or less limited sort; the other was republicanism. The monarchists fell into three groups. A party of Legitimists, i.e., adherents of the old Bourbon monarchy, wanted a kingdom under the Count of Chambord, grandson of the Charles X who was deposed at the revolution of 1830. A party of Orleanists desired a restoration of the house of Orleans, overthrown in 1848, in the person of the Count of Paris, a grandson of the citizen-king Louis Philippe. A smaller group of members who, despite the discredit which the house of Bonaparte had suffered as a result of the war, remained loyal to the Napoleonic tradition, was committed to a revival of the prostrate empire of the captive Napoleon III.

The republicans, who were strong in Paris and in the southwestern parts of the country, aimed, of course, to prevent the reappearance of monarchy in any form. They were outnumbered five to two in the Assembly,1 and on this account it was chiefly they who argued that the body had received a limited mandate and had no authority to frame a constitution. They said, as was true, that the members had been chosen primarily for their views as to peace rather than as to constitutional forms. Their outlook, even in the present Assembly, was, however, far from hopeless, in view of the division in the monarchist ranks; and when the triumph of the republican cause became reasonably assured, most of them acquiesced in the Assembly's exercise of constituent power.

Origins of a Cabinet System: the Rivet Law. After the treaty of Frankfort was signed, on May 10, the primary object for which the Assembly was elected could be regarded as attained. Despite republican demands that the body declare its task completed and give way to a new agency specially chosen for the work of constitution-framing, there was, however, no indication of purpose to pursue such a course. Already the body was actively instituting measures to aid the country's recovery from the effects of the war; it had transferred its seat from Bordeaux to Versailles, and had taken vigorous and effective steps to suppress the communard uprising of April and May in Paris.2 Far from relinquish

1 Of avowed Legitimists there were about 150; of Bonapartists, not over 30; of Republicans, about 250. The remaining members were Orleanists or men of uncertain views. At no time was the full membership of the Assembly in attendance. See G. Weill, Histoire du parti républicain en France de 1814 à 1870 (Paris, 1900).

2 The Commune was a movement in protest against a centralized form of government, whether monarchist or republican. The communards wanted a system based on a federation of communes.

ing power, it gave every evidence of intention to keep its hand on the situation indefinitely, and to give the country the strong government that it needed while the work of constitution-making was going forward deliberately, and even leisurely.

A practical difficulty in the existing arrangements was the anomalous position of Thiers as chief executive, and of the ministers. With a view to organizing the government on a more definite basis, Charles Rivet, deputy for the Corrèze and friend of Thiers, introduced, on August 12, a resolution to the effect that Thiers should be given the title of president of the republic, that he should retain office for three years unless the Assembly should sooner be dissolved, and that the ministers should be made directly and completely responsible to the Assembly. The obvious intention was to introduce a cabinet system on the English model; the president, being immovable, would cease to be responsible, and the ministers would become the working, responsible executive. Although inclining strongly to the cabinet type of government, the Assembly was not ready to go as far as Rivet proposed, and the program was considerably altered before being adopted. As passed on August 31 (by a vote of 491 to 94), the Rivet law gave Thiers the title of president and declared the ministers responsible to the Assembly, yet reiterated the responsiblity of the president himself to that body and indicated that his powers, which were increased in several directions at this time, were to be construed as having been conferred for as long as the Assembly itself should last.'

This legislation was of some benefit. The title of president had a certain definiteness; the important principle of ministerial responsibility had been clearly proclaimed. Fundamentally, however, the new arrangements were less satisfactory than those which they supplanted. The Assembly had attempted the feat of making parliamentary responsibility reside at the same time in the titulary executive and in the ministers, and little experience was needed to prove that this was impossible. What actually happened was that Thiers kept up his close working relations with the Assembly, took a personal and active part in its deliberations, and bore direct responsibility to it, while ministerial responsibility was hardly more than a name.

To the general demand for further reconstruction of the system, Thiers added the weight of his voice in a message of November 13, 1872; and on March 13, 1873, a new and signif

1 Duguit et Monnier, Les constitutions, 315-316; Anderson, Constitutions, 604-606; Hanotaux, Contemporary France, I, Chap. iv.

icant law was passed. The original object of the measure was to restrict the personal intervention and influence of the president in the Assembly's proceedings. This might have been done by excluding him from membership. But Thiers objected so vigorously that the idea was not pressed. It might also have been accomplished by relieving the president of responsibility to the body. But the Assembly did not desire to do this. It believed, with the Duc de Broglie, that while in a constitutional monarchy the titulary head may be immune from responsibility, the president, or other head, of a republic must be responsible, by virtue of the very principle of republicanism. Thus far in the world's experience the cabinet system had been confined to monarchies, and the French lawmakers of 1873 must not be too severely criticized for failing to see that the system can, indeed must, work under the same principles, whatever title the nominal head of the state may bear. As finally passed, therefore, the law of 1873 did not go farther than to define the conditions under which the president might address the Assembly and to throw special safeguards around the right of the body to deliberate on his proposals in his absence; although, by way of compensation, it bestowed on him a weak form of veto.

Failure of the Monarchist Programs. -Meanwhile Thiers, who began as a constitutional monarchist, came to the view that a republican form of government would be most likely to win the general support of the people, and late in 1872 he put himself definitely among the adherents of the republican program. This naturally aroused the monarchists; and when, on May 19, 1873, Dufaure (vice-president of the council of ministers, and an appointee of Thiers) submitted to the Assembly the draft of a republican constitution,2 they buried their differences long enough to defeat the plan, and force the president's resignation.3 They now felt that the time had come to end a régime which they had assumed from the first to be temporary, and for a short while the tide ran strongly in their favor. They elected to the presidency Marshal MacMahon, who not only was a monarchist, but, being a soldier rather than a parliamentarian and orator, did not care to take an active part in politics; besides, he was not a member

1 Esmein, Éléments de droit constitutionnel (4th ed.), 515

2 Journal officiel, May 20, 1873, p. 3208.

3 Anderson, Constitutions, 622-627; A. Lefèvre Pontalis, “L'Assemblée nationale et M. Thiers," in Le Correspondant, Feb. 10, 1879; Hanotaux, Contemporary France, I, Chap. x; II, Chap. i; A. Thiers, Notes et Souvenirs de 1870 à 1873 (Paris, 1903); J. Simon, Le gouvernement de M. Thiers (Paris, 1878); E. de Marcère, L'Assemblée nationale de 1871 (Paris, 1904).

of the Assembly. They set up a "coalition " ministry under the Orleanist Duc de Broglie, and put republican agitation, in the press and otherwise, under the ban. Finally, they worked out an ingenious compromise whereby the Bourbon Count of Chambord was to be made king under the title of Henry V, and, he having no heirs, the Orleanist Count of Paris was to be recognized as his successor. The whole project, however, failed, for the reason that the Count of Chambord refused to give up the white flag, which for centuries had been the standard of the Bourbon house, while the Orleanists held out for the tricolor.1

This curious turn of affairs saved the life of the republic for the time being, and also contributed much to the final settlement. In the hope that they might eventually gain sufficient strength to place their candidate on the throne without the coöperation of the Legitimists, the Orleanists joined with the Bonapartists and the republicans, November 20, 1873, in voting to fix the term of President MacMahon at seven years.2 The Orleanists assumed that if within that period an opportunity should arise for the establishment of the Count of Paris upon the throne, the President would clear the way by retiring. The opportunity, however, never came, and the septennial period for the French presidency, thus established by monarchists in their own interest, passed later into the permanent mechanism of a republican state.3 The Constitution Adopted. Meanwhile the law of September 20 gave fresh impetus to the work of constitution-making by providing that a committee of thirty should be elected at once to prepare constitutional laws for the Assembly's consideration. This committee entered upon its task with commendable zeal.1 Due consideration was given to the projet presented to the Assembly by Dufaure on the eve of Thiers' resignation, although another plan, submitted in the name of the MacMahon government by the Duc de Broglie (Dufaure's successor as vice-president of the council) was made the main basis of discussion. Both members and outsiders were no less prolific of proposals than were

1 Hanotaux, Contemporary France, II, Chaps. iii-v; Marquis de Castallane, "Le dernier essai de restauration monarchique de 1873," in Nouvelle Rev., Nov. I, 1895.

2 Duguit et Monnier, Les constitutions, 319; Anderson, Constitutions, 630; Hanotaux, op. cit., II, Chap. vi.

There was much difference of opinion as to whether the septennate was personal or constitutional. Some held that if MacMahon should die or resign before the end of the period the entire arrangement would lapse. Others considered that in such a contingency a successor would have to be elected to fill out the term.

The unpublished minutes of its proceedings are preserved in the archives of the Palais Bourbon.

Americans when the constitutional convention was sitting at Philadelphia in 1787. Progress in committee was slow; the Assembly itself held back from pressing matters to a conclusion; and only at the opening of 1875 did systematic consideration of the projets formulated by the committee begin. By that time the country was becoming restless under the agitation of Gambetta and other republican leaders, and even the Legitimists and Orleanists feared that the existing unsettlement would lead to a Bonapartist revival. The upshot was that the Orleanists, convinced that a monarchy of their own making was, for the present, impossible, and preferring a republic to any other alternative that had been suggested, gave their support in sufficient numbers to the program of the republicans to make it at last possible to work out for the nation a conservatively republican constitutional system. Only after earnest effort, however, and by the narrow vote of 353 to 352 on the first division, were the republicans able to carry a resolution, introduced January 30, 1875, by the deputy Wallon, making definite provision for the election, term, and reëligibility of the president of the republic. In a sense, this resolution introduced no innovation, but merely ratified a preexisting system. It did not state a principle, or even say that France should remain a republic. But in affirming certain facts about the presidential office, and especially in prescribing that the president should be reëligible, it plainly assumed that the republic was to be permanent.

Thereafter progress was rapid. The first of the constitutional measures to be brought to a definitive vote was the Law on the Organization of the Senate, which was adopted on February 24 by a vote of 435 to 234.2 The second was the Law on the Organization of the Public Powers, which was carried on February 25 by a vote of 425 to 254.3 The gaps which remained were to some extent filled up by a Law on the Relations of the Public Powers, based on a projet introduced for the government by Dufaure on May 18, and adopted July 16 by a vote of 520 to 84.*

1 "The president of the republic is elected by an absolute majority of votes by the Senate and Chamber of Deputies united as a National Assembly. He is chosen for seven years and he is reëligible." This became Art. 2 of the Law on the Organization of the Public Powers.

2 Annales de l'Assemblée nationale, XXXVI, 616.

3 Ibid., XXXVI, 654. The vote on Art. 2 (the Wallon amendment), separately taken on February 24, was 413 to 248.

Ibid., XL, 111-114. "The National Assembly, which had, not without some hesitation and perturbation, declared itself a constituent body, had at last kept the engagement it had made for itself. A constitution had been voted; but how slowly, how painfully, how incoherently." Hanotaux, Contemporary France, III, 283.