FRANCE. 



367 



of them were respected as men of sense and 

 ability. For these reasons the Duclerc minis- 

 try had several times to experience adverse 

 votes which were not intended to express want 

 of confidence, but simply signified absence of 

 party discipline and lack of a vigorous leader. 

 When Duclerc retired, the rump Cabinet was 

 only retained as an interim ministry pending 

 the settlement of the pretender question. With 

 two portfolios vacant, and M. Fallieres still too 

 ill to attend to affairs, it could not even pre- 

 sent the semblance of constituting a govern- 

 ment. In the tiux and disorganization of 

 parties, the crisis was prolonged, and passed 

 through various unexpected phases. When the 

 bill came before the Senate the first feeling 

 was in favor of its rejection pure and simple, 

 in which sense the committee made its report. 

 But the leaders of the Left Center, unwilling 

 to block their path to future office, proposed a 

 compromise which secured a majority. This, 

 the Say-Waddington bill, made public acts or 

 demonstrations of pretenders belonging to ex- 

 regnant families tending to jeopardize the state, 

 punishable by banishment. Another proposal, 

 suggested by M. Barbey, was to give the Exec- 

 utive discretionary power to expel princes for 

 acts and demonstrations as pretenders. At the 

 beginning of the long debate in the Senate the 

 circumstances were altered by the quashing of 

 the complaint against Prince Napoleon. The 

 thirteen judges of the Chambre des Mises en 

 Accusation found that no indictment lay against 

 the prince, since the publishing and placarding 

 of his proclamation was admissible under the 

 press law, and, in the absence of overt acts, 

 did not constitute an attempt to overthrow the 

 government. Prince Napoleon, released from 

 his three weeks' confinement, betook himself 

 to Belgium, where, having been acknowledged 

 for the first time by the ex-Empress and a sec- 

 tion of the party, he continued the role of rep- 

 resentative of the imperial cause and "Napo- 

 leonic ideas"; but, later, the old differences 

 with the Bonapartist politicians were renewed, 

 and Prince Victor was induced to come out in 

 opposition to his father. On the 13th of Feb- 

 ruary, when the pretenders' bill was passed 

 back to the popular assembly in the form of the 

 Say-Waddington amen-iment, the headless and 

 useless ministry formally resigned. At this stage 

 the Paris merchants expressed their uneasiness 

 in a petition to President Gre>y. The work- 

 ing-men followed with a petition for the expul- 

 . sion of the princes and a bolder foreign policy. 

 The Chamber, on the return of the bill, refused 

 to consider the Senate amendment, dallied 



twith the Barbey compromise, and then finally 

 sent up to the Senate the original Floquet bill. 

 In the Senate, by the shrewd tactics of the leader 

 of the Right, the Due de Broglie, who had left 

 the field free for the republican opponents of 

 exceptional legislation, the bill was now re- 

 jected by a majority of five, after a month of 

 impassioned discussion. The vote was taken 

 February 17th. 



Ferry Cabinet. Jules Ferry, who had post- 

 poned taking office until the expulsion question 

 was decided, upon the collapse of the bill un- 

 dertook to compose a ministry and formulate 

 a programme which would secure the support 

 of enough of the 140 members of the Republican 

 Union, Gambetta's Opportunist group, to make, 

 with the 180 belonging to the Democratic Union 

 and Center groups, a steady majority over the 

 90 members of the Right and the 90 of the 

 Radical Left and Extreme Left, re-enforced by 

 the remainder of the Gambettists. On the 21st 

 the list was published, as given near the be- 

 ginning of this article. 



M. Ferry, after the death of Gambetta, was 

 the most conspicuous figure in the Chamber, 

 and was the only ex-Premier who had not been 

 precipitated from office by an expression of 

 w.ant of confidence. His constructive work in 

 the reform of education gave him a title to 

 greatness which was no longer darkened by 

 the stormy polemics which assailed him as 

 the ministerial representative of the anti-Cler- 

 ical policy and the author of "Article VII." 

 The retention of Gen. Thibaudin and the ap- 

 pointment of M. Challemel-Lacour, the most 

 vigorous advocate of the ostracism of the 

 princes, indicated the attitude of the new min- 

 istry on this question. The Foreign Minister 

 was known as a doctrinaire Republican who 

 commenced life as a teacher of philosophy in 

 the Lyc6e at Pau, was imprisoned and ban- 

 ished after the coup (Petal, translated works of 

 German philosophy and officiated as Professor 

 of French literature at Zurich, and after his re- 

 turn to France in 1856 became a journalist. 

 He was Prefect of Lyons during the war, and 

 had to cpntend with the communards under 

 Arnaud. He was appointed by M. Waddington 

 to the London embassy. Although he had re- 

 peatedly been spoken of for a portfolio, his 

 friend and leader, Gambetta, did not include 

 him in his Cabinet. M. Charles Brun, a naval 

 engineer of high reputation, who had sat in 

 the Chamber since 1871, but without taking an 

 active part in the debates, was the first civilian 

 who has filled the Ministry of the Marine. M. 

 Melines, the Minister of Agriculture, a lawyer 

 by profession, had distinguished himself as 

 an advocate of protection, and was reporter of 

 the general tariff committee. MM. Tirard and 

 Cochery had held the same positions in the 

 preceding Cabinet, and M. H frisson, the Min- 

 ister of Commerce, was transferred from the 

 Ministry of Public Works. M. Waldeck-Rous- 

 seau, one of the most prominent of the younger 

 politicians, was Minister of the Interior under 

 Gambetta. M. Raynal was Minister of Public 

 Works, and M. Feuillee sub-Secretary of the 

 Department of Justice in the same ministry. 

 MM. Challemel-Lacour and Charles Brun rep- 

 resented the Cabinet in the Senate. 



In the declaration which Minister Ferry read 

 in the Chamber, he announced that the princes 

 in the army would be placed in non-activity, 

 and the order was issued immediately. This 



