A History of the Third French Republic Part 5

Felix Faure's first Cabinet was led by the Republican Moderate Alexandre Ribot. It lasted less than a year and its history was chiefly noteworthy, at least in foreign affairs, by the increasing openness of the Franco-Russian _rapprochement_ at the ceremonies of the inauguration of the Kiel Ca.n.a.l. In internal affairs there were some violent industrial disturbances and strikes.

In October, 1895, the Moderates gave way to the Radical Cabinet of Leon Bourgeois. It was viewed with suspicion by the moneyed interests, who accused it of gravitating toward the Socialists. The cleavage between the two tendencies of the Republican Party became more marked. The Moderates joined forces with the Conservatives to oppose the schemes for social and financial reforms of the Radicals and of the representatives of the working cla.s.ses. Prominent among these was the proposal for a progressive income tax. The Senate, naturally a more conservative body, was opposed to the Bourgeois Cabinet, which had a majority, though not a very steadfast one, in the Chamber of Deputies. The Senate, usually a nonent.i.ty in determining the fall of a cabinet, for once successfully a.s.serted its power and, by refusing to vote the credits asked for by the Ministry for the Madagascar campaign, caused it to resign in April, 1896. The enemies of the Senate maintained that the Chamber of Deputies, elected by direct suffrage, was the only judge of the fate of a cabinet.

But Bourgeois's hold was at best precarious and he seized the opportunity to withdraw.

The Meline Cabinet which followed was a return to the Moderates supported by the Conservatives. Its opponents accused it of following what in American political parlance is called a "stand-pat" policy, but it remained in office longer than any ministry up to its time, a little over two years. It afforded, at any rate, an opportunity for the adversaries of the Republic to strengthen their positions and encouraged the transformation of the Dreyfus case into a political instead of a purely judicial matter.

In foreign affairs the most spectacular events were the visit of the Czar and Czarina to France in 1896 and the return visit of the French President to Russia in 1897. At the banquet of leave-taking on the French wars.h.i.+p _Pothuau_, in their prepared speeches, the Czar and the President made use of the same expression "friendly and _allied_ nations," thus publicly proclaiming to Europe the alliance suspected since 1891.

In spite of the unanimous feeling of Dreyfus's guilt, his family did not lose faith in him, and his brother Mathieu set about the apparently impossible task of rehabilitation. But it chanced that one other person began to have doubts of the justice of Dreyfus's condemnation. This was Lieutenant-Colonel Picquart, who had been present at the court-martial as representative of the War Department, and who had since become chief of the espionage service, and Henry's superior. Another doc.u.ment stolen from a waste-paper basket at the German Emba.s.sy, an unforwarded pneumatic despatch (_pet.i.t bleu_), was brought to him, and directed his suspicions to Esterhazy, to whom it was addressed. At first he did not connect Esterhazy and Dreyfus, but on obtaining specimens of Esterhazy's handwriting he was struck by the likeness with that of the _bordereau_. Then, examining the secret _dossier_, to which he now had access, he was stupefied to see its insignificance.

[Ill.u.s.tration: MARIE-GEORGES PICQUART]

From this time on, Picquart worked, with extraordinary tenacity of purpose and against all obstacles, for the rehabilitation of a stranger.

Everybody was against him. His chief subordinate Henry dreaded revelations above all things, and set his colleagues against him. His superiors disliked any suggestion that an army court could have made a mistake, the remedying of which would help a Jew.

Gradually, however, the agitation started by Mathieu Dreyfus was becoming stronger. He had won the help of a skilled writer Bernard Lazare; a daily paper succeeded in obtaining and publis.h.i.+ng a facsimile of the _bordereau_. But Picquart was sent away from Paris on a tour of inspection, and when the matter came up in the Chamber, through an interpellation, the Minister of War, General Billot, declared that the judgment of 1894 was absolutely legal and just. Matters thus seemed settled again.

But a prominent Alsatian member of Parliament, Scheurer-Kestner, one of the Vice-Presidents of the Senate, was half-persuaded by Mathieu and Bernard Lazare. When Picquart's friend and legal adviser, Leblois, rather injudiciously, from a professional point of view, confided to him his client's suspicions, he was thoroughly convinced and the two separate currents of activity now coalesced. Yet the greater the agitation in favor of Dreyfus, the greater grew the opposition. The anti-Semites shrieked with rage against Judas, the "traitor." The upper ranks of the army were honeycombed by Clerical influences. An enormous proportion of the officers belonged to reactionary families and the Chief of Staff himself, General de Boisdeffre, was under the thumb of the Pere Du Lac, one of the most prominent Jesuits in France. The Clericals and anti-Semites, therefore, joined forces, and, by calling the Dreyfus agitation an attack on the honor of the army and a play into the hands of Germany, they won over all the jingoes and former Boulangists, who formed the new party of Nationalists. This was the so-called alliance of "the sword and the holy-water sprinkler" (_le sabre et le goupillon_). Above all, certain religious a.s.sociations, particularly the a.s.sumptionists, under the name of religion, organized a campaign of slander and abuse against all who ventured to speak for Dreyfus. By a ludicrous counter-play the scoundrel Esterhazy had defenders as an injured innocent, the more so that Henry and the clique at the War Office found it to their interest to support him.

Matters reached a crisis when, on November 15, 1897, Mathieu Dreyfus denounced Esterhazy to the Minister of War as author of the _bordereau_ and as guilty of the treason for which his brother had been condemned.

This was partly a tactical mistake, because, even if Esterhazy were proved to have written the _bordereau_, it would still be necessary to show him guilty of actual treason. It made it possible to swerve the discussion from the conviction of Dreyfus as a _res adjudicata_ (_chose jugee_) to vague charges against Esterhazy. The later called for a vindication, he was triumphantly acquitted by a court-martial early in January, 1898, and Picquart was put under arrest on various charges of indiscipline in connection with the whole affair.

Few and far between as they now seemed, the lovers of justice were still to be counted with. They consisted at first of a small number of much-derided _intellectuels_, scholars and trained thinkers, who used their judgment and not their prejudices. One of these was the famous novelist Emile Zola, who, to keep the case under discussion, published in the _Aurore_ on January 13, a few days after Esterhazy's acquittal, his famous letter, _J'accuse_. In this article Zola denounced the guilty machinations of Dreyfus's adversaries _seriatim_, blamed the Dreyfus court-martial for convicting on secret evidence and the Esterhazy court for acquitting a guilty man in obedience to orders. Zola was not in possession of all the facts, since his precise aim was to have them brought out, and in his charges against the Esterhazy court he was technically and legally at fault. But he courted prosecution and got it.

On February 7 Zola was brought to trial. The crafty authorities eliminated all references to the trial of 1894 as a _chose jugee_ and prosecuted Zola for having declared that Esterhazy was acquitted by order. Their tool, the presiding magistrate Delegorgue, seconded their efforts by ruling out every question which might throw light on the Dreyfus case, in spite of the attempts of Zola's chief lawyer Labori.

Party pa.s.sion was at its height, hired gangs of men were posted about the court-house to hoot and attack the Dreyfusites, members of the General Staff appeared in full uniform to interrupt the trial and bulldoze the jury by mysterious hints of war with Germany. Finally Zola was condemned to fine and imprisonment. At this trial for the first time mention was mysteriously but openly made of a new doc.u.ment, understood to be a communication alluding to Dreyfus between the Italian and the German military _attaches_ at Paris. Zola appealed, the higher court broke the verdict on the ground that the prosecution should have been instigated by the offended court-martial and not by the Government, he was brought to trial again on a change of venue at Versailles, was unsuccessful in interposing obstacles to an inevitable condemnation, and so fled to England (July).

Meanwhile, public opinion was becoming yet more violently excited.

France was divided into two great camps, the line of cleavage often estranging the closest friends and relatives. On the one side was a vast majority consisting of the Clericals, the jingoes or Nationalists, the anti-Semites, and the unreflecting ma.s.s of the population. On the other were ranged the "intellectuals," the Socialists who were now rallying to the cause of tolerance, the Jews, and the few French Protestants. The League of the Rights of Man stood opposed to the a.s.sociation of the _Patrie Francaise_. In the midst of this turmoil were held the elections of May, 1898, for the renewal of the Chamber of Deputies. The political coloring of the new body was not sensibly changed, but the open Dreyfusites were all excluded. The Moderates now generally dubbed themselves "Progressists." None the less at the first session the now long-lived Meline Cabinet resigned after a vote requesting it to govern with fewer concessions to the Right.

The next Cabinet was Radical, headed by Henri Brisson. His mind was not yet definitely made up on the matter of revision, and he gave concessions to the Nationalists by appointing as Minister of War G.o.defroy Cavaignac. This headstrong personage, proud of an historic name, undertook to manage the Cabinet and to prove once for all to the Chamber the guilt of Dreyfus. In his speech he relied mainly on the letter mentioned at the Zola trial as written by the Italian to the German _attache_.

Once more the Dreyfus affair seemed permanently settled, and once more the contrary proved to be the case. In August Cavaignac discovered, to his dismay, that the doc.u.ment he had sent to the Chamber, with such emphasis on its importance, was an out-and-out forgery of Henry. The latter was put under arrest and committed suicide. Discussion followed between Brisson, now converted to revision, and Cavaignac, still too stubborn to change his mind with regard to Dreyfus, in spite of his recent discovery. Cavaignac resigned as Minister of War, was replaced by General Zurlinden, who withdrew in a few days and was in turn succeeded by another general, Chanoine, thought to be in sympathy with the Cabinet. He in turn played his colleagues false and resigned unexpectedly during a meeting of the Chamber. Weakened by these successive blows the Brisson Cabinet itself had to resign, but its leader had now forwarded to the supreme court of the land, the Cour de Ca.s.sation, the pet.i.tion of Dreyfus's wife for a revision of his sentence. The first step had at last been taken. The Criminal Chamber accepted the request and proceeded to a further detailed investigation.

The Brisson Ministry was followed by a third Cabinet of the unabashed Dupuy. It became evident that the Criminal Chamber of the Court of Ca.s.sation was inclining to decide on revision. Wis.h.i.+ng to play to both sides and, yielding in this case to the anti-revisionists, early in 1899 Dupuy brought in a bill to take the Dreyfus affair away from the Criminal Chamber in the very midst of its deliberations and submit it to the Court as a whole, where it was hoped a majority of judges would reject revision. Between the dates of the pa.s.sage of this bill by the Chamber and by the Senate, President Faure died suddenly and under mysterious circ.u.mstances on February 16, 1899. He had opposed revision and his death, attributed to apoplexy, was a gain to the revisionists who were accused by his friends of having caused his murder. On the other hand, stories, which it is unnecessary to repeat here, found an echo some years later in the scandals repeated at the sensational trial of Madame Steinheil.

During the turmoil over the Dreyfus affair, France underwent a humiliating experience with England. The colonial rivalry of the two countries had of late gone on unchecked, embittered as it had been by the ousting of France from the Suez Ca.n.a.l and Egypt. To many Frenchmen "Perfidious Albion" was, far more than Germany, the secular foe. In 1896 a French expedition under Captain Marchand was sent from the Congo in the direction of the Nile. The English afterwards argued that its purpose was to cut their sphere of influence and hinder the Cape-to-Cairo project; the French declared they merely wished to occupy a post which should afford a basis for general diplomatic negotiations for the part.i.tion of Africa. The mission was numerically insufficient; it struggled painfully for two years through the heart of the continent, and at last the small handful of intrepid Frenchmen established themselves at Fashoda on the upper waters of the Nile in July, 1898. At once General Kitchener arriving from the victory of Omdurman appeared on the scene to occupy Fashoda for the Egyptian Government. England a.s.sumed a viciously aggressive att.i.tude and, under veiled threats of war, France was obliged to recall Marchand (November 4). The outburst of fury in France against England at this humiliation was tremendous. No sane man would have then ventured to predict that in a few years the hands of the two countries would be joined in the clasp of the _Entente cordiale_.

CHAPTER VIII

THE ADMINISTRATION OF EMILE LOUBET

February, 1899, to February, 1906

The successor of Felix Faure, Emile Loubet, was elected on February 18, 1899, by a good majority over Jules Meline, the candidate of the larger number of the Moderates or "Progressists" and of the Conservatives.

Loubet was himself a man of Moderate views, but he was thought to favor a revision of the Dreyfus case. Among the charges of his enemies was that, as Minister of the Interior in 1892, he had held, but had kept secret, the famous list of the "Hundred and Four" and had prevented the seizure of the papers of Baron de Reinach and the arrest of Arton. So Loubet's return to Paris from Versailles was amid hostile cries of "Loubet-Panama" and "Vive l'armee!"

On February 23, after the state funeral of President Faure, a detachment of troops led by General Roget was returning to its barracks in an outlying quarter of Paris. Suddenly the Nationalist and quondam Boulangist Paul Deroulede, now chief of the Ligue des Patriotes and vigorous opponent of parliamentary government, though a Deputy himself, rushed to General Roget, and, grasping the bridle of his horse, tried to persuade him to lead his troops to the Elysee, the presidential residence, and overthrow the Government. Deroulede had expected to encounter General de Pellieux, a more amenable leader, and one of the noisy generals at the Zola trial. General Roget, who had been subst.i.tuted at the last moment, refused to accede and caused the arrest of Deroulede, with his fellow Deputy and conspirator Marcel Habert.

Meanwhile the Dreyfus case had been taken out of the hands of the Criminal Chamber and given to the whole Court. To the dismay of the anti-Dreyfusites the Court, as a body, annulled, on June 3, the verdict of the court-martial of 1894, and decided that Dreyfus should appear before a second military court at Rennes for another trial.

Thus party antagonisms were becoming more and more acute. In addition Dupuy, the head of the Cabinet, seemed to be spiting the new President.

On the day after the verdict of the Cour de Ca.s.sation, at the Auteuil races, President Loubet was roughly jostled by a band of fas.h.i.+onable young Royalists and struck with a cane by Baron de Christiani. A week later, at the Grand Prize races at Longchamps, on June 11, Dupuy, as though to atone for his previous carelessness, brought out a large array of troops, so obviously over-numerous as to cause new disturbances among the crowd desirous of manifesting its sympathy with the chief magistrate. More arrests were made and, at the meeting of the Chamber of Deputies the next day, the Cabinet was overthrown by an adverse vote.

[Ill.u.s.tration: RENe WALDECK-ROUSSEAU]

The ministerial crisis brought about by the fall of Dupuy was as important as any under the Third Republic because of its consequences in the redistribution of parties. For about ten days President Loubet was unable to find a leader who could in turn form a cabinet. At last public opinion was astounded by the masterly combination made by Waldeck-Rousseau, Gambetta's former lieutenant, who of recent years had kept somewhat aloof from active partic.i.p.ation in politics. He brought together a ministry of "defense republicaine," which its opponents, however, called a cabinet for the "liquidation" of the Dreyfus case. The old policy of "Republican concentration" of Opportunists and Radicals was given up in favor of a ma.s.s formation of the various advanced groups of the Left, including the Socialists.

Waldeck-Rousseau was a Moderate Republican, whose legal practice of recent years had been mainly that of a corporation lawyer, but he was a cool-headed Opportunist. He realized the ill-success of the policy of the "esprit nouveau," and saw the necessity of making advances to the Socialists, who more and more held the balance of power. He succeeded in uniting in his Cabinet Moderates like himself, Radicals, and, for the first time in French parliamentary history, an out-and-out Socialist, Alexandre Millerand, author of the famous "Programme of Saint-Mande" of 1896, or declaration of faith of Socialism. Still more astounding was the presence as Minister of War, in the same Cabinet with Millerand, of General de Galliffet, a bluff, outspoken, and das.h.i.+ng aristocratic officer, a favorite with the whole army, but fiercely hated by the proletariat because of his part in the repression of the Commune.

The first days of the new Cabinet were stormy and its outlook was dubious. The task of reconciling such divergent elements, even against a common foe, seemed an impossibility, until at last the Radicals under Brisson swung into line. Such was the beginning of a Republican grouping which later, during the anti-Clerical campaign, was known as _le Bloc_, the united band of Republicans.

The Waldeck-Rousseau Ministry took up the Dreyfus case with a queer combination of courage and weakness. Insubordinate army officers were summarily punished for injudicious remarks, but in order to appear neutral and to avoid criticism, the Cabinet held so much aloof that the anti-Dreyfusites were able to bring their full forces to bear on the court-martial. For a month at Rennes, beginning August 7, an extraordinary trial was carried on before the eyes of an impa.s.sioned France and angry onlooking nations. Witnesses had full lat.i.tude to indulge in rhetorical addresses and air their prejudices; military officers like Roget, who had had nothing to do with the original trial, were allowed to take up the time of the court. Galliffet, though convinced of the innocence of Dreyfus, was unwilling to exert as much pressure as his colleagues in the Cabinet desired. It soon became evident that, regardless of the question involved, the issue was one between an insignificant Jewish officer on the one hand and General Mercier, ex-Minister of War, on the other. The judges were army officers full of caste-feeling and timorous of offending their superiors. Thus, on September 9, Dreyfus was a second time convicted, though with extenuating circ.u.mstances, by a vote of 5 to 2, and condemned to ten years' detention. This verdict was a travesty of justice, and a punishment fitting no crime of Dreyfus, since he was either innocent or guilty of treason beyond extenuation. The Ministry, perhaps regretting too late its excessive inertia, immediately caused the President to pardon Dreyfus, partly on the ostensible grounds that Dreyfus by his previous harsher condemnation had already purged his new one. This act of clemency was, however, not a legal clearing of the victim's honor, which was achieved only some years later.

During the turmoil of the Dreyfus affair the Cabinet was, it seemed to many, unduly anxious over certain conspirators against the Republic. The symptoms of insubordination in high ranks in the army, linked with the Clerical manoeuvres, had encouraged the other foes of the Republic (spurred on by the Royalists), whether sincere opponents of the parliamentary regime like Paul Deroulede, or venal agitators such as the anti-Semitic Jules Guerin. But, certainly, above all objectionable were the proceedings of the a.s.sumptionists, a religious order which had ama.s.sed enormous wealth, and which, by the various local editions of its paper _la Croix_, had organized a campaign of venomous slander and abuse of the Republic and its leaders.

The Government, having got wind of a project of the conspirators to seize the reins of power during the Rennes court-martial, antic.i.p.ated the act by wholesale arrests on August 12. Jules Guerin barricaded himself with some friends in a house in the rue de Chabrol in Paris, and defied the Government to arrest him without perpetrating murder. The grotesque incident of the "Fort Chabrol" came to an end after thirty-seven days when the authorities had surrounded the house with troops to starve Guerin out and stopped the drains.

In November a motley array of conspirators, ranging from Andre Buffet, representative of the pretender the Duke of Orleans, to butchers from the slaughter-houses of La Villette, were brought to trial before the Senate acting as a High Court of Justice, on the charge of conspiracy against the State. After a long trial lasting nearly two months, during which the prisoners outdid each other in declamatory insults to their enemies, the majority were acquitted. Paul Deroulede and Andre Buffet were condemned to banishment for ten years and Jules Guerin to imprisonment for the same term. Two others, Marcel Habert and the comte de Lur-Saluces, who had taken flight, gave themselves up later and were condemned in 1900 and 1901, respectively, amid a public indifference which was far from their liking.

Thus the year 1899 had proved itself one of the most dramatically eventful in the history of the Republic. It was also to be one of the most significant in its consequences. For the new grouping of mutually jealous factions against a common danger had, in spite of the fiasco of the second Dreyfus case, shown a way to victory. And exasperation against the intrigues of the Clericals and the army officers was going to turn the former toleration of the "esprit nouveau" into active persecution, especially as the Socialists and Radicals formed the majority of the new combination.

In November, 1899, Waldeck-Rousseau laid before Parliament an a.s.sociations bill to regulate the organization of societies, which was intended indirectly to control religious bodies. The leniency of the Government hitherto and the commercial energy of many religious orders, manufacturers of articles varying from chartreuse to hair-restorers and dentifrice, had enabled them to ama.s.s enormous sums held in mortmain.

The power of this money was great in politics and the anti-Clericals cast envious eyes on these vague and mysterious fortunes. There were in France at the time almost seven hundred unauthorized "congregations."

Against the a.s.sumptionists in particular the Government took direct measures early in 1900, such as legal perquisitions, arrests, and prosecution as an illegal a.s.sociation.

The campaign went on through the year 1900, the Exposition of that year helping to act as a partial truce. The expedition of the Allies to China to put down the Boxer rebellion also diverted attention.

Waldeck-Rousseau was sincerely desirous of bringing about a pacification of feeling in the country, and he felt bitter practically only against the Jesuits and the a.s.sumptionists. He even succeeded in carrying through Parliament an amnesty bill dealing with the Dreyfus case and destined to quash all criminal actions in process, whether of Dreyfusites or anti-Dreyfusites. The former fought the project vigorously on the ground that it opposed a new obstacle to ultimate discovery of the truth, but they were unsuccessful. Waldeck-Rousseau remained at heart, none the less, a believer in Dreyfus's innocence and in spite of his amnesty project, he could not always hide his true feelings. In consequence he offended his Minister of War, General de Galliffet, Dreyfusite as well, but tired of the struggle now that the Rennes trial had made the task of rehabilitation apparently hopeless.

Galliffet resigned his office and was succeeded by General Andre, a politician soldier, who started out at once to purge the army drastically of its Clericalism.

Waldeck-Rousseau's a.s.sociations project was fairly mild. He had no desire for a violent break with the Vatican, and the wily and diplomatic Leo XIII probably so understood well enough in spite of his protests.

But, as debate and discussion went on, the measure became more severe.

Waldeck-Rousseau had originally planned a bill dealing with authorization and incorporation of a.s.sociations in general, in which he refrained from any specific allusion to religious bodies of monks and nuns, thereby a.s.similating them with other groups. As finally voted and promulgated in July, 1901, the law made provisions for the privilege of a.s.sociation in general, but made the important additional stipulations that no religious order or "congregation" could be formed without specific authorization by law, that a religious order could be dissolved by ministerial decree, and that no one belonging to an unauthorized order could direct personally, or by proxy, an educational establishment, or even teach in one. Thus the enemies of the lay Republic who, under cover of the "esprit nouveau," and by years of manipulation of the feeding sources of army and navy officers, had hoped to grasp power, and had made a supreme effort at the time of the Dreyfus agitation, now saw themselves thwarted, and faced the prospect of severer treatment.

Matters had progressed even further than Waldeck-Rousseau himself perhaps desired. In the spring of 1902, new legislative elections took place for the renewal of the Chamber of Deputies. The policy of the Waldeck-Rousseau Ministry was endorsed by a sound majority, and yet at this moment of triumph, after the longest rule as Prime Minister of any hitherto in the history of the Republic, Waldeck-Rousseau resigned his post without an adverse vote. Undoubtedly the state of his personal health was partly responsible for his departure from office and he was destined not to live beyond 1904. The last important events of his administration were a visit of the Czar to France and a return visit of President Loubet to Russia.

Waldeck-Rousseau's successor as Prime Minister was Emile Combes, a strong foe of the Church. Combes had himself been a former theological student and had, in his youth, written a thesis on the philosophy of St.

Thomas Aquinas. He now had all the vindictiveness of one who burns what he formerly wors.h.i.+pped. Encouraged by the recent elections, he turned more and more against the Vatican and impelled by the more violent members of the _Bloc_, he drifted toward the rupture which his predecessor had tried to avoid. A committee of the different groups supporting the Cabinet, called the "delegation des gauches," had in time been inst.i.tuted to formulate policies with the Prime Minister, who often had to obey it instead of guiding. Waldeck-Rousseau had intended not to apply his law retroactively. He had planned to spare educational establishments already in existence before July, 1901, when his measure went into operation, and had winked at lack of compliance on the part of many others. Combes applied the letter of the law ruthlessly. Amid public protestations and disturbances he closed a large number of these unauthorized schools; firstly, those which had actually been opened without permission since the promulgation of the law, then the many schools which were older than the law. In so doing he was called a persecutor, because the directors of the schools declared that they had allowed the time limit of application for authorization to go by, only through the understanding with the previous Administration that they were not to be interfered with. Now they could not help themselves.

Emboldened by success Combes next took up the applications of the congregations which had duly followed the law and were seeking authorization. By decree, as was his right, he first promptly closed unlicensed schools of recognized orders. Then came the applications of orders seeking authorization. Legal procedure demanded laws to reject as well as laws to accept applications. A recommendation _favored_ by the Government but _rejected_ by the Chamber of Deputies would not go before the Senate. On the other hand, an _unfavorable_ opinion of the Government _ratified_ by the House would still have to go before the Senate. A way would thus be open for prolonged chicanery.

Combes cut matters short. He lumped fifty-four individual applications into three batches, teaching orders, preaching orders, and the commercial order of the Chartreux, manufacturers of the liqueur called "chartreuse." Then, presenting these batches of applications collectively instead of individually to the Chamber, he caused their rejection and proceeded to dissolve the orders and close their fifteen hundred establishments. Through the spring of 1903 there were turbulent scenes in consequence in various parts of France, the monks trying sometimes pa.s.sive resistance, sometimes actual violence. In the reactionary districts the population attempted to stir up riots.

Occasionally, even, a military officer whose duty it was to evict the monks refused to obey orders. But, nothing daunted, Combes went on, with the support of the Chambers, to reject a large ma.s.s of applications from teaching orders of women. Even Waldeck-Rousseau was led in time publicly to declare that he had never contemplated the transformation of his a.s.sociations law of 1901 from a measure of regulation to one of exclusion, nor the a.s.sumption by the State of expensive educational charges. .h.i.therto carried on by religious orders. At last the law of July, 1904, put a complete end to all kinds of instruction by religious bodies, thereby insuring, after a lapse of time for liquidation, the disappearance of all teaching orders.