302 



FRANCE. 



casion of successive efforts to stir up an insur- 

 rection. The police arrested about 00 persons 

 just before the attempt on the life of M. Labori, 

 and seized documents proving a vast network 

 of conspiracy in Paris and the provinces, and 

 connecting the pretender and his agents with the 

 Nationalist and Anti-Semitic leaders. Many of 

 the arrested persons were released, and the fol- 

 lowing, some of whom had fled beyond the bor- 

 der, were finally indicted and tried before the 

 Senate on the charge of engaging in a plot to 

 destroy or change the Government: Andre Buffet, 

 Hippolyte de Chevilly, Gaston de Monicourt, 

 Raoul Pujol, Eugene Godefroy, Charles de Pon- 

 teves de Sabran, Pierre Gixou.Amedee de Ghaisne, 

 De Bournemont, Fernand de Ramel, Moisson de 

 Vaux, Eugene de Lur-Sabuces, Paul Deroulede, 

 Marcel- Habert, Georges Thiebaud, Achilles Bail- 

 lieres. Ernest Barillier, Jules Guerin, Edouard 

 Dubuc, Edouard Brunet, Louis Davout, and Jean 

 Girard. 



Political Crisis. President Faure died on 

 Feb. 16, 1899, and the National Assembly was 

 convoked for the election of his successor on 

 Feb. 18. The political leagues were at this time 

 disturbing the public mind by their agitation 

 against a revision of the Dreyfus verdict, which 

 was before the Court of Cassation. When the 

 two Chambers met in Congress Paul Deroulede 

 and some of his political followers attempted to 

 deliver harangues, but speech making and mo- 

 tions were, as on former occasions, forcibly re- 

 pressed. The Anti-Semites, Boulangists, Cler- 

 icals, royalists, and revolutionaries who were 

 leagued together in the campaign against a re- 

 trial of Dreyfus opposed the candidature of Emile 

 Loubet, \vho as president of the Senate occupied 

 the chair at the opening of the Congress. M. 

 Meline, the most serious opponent of M. Loubet, 

 withdrew his name, and M. Dupuy also declined 

 to oppose the president of the Senate, who was 

 elected on the first ballot by 483 votes, against 

 279 cast for M. Meline, with 50 scattering votes 

 given to M. Cavaignac, M. Deschanel, and others. 

 Deroulede and his friends continued in the streets 

 their demonstrations against the President-elect, 

 whose leaning toward radicalism brought about 

 his resignation of the premiership in 1888, the 

 Panama scandal furnishing the occasion, al- 

 though his honor remained unsmirched. Several 

 hundred noisy vagabonds were arrested. The di- 

 rect agents of the pretenders were not concerned 

 in these tumults. The Duke of Orleans had made 

 a profession of Anti-Semitic principles, but had 

 not advanced his cause thereby. His cousin, 

 Prince Henry of Orleans, was preferred by many 

 of the royalists. The Bonapartists likewise were 

 divided between Prince Victor, who had prudent- 

 ly refused to give a pronouncement on the Drey- 

 fus case, and his brother. Prince Louis Bonaparte, 

 who was a Russian general. President Loubet 

 in his message to the Chamber expressed his con- 

 fidence that difficulties would be overcome with 

 calmness and patriotism, and that France would 

 respect equally the Chambers, which freely dis- 

 cuss the laws, the magistracy, which applies 

 them, the Government, which insures their exe- 

 cution, and the army, which protects the in- 

 tegrity and independence of the fatherland and 

 is the faithful guardian of its honor and its laws. 

 The Chambers were occupied with the revision 

 bill, transferring the decision on the Dreyfus ap- 

 peal from the criminal chamber to the whole 

 Court of Cassation, which passed the Senate on 

 March 1 by a majority of 27. Of the disturbers 

 arrested on the day of M. Loubet's election and 

 on that of M. Faure's funeral, 250 were fined for 



seditious cries, but were pardoned on March 14, 

 just after Paul Deroulede's arrest for his the- 

 atrical attempt to start a military insurrection. 

 Documents containing plans for a royalist up- 

 rising \vere seized by the police. The publica- 

 tion of the Dreyfus dossier led to the resignation 

 of M. De Freycinet on May 6 and the transfer 

 of M. Krantz to the Ministry of War. M. Mones- 

 tier succeeded the latter as Minister of Public 

 Works. On May 18 the postmen of Paris went 

 on strike, and those of other towns did the same, 

 the reason being that an increase of salary pro- 

 vided in the budget had been stricken out by the 

 Senate. The Government had the mails delivered 

 by soldiers, and this brought the strike to an 

 end at once. The Chamber, in opposition to the 

 Government, insisted, on May 29, by 427 votes to 

 118, on the increase in the postmen's pay. The 

 judgment of the Court of Cassation in favor of 

 a new trial for Capt. Dreyfus was followed by 

 seditious demonstrations against the President 

 of the republic at the Auteuil race course, in con- 

 sequence of which the Government closed cer- 

 tain aristocratic clubs. Baron Fernand de Chris- 

 tiani, who attempted to strike the President, was 

 afterward sentenced to four years' imprisonment 

 for assault on a magistrate in the discharge of his 

 functions. 



The Government determined to have enough 

 police at Longchamp races, which the President 

 was also invited to attend, to prevent a recur- 

 rence of disorder, and therefore turned out 30,000 

 troops and police to preserve order. At the race 

 course there were cheers for M. Loubet. The 

 Socialists gave proof of their republicanism by 

 treating roughly some royalists who spoke ill 

 of the President and by parading noisily the 

 streets of Paris, with the result that the police 

 tried to repress their demonstrations in favor of 

 the President, and arrested persons who shouted 

 for the republic. This led to interpellations in 

 the Chamber. M. Dupuy, who with his colleagues 

 was ready to turn over the Government to other 

 hands, would not accept the simple order of the 

 day, but demanded an express vote of confidence. 

 A resolution was carried on June 12, by 321 votes 

 to 173, declaring that the Chamber would only 

 support a government determined on energetic- 

 ally defending republican institutions and main- 

 taining public order. The ministers immediately 

 resigned. Socialists and Radicals, Moderate Re- 

 publicans, Nationalists, Anti-Semites, Boulan- 

 gists, and royalists made up the majority, the Ex- 

 treme Right and the Extreme Left uniting to 

 upset Charles Dupuy as they had upset cabinets 

 before. 



M. Poincare first undertook the task of forming 

 a new Cabinet, which was to be one of Repub- 

 lican union, retaining M. Delcasse and some of 

 the other ministers of M. Dupuy's Cabinet. M. 

 Waldeck-Rousseau, whom the President of the 

 republic next called upon by the advice of the 

 presidents of the two Chambers, proposed to re- 

 duce to discipline the generals and colonels who. 

 were trying to influence the judgment* of the 

 Dreyfus court-martial; but M. Krantz, who was 

 asked to take a portfolio, would not agree to 

 this, and M. Waldeck-Rousseau was therefore un- 

 able to bring about the combination. After M. 

 Leon Bourgeois had declined, he attempted a 

 new one, and at last got together a ministry 

 like no other of the 39 that the republic has had 

 during the twenty-nine years of its existence. 

 The Moderates and Radicals have several times 

 tried to work together in a ministry of concen- 

 tration. This one, however, called into exist- 

 ence by the Dreyfus crisis and the threatening 



