiger" 

 caught the popular imagination. 

 He came into power as leader, not 

 of a party, but of the nation. 

 Influence of Clemenceau 



Clemenceau was a world cele- 

 brity during 1918-19. His influ- 

 ence was stronger than that of any 

 other statesman in moulding the 

 conditions of peace. So secure did 

 his position seem that it was con- 

 sidered almost certain he would be 

 elected president of the Republic hi 

 January, 1920, but the choice fell 

 on a man of much less vigorous per- 

 sonality, and Clemenceau retired. 

 The arrangement made by Clemen- 

 ceau for an alliance between France, 

 Britain, and the U.S.A. (in spite of 

 the clause forbidding such alliances 

 in the League of Nations Covenant) 

 broke down when the U.S.A. 

 washed its hands of European re 



FRANCE 



sponsibility. This completed the 

 circle of change in French feelings 

 towards the American people. 



When in 1917 the Americans de- 

 clared war, the French recovered 

 suddenly from a fit of severe depres- 

 sion, and for awhile extolled them to 

 the skies. By degrees this admira- 

 tion altered to coldness, and at last 

 to positive dislike. Indeed, the 

 period which followed the end of the 

 war saw France in a dissatisfied, 

 uncomfortable frame of mind. The 

 terms of peace had been made as 

 severe almost as her leaders wished, 

 yet the result was not what had 

 been anticipated. The French are 

 by nature more sceptical than the 

 English ; they had not, therefore, ex- 

 pected quite so much in the way of 

 " a new heaven and a new earth." 

 Yet there had been signs of a new 

 idealism, of new spiritual horizons. 

 Disillusion was felt there as else- 

 where. When President Wilson de- 

 clared that the government was 

 controlled by " militarists " there 

 was a loud outcry, but under their 

 breath a good many French people 

 were saying the same thing. 

 After the Great War 



The mass of Frenchmen approved 

 the effort of their government to 

 crush Germany. When the presi- 

 dent, Deschanel, was forced by 

 bad health to resign, the premier, 

 Millerand,was elected in Sept., 1920. 

 The Leygues government resigned, 

 Jan. 12, 1921, and A. Briand be- 

 came premier, but was forced to 

 resign in Jan., 1922, owing to the 

 unpopularity of his foreign policy. 

 A new ministry was formed by R. 

 Poincare, under whom an inten- 

 sive policy of pressure on Germany 

 was undertaken, culminating in 

 the French occupation of the Ruhr. 

 The question of German repara 

 tions was the chief pre-occupation 

 of French politics from 1922-24 

 See Germany ; Reparations ; Ruhr. 



Hamilton Fyfe 



Bibliography. France, J. E. C. 

 Bodley, 2nd ed. 1902; The French 

 People, A. Hassall, 1902 ; France 

 and the French, C. Dawbairn, 1911 ; 

 The New France, W. S. Lilley, 

 1913 ; France (Making of the Na- 

 tions series), C. Headlam, 1913 ; 

 How France is Governed, R. Poin- 

 care, 1915 ; France To-day, L. Jer- 

 rold, 1916 ; The Story of France, J. 

 L. Beaumont -James, 1916 ; Political 

 History of France, 1789-1910, M. O. 

 Davis, 1916 ; Twentieth Century 

 France, M. Betham -Ed wards, 1917 ; 

 Short History of France, V. Duruy, 

 1917 ; Short History of France, from 

 Caesar's Invasion to the Battle of 

 Waterloo, A. M. F. Duclaux, 1918 ; 

 Facts about France, E. Saillens, 1918; 

 France, Mediaeval and Modern, A. 

 Hassall, 1918 ; History of Modern 

 France, E. Bourgeois, 1919 ; My 

 Second Country, France, R. Dell, 

 1920. 



