the decrees of the state. Each prefect in his depart-
ment had his own administration which could be
appealed against only by putting the case to the
Council of State in Paris. The prefects were not, of
course, elected; they deliberately did not grow
local roots but represented, in theory at least, an
impersonal justice. They were powerful men who
controlled enormous patronage in their depart-
ment; they could make appointments to many
paid posts from archivists to some grades of
schoolteachers, tax collectors and post-office staff.
They stood at the head of the social hierarchy, and
were a guarantee of stability and conservatism. In
this way France was at one and the same time both
highly centralised but also decentralised; for the
ordinary French citizens ‘government’ in practice
meant what the prefect and his administration did,
not what was happening in far-off Paris. France
has had the good fortune to attract to this type of
higher administrative service, over a long period of
time, many capable men.
The Republic stood for the defence of property
and a well-ordered, static society. At the same
time it was identified in the minds of its support-
ers as the bastion of the enlightenment and so,
curiously, despite their frozen attitude towards the
desirability of social change, republicans saw
themselves as the people who believed in progress
and the modern age. This was only possible
because they could identify an ‘enemy to progress’
in the Church and its teachings. More passion was
expended on the question of the proper role of the
Church and the state during the first three decades
of the Third Republic than on social questions. In
every village the secular schoolteacher represented
the Republic and led the ranks of the enlight-
ened; the priest led the faithful and the Church
demanded liberty to care for the spiritual welfare
of Catholics not only in worship but also in edu-
cation. Republicans decried the influence of the
Church as obscurantist and resisted especially
its attempts to capture the minds of the rising
generation of young French people.
The Church was supported by the monarchists,
most of the old aristocracy and the wealthier sec-
tions of society; but ‘class’ division was by no
means so complete and simple as this suggests: the
Church supporters were not just the rich and pow-
erful. The peasantry was divided: in the west and
Lorraine, they were conservative and supported
the Church; elsewhere anti-clericalism was wide-
spread. In the towns, the less well-off middle
classes and lower officials were generally fervid in
their anti-clericalism. Their demand for a ‘separa-
tion’ of state and Church meant in practice that
the Church should lose certain rights, most
importantly, its right to separate schools. The
Catholic Church in France by supporting the los-
ing monarchial cause was responsible in good part
for its own difficulties. In the 1890s the Vatican
wisely decided on a change and counselled French
Catholics to ‘rally’ to the Republic and to accept
it; but the ralliement was rejected by most of the
French Catholic bishops and the Church’s monar-
chist supporters. The Dreyfus affair polarised the
conflict with the Church, the monarchists and
the army on one side and the republicans on the
other. Whether one individual Jewish captain was
actually guilty or not of the espionage of which he
stood accused seemed to matter little when the
honour of the army or Republic was at stake.
Dreyfus’s cause united all republicans and they
triumphed. In May 1902, though the electoral
vote was close, the republicans won some 370 seats
and the opposition was reduced to 220. There
then followed three years of sweeping legislation
against the Church. Church schools were closed
wholesale; a number of religious orders were
banned; in 1904 members of surviving religious
orders were banned from teaching. In December
1905 a Law of Separation between Church and
state was passed. This law represents both the cul-
mination of republican anti-clericalism and the
beginning of a better relationship. Freedom of
worship was guaranteed and, despite the opposi-
tion of the Vatican, the bitter struggle was gradu-
ally brought to a close. Anti-clericalism declined,
and the monarchist right lost its last opportunity of
enlisting mass support with the help of the
Church. Extreme anti-clerical governments were
now followed by more moderate republicans in
power.
French governments before 1904 remained
dependent not on one party but on the support
of a number of political groupings in the Cham-
ber; these groups represented the majority of