On the 4th of September, 1870, a provisional Republic was established, upon which developed the duty of continuing the conflict with Prussia. But as the German arms had won such signal successes, there seemed little hope for the triumph of France. In this moment of urgency, the government again looked to Thiers as the man of the hour. At its behest, an armistice of two months was spent by him in a diplomatic tour of the European capitals, for the purpose of enlisting the aid of the Powers in the French cause. He met with a kind reception everywhere, but found the nations unwilling to declare for either of the belligerents, and, accordingly, he retraced his steps homeward, without having accomplished anything. His reëntry into his native land was anything but encouraging. He saw that the people had been inflamed by Gambetta during his absence, and were clamoring for a renewal of the war. With the greatest difficulty he reached Paris, where he accomplished the most unpleasant task of persuading the Assembly to consent to a lengthening of the armistice.

The National Assembly, which had been driven by the imminence of danger from Paris to Bordeaux in southern France, proclaimed a general election of deputies. The result of this election was decisive. Because of his undisguised interest in the national welfare, Thiers was returned to the Assembly as the representative of twenty-one governmental departments. For more than twenty years he had almost invariably been on the right side in administrative disputes, and he was now rewarded by the confidence of all parties. When, at the first session of the new Assembly, the business of electing a National President arose, there was no doubt as to the choice of the nation. In the words of M. de Meaux: "Thiers was inevitable." In this nerveracking period of uncertainty, he was universally recognized as the only pilot able to steer the ship of state past the shoals of poverty and distress to the haven of peace and prosperity. All political differences were cast to the winds, and Thiers was elected, practically unanimously, the First President of the Third French Republic. His official title was "Chief of the Executive Power of the French Republic." He was now the head of a

legal polity; he wielded immense authority, as the words "M. Thiers wants it so" spoken at Bordeaux, or later at Versailles, were sufficient to bring into line all the opponents of any measure he desired to have put on the statute books.

Just how Thiers stood on the matter of the ultimate form of the French Government caused all parties considerable perplexity. The Republicans were confident that he was their leader, and were strengthened in this belief by his assertion, on ascending the presidential chair, that he would make a "loyal experiment in republican government." The Monarchists, on the other hand, were equally confident that as soon as he had extricated the country from the entanglements ensuing from the still unterminated war, Thiers would step aside, and allow the rightful heir to ascend the throne. The president was too sagacious to make these Royalists his enemies, so that for a time, he was compelled to maintain a rather ambiguous attitude.

Approximately three months after his election, Thiers was forced, by the ceaseless heckling of the three monarchical parties, to explain his position. He did this in a vigorous speech, delivered before the Assembly on February 19, 1871; he drew a vivid picture of the country's pitiful condition, and urged all, Royalists and Republicans alike, to combine in carrying through his programme of "pacifying, reorganizing, restoring credit, and reviving work, so as to place the nation on a sound financial basis." And then he came out with his celebrated dictum, now termed the "Bordeaux compact: "After credit has been restored and prosperity reëstablished, then and then only, will it be time to think of the form of government to be imposed upon the nation. All parties must drop their differences and consolidate upon the arduous task of procuring happiness and general welfare."

As he himself indicated, Thiers' task, upon entering office, was three-fold: he had, first of all, to conclude a satisfactory peace with Prussia; he had to repair the country's financial state; and he had to give his people a permanent and durable form of government. He was pledged to the peace party, and, as "first citizen of the land," he was given power to treat for terms with

the greatest diplomat of the age, Prince von Bismarck. The struggle was heart-rending. The two intermediaries met in Paris, and peace negotiations were opened at once. The terms, as presented by Prussia, included the following items: The surrender of the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine and the city of Metz, and the payment of the immense indemnity of six milliards of francs. Thiers was indignant at the enormity of these considerations, and pleaded, almost tearfully, with the German Emperor and his Chancellor, to diminish the ransom and to allow France to retain Metz and Belfort. His fervent appeal was effective: the indemnity was reduced to five milliards and Belfort remained French territory. The preliminary peace was signed by Thiers and Favre for France and by Bismarck for Prussia. The Chief Executive then repaired to Bordeaux where, after a spirited struggle, he obtained the ratification of the treaty by a vote of 546 to 107.

The second of Thiers' great tasks was the restoration of prosperity. This was made especially difficult by the fact that the huge indemnity had to be collected, in large part, from direct taxes upon the already fearfully impoverished people. But the nation responded nobly and willingly. During Thiers' administration, France enjoyed an era of unexampled happiness and prosperity. The harvests were rich, commerce flourished, and the nation, rising phoenix-like from the ashes of a calamitous war, soon recovered its former rank among the world powers. The installments of the indemnity were paid off in an incredibly short time, so that on March 18, 1873, only a little more than a year after the signing of the preliminary peace, Thiers could announce in the Assembly that the final convention had been drawn up in Berlin, that all German troops had evacuated the country, and that France's liberation from alien intrusion was now a fait accompli. In recognition of his loyal services, the Assembly had, towards the end of the year 1872, conferred upon him the title of "President of the French Republic," for a term of seven years, thus putting an end to the provisional circumstances under which he had hitherto held his office.

This honor, however, soon produced in the ranks of the

Monarchists the feeling that Thiers was determined to make a republic of France. During the process of national reconstruction, they gave the president his way in whatever he wanted. But after the peace treaty had been successfully negotiated and the country was on the road to prosperity once more, they began a steady attack upon the Chief Magistrate and his most intimate ministers. The time for hedging was soon at an end. The Assembly and the people were desirous of establishing a permanent form of government by drawing up a constitution. Although the Monarchists possessed a large majority in the Assembly, Thiers felt that the electorate would support him to a man. As a consequence, he threw off his mask, and came out unreservedly, in a presidential message of November, 1872, for the continuance of the "Conservative Republic." The message aroused wild tumult in the Chamber. The anti-Republican deputies turned against the president, and it was only by means of his ever-ready tool, the threat to resign, that he carried the day. For four months the debate waxed hotter and hotter, until it became evident to all that Thiers was steadily losing ground. The Monarchists, forgetting the benefits the country had gleaned during Thiers' wise guidance, and without a definite candidate in view for the throne of the Bonapartes, determined that the President must go. "Thiers' services, the superhuman tasks he had just accomplished-all this was at once admitted and omitted." The immense power that he had been wielding was the cause of his downfall, as the Royalists had decided that the country had had enough of his tyranny. On a decisive motion, placed before the Assembly on May 24, 1873, Thiers was overwhelmingly outvoted; the Cabinet surrendered its portfolios, the President tendered his resignation and those of his ministers, and the man who had occupied the public eye for fifty years was definitively and irreparably defeated. He had, however, attained his most ardent wish; in the absence of a suitable successor to the throne, Monarchists and Republicans united in electing Marshall MacMahon, one of the central figures of the Franco-Prussian war, president of the French Republic. Though Thiers had to retire from active service, he had the satisfaction of knowing

that his country had remained, and probably would remain. throughout future generations, a conservative democracy.

After a short Continental tour, during the course of which he was everywhere greeted with a reception almost regal in its lavishness, Thiers retired into privacy. The last four years of his life were spent in recovering his valuable collections, large parts of which had been lost during the turbulent days of the Paris Commune, in 1870, and in diligent reading. He retained his faculties to the last; nor did he ever lose much of that keen vigor which marked his most active days. His last literary work was a brochure in defence of the republican form of government. On September 3, 1877, while surrounded by the tender care of his wife and his sister-in-law, Mlle. Félicie Dosne, who later compiled and published Thiers' Notes et Souvenirs, he was suddenly stricken with apoplexy, and passed away peacefully. Although his wife refused the Assembly's offer of a public funeral, the last rites over his body were properly impressive, and almost all Paris followed the cortège to the cemetery. Thus departed the most famous of nineteenth-century literary statesmen, one of the most Gallic of Frenchmen-a man who should be classed in a category with such leading spirits as Henri Quatre, Rabelais, Molière, Voltaire, and Napoleon.

Johns Hopkins University.

AARON SCHAFFER.