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
substituted 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 Cassation, at the Auteuil
races, President Loubet was roughly jostled by a band of fashionable
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.
[Illustration: 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 participation 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 mass 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 dashing 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 impassioned
France and angry onlooking nations. Witnesses had full latitude 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 circumstances, 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 Assumptionists, a religious order which had
amassed 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, anticipated
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
Associations 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 amass 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 Assumptionists in particular the Government took direct
measures early in 1900, such as legal perquisitions, arrests, and
prosecution as an illegal association.
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 Assumptionists. 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 Associations 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 associations in general, in which he
refrained from any specific allusion to religious bodies of monks and
nuns, thereby assimilating them with other groups. As finally voted and
promulgated in July, 1901, the law made provisions for the privilege of
association 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 worshipped. 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 instituted 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 passive 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 mass 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
Associations law of 1901 from a measure of regulation to one of
exclusion, nor the assumption by the State of expensive educational
charges hitherto 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.
These measures against the religious groups were, in spite of outcries
of persecution, after all matters of internal administration. But,
meanwhile, causes for direct dissension with the Vatican had arisen over
questions involving the _Concordat_ regulating the relations of Church
and State.
The first dispute was about the method of appointing bishops. The
Concordat gave to the Government the right of appointing bishops,
subject to the papal ratification of the appointee's moral and
theological qualifications. During the Third Republic the habit had
grown up of mutual consultation before appointments were made, a
practice which led the Vatican to assume that its initial influence was
as great as that of the Government, and finally to make use of the
formula _nobis nominavit_, or _nominaverit_, as though the Government
merely proposed a candidate subject to the Vatican's free right to
accept or to reject. The keen-scented Combes took an early opportunity
to raise this issue by making certain appointments to bishoprics
without previously consulting the Vatican. In the midst of the
discussions Leo XIII died in July, 1903, and was succeeded by Pius X,
whose character was utterly different from that of his predecessor. His
primitive faith saw in France the home of heretics like the Modernist,
the Abbe Loisy; and his Secretary of State, the ultramontane Cardinal
Merry del Val, was as hostile to France, as his predecessor Cardinal
Rampolla had, on the whole, been well disposed to the "eldest daughter
of the Church." Between Merry del Val and Combes no agreement was
possible. So matters went from bad to worse.
In the autumn of 1903 the King of Italy made a visit to France, and in
1904 it was deemed advisable to have President Loubet return this visit
to emphasize the new cordiality between France and Italy, the settlement
of long-standing difficulties, and to cultivate as much as possible one
member of the Triple Alliance. The Pope protested violently against this
visit to his enemy in Rome and made it clear that he would refuse to see
Loubet. The diplomatic crisis became acute and the French Ambassador to
the Vatican was recalled.
Soon came a complete rupture over the treatment by the pontifical
authorities of two French bishops, Geay of Laval and Le Nordez of Dijon.
They had shown themselves loyal Republicans and had become the object of
attack in their own dioceses until personal scandals were imagined or
raked up against them. Combes took the part of the bishops and, to
punish the Vatican for interfering with the French prelates, definitely
broke off diplomatic relations in July, 1904, withdrawing even the
charge d'affaires who had been left after the departure of the
ambassador.
For some time, plans for the separation of Church and State had been
under discussion in a somewhat academic way by a committee or
_Commission_ of the Chamber, under the general guidance of Ferdinand
Buisson and Aristide Briand. The latter had even drawn up a preliminary
project. But Combes, in spite of his vehemence in words against the
Church, hesitated to involve the Ministry. He knew that the country at
large was fully satisfied with the maintenance of the Concordat and that
some of his own colleagues in the Cabinet, as well as Loubet, preferred
not to disturb it.
Suddenly a great scandal broke out. The enemies of the Ministry got hold
of the fact that General Andre, through some of his subordinates in the
War Office, was carrying on a regular system of espionage upon army
officers suspected of luke-warm republicanism or of Clerical sympathies,
and was using as spies members of Masonic lodges or even subordinate
Masonic army officers throughout France.[16] These spies had filed
innumerable notes or memoranda known as _fiches_, containing
information, rumor, or scandal concerning the persons involved, their
families and intimacies. The discovery that leading members of the
Cabinet had been countenancing methods as reprehensible as those of the
worst of their opponents, caused an uproar. The Cabinet seemed on the
point of being overthrown when one of its enemies did it a great
service. A wild and blatant anti-Ministerialist named Syveton rushed up
to the Minister of War and struck him two blows in the face during a
meeting of the Chamber. The effect of this deed was to cause a temporary
reaction in favor of the Ministry, but also to draw Combes more to the
Radicals, and he promptly brought forward his own governmental
separation plan, which was considerably at variance with the Briand
project. The respite was, however, only momentary, and, after
sacrificing General Andre, Combes gave up the struggle and resigned in
January, 1905, without being actually put in the minority.
It cannot be denied that there was a considerable deterioration in
government during the regime of Combes. In attempting to thwart the
Clerical Party he let himself lapse into methods as objectionable as
theirs. His anti-clericalism breathed the spirit of persecution, as much
as did the intrigues of the clergy during the early days of the
Republic. He transformed Waldeck-Rousseau's plans for the regulation of
religious orders into a measure of proscription. He countenanced
underhanded intrigues, and allowed his Minister of War to undermine army
discipline by his methods of political espionage almost as much as it
had been undermined in the days of the supremacy of the Clericals. The
concessions of the Ministers of War and of Marine to the Socialists and
pacifists considerably weakened the efficiency of both army and navy.
Combes's administration was pre-eminently one of self-seeking
politicians.
Yet, on the other hand, certain very praiseworthy achievements may be
registered to its credit. One of these was the act of General Andre, in
1903, instituting a new private investigation of the Dreyfus case. It
resulted in the discovery of material sufficient to justify a new demand
for revision, which the Cour de Cassation admitted in March, 1904.
Another achievement was the _rapprochement_ with England known as the
_Entente cordiale_ or friendly understanding, which following the new
amity with Italy greatly strengthened France face-to-face with Germany.
The Russian alliance had given France one definite European ally, and
the cordiality with Italy, a member of the Triple Alliance, cleared the
situation in the Mediterranean and on the frontier of the Alps. The
_Entente cordiale_ was engineered by Edward VII as a result of his visit
to Paris in 1903. The accord of April, 1904, was really due to English
as well as French fear of German aggression. It liquidated all the old
contentions between England and France, one of which, the French Shore
Dispute over Newfoundland fishing rights, dated back to the Treaty of
Utrecht in the early eighteenth century. But, above all, France
definitely gave up her Egyptian claims in return for freedom of action
in Morocco guaranteed by England. For France was anxious to add Morocco
to her African sphere of influence. A secret arrangement with Spain gave
that country reversionary claims to certain parts of Morocco. By the
agreement with England the bad blood caused by the Fashoda incident was
wiped away, a new intimacy sprang up between "Perfidious Albion" and
"Froggy," and through the natural drawing together of England and
France's ally Russia, the Triple Entente came into being some years
later, which was destined to face Germany and Austria in the Great
European War.
Combes's successor as Prime Minister was a member of his own Cabinet,
Maurice Rouvier. More moderate in views than Combes, he would have been
content to let the Separation bill rest, but the Radicals were in the
saddle and he let things take their course. The discussions over the
project went on through most of the year 1905, under the guidance of the
Minister of Worship, Bienvenu-Martin, and particularly of Aristide
Briand, the _rapporteur_ or spokesman for the _Commission_ in the
Chamber. The bill, again and again modified in a spirit of conciliation
and leniency under the guidance of Briand, finally resulted, as
promulgated on December 9, in a sincere effort for a compromise between
different views on religion. It showed a desire, since Church and State
were to be divorced, to treat the former fairly. Provision was made,
when the budget for religious purposes should be suppressed, for the
legal inventory of ecclesiastical property, the pension of superannuated
clergy, and the formation of legal corporations to insure public worship
(_associations cultuelles_). It must be remembered that the new measure
applied quite as much to the Protestants and to the Jews as to the
Catholics. Before the separation the Protestant pastors and the Jewish
rabbis were maintained by the State no less than the Catholic clergy.
Their numerical insignificance made them of little importance in the
general combat over the Clerical question. Nor could they fairly be
accused of intrigue against the Republic.
The year 1905 is noteworthy for two other important events. One was the
reduction of the term of compulsory military service from three to two
years. This measure was carried through largely under the auspices of
General Andre and proved an over-dangerous concession to the
anti-militarists and pacifists, since it was destined so soon to be
repealed. The other was the sensational diplomatic dispute with Germany
over Morocco, which resulted at first for France in a worse humiliation
than Fashoda.
Germany under Bismarck had encouraged the numerous French colonial
schemes, as a way of keeping her busy abroad and of diverting her
thoughts from Alsace-Lorraine. But as the Empire began to develop its
Pan-Germanism and its aspirations to world-power under William II, it
grew jealous of England and France and of their arrangement of 1904 to
settle the interests of Morocco. Forthwith Germany began to intrigue
with the Sultan of Morocco against the French, and declared that, as it
had not been officially informed of the agreements between England,
France, and Spain, it intended to disregard them. The defeat of Russia
by Japan, in particular, encouraged Germany to feel that France,
deprived of its ally, could be bullied with impunity. On March 31,
Emperor William landed at Tangier and proclaimed that his visit was to
the Sultan as an "independent sovereign." Germany also called for the
convocation of an international meeting to regulate the Moroccan
question. The French Minister of Foreign Affairs, Delcasse, objected to
the thwarting of his plans, but because of the deterioration of the army
and navy and the lack of hoped-for Russian support, Rouvier was obliged
under German threats to drop him from his Cabinet and to agree to the
convocation of the Conference of Algeciras.[17]
FOOTNOTES:
[16] It should be remembered that, in France, the Freemasons are an
anti-religious political quite as much as a benevolent order.
[17] The pro-German position, expressed in such works as E. D. Morel's
_Morocco in Diplomacy_ (1912), is that Sir Edward Grey and M. Delcasse
were engaged in tricky schemes to dispose of Morocco without regard for
German interests; that Germany was not officially notified by France of
the public agreements with England (April, 1904) and with Spain
(October, 1904); that these two agreements were both accompanied by
secret ones which nullified their effect; that M. Delcasse resigned, not
under German pressure, but at M. Rouvier's wish, for having unduly
involved and compromised France.