326 



FRANCE. 



FREE RELIGIOUS ASSOCIATION. 



unprepared in mind for any decisive course. 

 The policy of the Government was consequently 

 infirm and characterless. Preserving as long 

 as possible the agreement with England, De 

 Freycinet was warned by the exasperation and 

 distrust produced in the country by the Tunis 

 affair against a military intervention. He tried 

 to shift the responsibility of the arbitrament to 

 the councils of Europe. At the last moment 

 he withdrew his objections to Turkish inter- 

 vention. But the determining will in Europe 

 was impelled, precisely on account of the inde- 

 cision of France, to let Egyptian matters take 

 their own course. Gambetta emerged from 

 his retirement to urge determined action, but 

 was unable to rally the warlike and ambitious 

 spirit of his countrymen. Freycinet obtained 

 a preliminary vote of credit to be used in the 

 event of England and France being deputed by 

 the European conference to intervene. He 

 afterward announced that, as the powers had 

 not invited England and France to intervene, 

 he would not join England in reducing the re- 

 bellion, but asked, July 24th, for an additional 

 credit to enable French marines to land on the 

 Suez Canal to protect it in conjunction with 

 England. This vote was refused on July 29th 

 by a majority of 416 to 75. The ministry re- 

 signed, and the naval preparations were aban- 

 doned. 



President GreVy was unable at first to find a 

 statesman who would undertake the formation 

 of a new Cabinet. After a delay of nine days 

 Duclerc, a former minister, succeeded in the 

 task. He took the portfolio for Foreign Af- 

 fairs ; De Fallieres the Ministry of the Interior ; 

 Tirard became Minister of Finance; Deves, of 

 Justice ; Duveaux, of Public Instruction ; Gen- 

 eral Billot, of War; Admiral Jaurreguibery, of 

 Marine ; Coche'ry, of Posts and Telegraphs ; De 

 Mahy, of Agriculture ; Pierre Legrand, of Com- 

 merce and Public Works. The latter portfolio 

 was afterward taken by Herisson. Duclerc in 

 his programme promised to be bound by the 

 vote against intervention, and, if events involv- 

 ing the interests or honor of France intervened, 

 to summon the Assembly. He expressed as his 

 principal aim the union of the various sections 

 of the Republican majority. The Chambers 

 adjourned soon after the formation of the Cab- 

 inet. 



Gambetta occasionally lifted his voice on be- 

 half of the policy which he inaugurated in the 

 three months of his ministry, and in his news- 

 paper advocated personal rule by the popular 

 leader of a democratic state, which he thought 

 necessary for the security and greatness of 

 France. To bring about the political order 

 which he hoped yet to establish, he gave his 

 'attention to the development of his new party 

 of the Pure Left. During the vacation of the 

 Chambers, which commenced immediately after 

 the appointment of the Duclerc Ministry, there 

 occurred no event to disturb the political quiet 

 except some excitement among the socialists 

 incident upon strikes and lock-outs in manu- 



factories. At Montceau-les-Mines some idle 

 workmen were instigated by politicians to vio- 

 late a church because the employers with whom 

 they were quarreling entertained clerical sym- 

 pathies. At Lyons there was an equally aim- 

 less demonstration. These trifling disturb- 

 ances were exaggerated, for the lack of other 

 excitement, into a veritable terror. Govern- 

 ment officials were partly responsible for the 

 belief which prevailed for a time that French 

 society was honey-combed with secret societies 

 which were ready to attempt a social revolu- 

 tion. A sequel of the sensational excitement 

 was a remarkable trial of a number of socialists 

 who admitted spreading the doctrines called 

 Anarchism, for which, among others, Prince 

 Krapotkine, the leading journalist of the Rus- 

 sian Nihilists, was sentenced to prison.' 



At the very end of the year the world of 

 French politics was thrown not merely into 

 momentary consternation, but the republic was 

 apparently unhinged and in danger of disrup- 

 tion, through the death of L6on Gambetta, 

 whom the people mistrusted and turned against 

 when in power. In Germany his death was 

 welcomed as affording relief from the anxiety 

 caused by the menaces of revenge to which he 

 occasionally gave utterance. But the interior 

 tranquillity of France was disturbed by the 

 movements of the Bonapartist and royalist 

 pretenders upon the departure of the strongest 

 man of the republic, while the trepidation 

 and divided councils of the Republicans illus- 

 trated the need of the stable government 

 which the ex-Dictator of Bordeaux wished to 

 establish and which the monarchist factions 

 promised. 



FREE RELIGIOUS ASSOCIATION. The 

 receipts of the Free Religious Association dur- 

 ing 1881 were $1,700, and its expenditures for 

 the same time were $809. The report of the 

 Executive Committee for the year gave ac- 

 count of the efforts it had made to obtain infor- 

 mation from various States regarding legal re- 

 strictions on religious liberty, sectarian influ- 

 ences in education, social conditions as affect- 

 ing free thought, and the condition of liberal 

 organizations in those States. Correspondents 

 were appointed for twenty-one States, and re- 

 plies more or less complete were received from 

 sixteen States. The committee found that it 

 was the intention of the State constitutions 

 generally to guard religious liberty, and that 

 they assert the rights of the individual con- 

 science in all matters of religion ; but that the 

 statutes show a conspicuous violation of the 

 assertion, and in the Constitutions themselves 

 it is common, in immediate connection with 

 the assertion of the rights of private opinions 

 and conscience, to find positive theological af- 

 firmations which discriminate in favor of the 

 opinions of one portion of the citizens as 

 against those of another. In some of the re- 

 cently organized States, freedom of conscience 

 was better guarded, in form as well as in sub- 

 stance ; but in most of the States, while it was 



