FRANCE. 



291 



SADI, in the "Annual Cyclopaedia" for 1887), 

 and his private and political character at no 

 time stood out more unclouded than when he 

 was struck down by a youthful militant an- 

 archist, who was animated solely by an ambition 

 to manifest the propaganda of the deed by de- 

 stroying the head of a state and terrorizing the 

 bourgeois republic. A cause of special animosity 

 of the anarchists against M. Carnot was his re- 

 fusal to amnesty Ravachol, Vaillant, and Henry, 

 and many threats had been made against his life 

 on this account. After committing his crime, 

 the assassin shouted " Vive Fana/r chief" and start- 

 ed to flee, but was struck and seized by some of 

 the people standing by and taken to prison under 

 a strong escort of police, which had a struggle to 

 save the prisoner from being lynched. He was 

 tried by jury at Lyons, and convicted, on Aug. 3, 

 of assassination. He denied having told a sol- 

 dier who had been a fellow-patient in a hospital 

 at Cette that he was drawn by lot among a band 

 of conspirators to execute vengeance on Presi- 

 dent Carnot, declaring that as an anarchist he 

 could not admit the authority of such a decree. 

 He rejected the defense of his counsel, and re- 

 fused to sign an application for an appeal, pre- 

 senting a written declaration that he w&s indif- 

 ferent to any verdict but that of his own mind, 

 which was that his act was a just revenge for 

 the persecution of -anarchists, and offered his 

 life to give an impetus to the aspirations of 

 equality and individual initiative and the strug- 

 gle against the principle of authority, the estab- 

 lished order, and the accepted morality based on 

 social wrongs and human suffering. He was 

 guillotined at Lyons on Aug. 16. 



As soon as it was known that the murderer of 

 M. Carnot was an Italian, the anti-Italian feel- 

 ing, common in the south of France among the 

 workingmen who object to the competition of 

 Italians, which had found vent in the Aigues 

 Mortes riots of the previous summer, led to vio- 

 lent demonstrations in various places and inju- 

 ries to the persons and property of Italian resi- 

 dents. The police took vigorous measures to 

 check such misdeeds, arresting 2,000 persons in 

 Lyons alone. The Government, which in Janu- 

 ary had voluntarily paid over 400,000 francs to 

 the Italian ambassador as compensation for the 

 the outrages committed at Aigues Mortes, not- 

 withstanding the verdict of the jury acquitting 

 the perpetrators, assured the Government at 

 Rome that Italians sojourning or earning their 

 livelihood in France would be protected. 



Election of a New President. Within three 

 days from the death of M. Carnot the National 

 Assembly came together, June 27, as the Consti- 

 tution provides in case of a vacancy, to elect a 

 President of the republic. The Radicals wanted 

 Henri Brisson, but the reaction in favor of a 

 strong man of conservative instincts, fitted to 

 cope with the revolutionary forces, caused Mod- 

 erates to vote with the Monarchists for Casimir- 

 Perier, who was elected on the first ballot by 451 

 votes to 195 for M. Brisson. 97 for Charles Dupuy, 

 53 for Gen. Fevrier, 22 for Francois Arago, and 

 18 scattering votes divided among Cavaignac, 

 Loubet, Freycinet, Rochefort, Toussaint, and 

 Flourens. M. Toussaint was the Socialist Deputy 

 who was in prison on account of a speech that 

 he made to striking miners. Joseph Michelin 



called for the suppression of the presidency, 

 and M. Faberon, another Socialist, refused to 

 vote. Others of the party voted for M. Arago, 

 and some of the Monarchists for Gen. Fevrier. 

 After the votes were deposited Dejeante and 

 Michelin, Socialists, and Baudry d'Asson, Mon- 

 archist, attempted to place in the urn resolutions 

 demanding the revision of the Constitution, but 

 these were ruled out by the chairman, Challe- 

 mel-Lacour, President of the Senate, and the 

 result of the ballot was announced and hailed 

 with plaudits of the Center and the Left, and a 

 Socialistic outcry against usurpation, reaction, and 

 dictatorship, and cheers for the social revolution. 

 Although Casimir-Perier was elected on the first 

 ballot by a majority of 451 to 400, the minority 

 included probably more than two thirds of the 

 Deputies. 



In his message, read in the Chambers on July 

 3, President Casimir-Perier said that the regu- 

 larity with which the transmission of power had 

 been effected was a fresh testimony to the value 

 of republican institutions. A country capable of 

 so much moral discipline and political virility 

 will know how to join the two forces of liberty 

 and government, without which nations perish, 

 and so long as he held the office, which he was 

 determined to relinquish at the end of seven 

 years, while resolved to respect the national will 

 and develop the customs necessary to a repub- 

 lican democracy, he would not allow the rights 

 conferred on him by the Constitution to be mis- 

 understood or forgotten. France could with 

 head erect affirm her love of peace, confident of 

 her army and navy and sure of herself, and would 

 remain the great center of intellectual light, of 

 tolerance, and of progress; while Parliament, de- 

 voting itself to measures which can serve the 

 good name of France, develop her agriculture, 

 industry, and commerce, and strengthen public 

 credit, would prove that the republic is not 

 given up to the barren rivalry of individual am- 

 bitions, but was the national expansion of fruitful 

 ideas and noble passions, seeking constantly ma- 

 terial and moral advancement ; that it is in its 

 essence the Government which is stirred by un- 

 deserved sufferings, and the honor of which is 

 never to deceive those to whom it owes more than 

 hopes. The past is full of instruction, but it is 

 toward the future that France now looks. To 

 understand the times, to believe in progress, and 

 to resolve on it, is to insure public order and 

 social peace. 



The New Dupuy Cabinet. The Dupuy 

 Cabinet resigned after the inauguration of the 

 new President, and the resignations were neces- 

 sarily accepted ; but after consulting with Au- 

 guste Burdeau and M. Challemel-Lacour, M. 

 Casimir-Perier requested M. Dupuy and his col- 

 leagues to resume their portfolios. M. Bur- 

 deau was chosen President of the Chamber. 

 The scheme for altering the direct taxes which 

 he had proposed was abandoned when he ceased 

 to be minister. The principle of a progressive 

 income tax was not rejected by M. Poincare, 

 who promised to work with a committee of the 

 Chamber after the question had already been re- 

 ferred to a commission of economists. M. Du- 

 puy, under threat of his resignation, to be fol- 

 lowed probably by a dissolution, pushed throiigh 

 a new antiariarchist bill, which passed **"" 



the 



