k on the island of Formosa, and the blockade of the
coast dragged along unsatisfactorily through 1884 and 1885.

While Jules Ferry in the spring of 1885 was actually negotiating a final
peace with China on terms satisfactory to the French, the cession of
Annam and Tonkin with a commercial treaty, and while he was
categorically affirming in the Chamber of Deputies the success of
military operations in Tonkin, a sudden dispatch from the East threw
everything into a turmoil. General Briere de l'Isle telegraphed from
Tonkin that the French had been disastrously defeated at Lang-son and
General de Negrier severely wounded. The news proved to be a grievous
exaggeration which was contradicted by a later dispatch some hours
after, but the damage was done. On March 30, in the Chamber of Deputies,
Jules Ferry was insulted and abused by the leaders of a coalition of
anti-Republicans and Radicals. The "Tonkinois," as his vilifiers called
him, disgusted and discouraged, made little attempt to defend himself,
and his Cabinet fell by a vote of 306 to 149. On April 4, the
preliminaries of a victorious treaty of peace were signed with China.

The fall of Jules Ferry was a severe blow to efficient government. It
marked the end, for a long time, of any effort to construct satisfactory
united Cabinets led by a strong man. It set a precedent for innumerable
short-lived Ministries built on the treacherous sands of shifting
groups. It paved the way for a deterioration in parliamentary
management. It accentuated the bitter hatred now existing between the
Union des gauches, as the united Gambetta and Ferry Opportunist groups
called themselves, on the one hand, and the Radicals and the Extreme
Left on the other. The Radicals, in particular, were influential, and
one of their more moderate members, Henri Brisson, became the head of
the next Cabinet. Brisson's name testified to an advance toward
radicalism, but the Cabinet contained all sorts of moderate and
nondescript elements, dubbed a "concentration" Cabinet. Its chief
function was to tide over the elections of 1885, for a new Chamber of
Deputies. In anticipation of this election Gambetta's long-desired
_scrutin de liste_ had been rather unexpectedly voted.

The workings of the new method of voting were less satisfactory than had
been anticipated. Republican dissensions and a greater union of the
opposition caused a tremendous reactionary landslide on the first
ballot. This was greatly reduc