Constitutions,
308-314; Helie, Les Constitutions, 1315-1327; and
Anderson, Constitutions, 581-586. Cambridge Modern
History, XI., Chap. 17; H. Berton, L'evolution
constitutionnelle du second empire (Paris, 1900).
An important larger work is P. de la Gorce,
Histoire du second empire, 7 vols. (Paris,
1894-1905).]

V. THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE THIRD REPUBLIC

*325. The National Assembly.*--The present French Republic was
instituted under circumstances which gave promise of even less
stability than had been exhibited by its predecessors of 1793 and
1848.[448] Proclaimed in the dismal days following the disaster at
Sedan, it owed its existence, at the outset, to the fact that, with
the capture of Napoleon III. by the Prussians and the utter collapse
of the Empire, there had arisen, as Thiers put it, "a vacancy of
power." The proclamation was issued September 4, 1870, when the war
with Prussia had been in progress but seven weeks.[449] During the
remaining five months of the contest the sovereign authority of France
was exercised by a Provisional Government of National Defense, with
General Trochu at its head, devised in haste to meet the emergency by
Gambetta, Favre, Ferry, and other former members of the Chamber of
Deputies. Upon the capitulation of Paris, January 28, 1871, elections
were ordered for a national assembly, the function of which was to
decide whether the war should be prolonged and what terms of peace
should be accepted at the hands of the victorious Germans. There was
no time in which to frame a new electoral system. Consequently the
electoral procedure of the Second Republic, as prescribed by the (p. 302)
law of March 15, 1849, was revived,[450] and by manhood suffrage
there was chosen, February 8, an assembly of 758 members,
representative of both France and the colonies. Meeting at Bordeaux,
February 12, this body, by unanimous vote, conferred upon the
historian and parliamentarian Thiers the title of "Chief of the
Executive Power," without fixed term, voted almost solidly for a
cessation of hostilities, and authorized Thiers to proceed with an
immediate negotiation of peace.

[Footnote 448: The best account of the beginnings
of the Third Republic is that in G. Hanotaux,
Histoire de la France contemporaine, 4 vo