Republican France 735dashing count of Paris. Yet Chambord seemed to hold the upper hand, for
his was the old Bourbon royal line. But, unlike the count of Paris, he was
childless. A compromise, by which Chambord would become king with the
count of Paris as his heir, fell through when the former refused to be king
under the tricolor flag, which he identified with the French Revolution.
The close association of monarchism with the Catholic Church led many
people to agree with the assessment of the radical republican Leon Gam
betta (1838—1882) that “clericalism, there is the enemy.” Republicans
opposed the political domination of the “notables,” the wealthiest men in
France. The republic found a groundswell of support from those Gambetta
called “the new social strata,” the shopkeepers, cafe owners, prosperous peas
ants, craftsmen, and schoolteachers. The charismatic Gambetta s whistle
stop tours of the provinces reflected the rise of mass politics in France.
Thiers resigned under monarchist pressure as provisional head of state
in 1873. Prussian troops marched out of France that year after the French
government finished paying off the war indemnity, raised by loans and a
public subscription. The monarchists, seeing their majority in the National
Assembly eroding with each by-election, elected as president Marshal
MacMahon, a hero of the Crimean War and the Italian War of 1859, who
favored a monarchist restoration. The new government of “Moral Order,”
closely tied to the Church, undertook a massive purge of republican may
ors, censored newspapers, closed hundreds of cafes, and banned public
celebration of the French Revolution on July 14.
For the moment, the government of France was a republic with monarchist
political institutions. In January 1874, the National Assembly passed the
Wallon Amendment by one vote, stating that henceforth “the president of
the Republic” would be elected by the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies.
The lower house drafted a republican constitution in 1875, but one that
seemed so vague that the state could easily enough have been converted into
a monarchy.
Universal male suffrage determined the composition of the Chamber of
Deputies. Each district elected a single representative. This gave monar
chists an advantage, as local notables would be the most likely beneficiaries
from last-minute political negotiations before the second ballot in each
election. The Senate would be elected indirectly through a system that was
radically tilted to over-represent conservative rural interests. Yet, despite
heavy-handed governmental and ecclesiastical pressure on voters, more
than twice as many republicans were elected as monarchists to the Cham
ber of Deputies in 1876. MacMahon was therefore forced to select a mod
erate republican, Jules Simon (1814-1896), as premier.
The republican majority in the National Assembly sought to limit the
power of the president who was, after all, a monarchist. In 1877, MacMa
hon initiated a political crisis (the Crisis of May 16) by forcing Simon’s
resignation and naming a monarchist in his place. When the Chamber of