and by other manifestations
of his wishes. Thus a certain number of Catholics, among whom the comte
de Mun and Jacques Piou were leaders, cut adrift from the Right and
adhered to the Republic, forming the small group of "Rallies." They were
never very numerous or powerful, and the Dreyfus affair, a few years
later, showed how the Pope's desire to rally the Catholics to the
Republic was thwarted by the French clergy and the reactionaries.

The procedure of Leo XIII was thus a proof that the Vatican wanted to be
on good terms with the Republic. The _rapprochement_ with Russia was
another proof that France, in spite of its troubles, was to be reckoned
with in Europe. France and Russia felt it necessary to draw together in
answer to the noisy renewal of the Triple Alliance. There had been
tension in the spring of 1891, in which the French were not wholly
blameless, as a result of the private visit to Paris of the dowager
empress of Germany, the Empress Frederick. In the summer of 1891 a
French fleet under Admiral Gervais was invited to Russian waters. It
visited Cronstadt, and the Czar and the President exchanged telegrams of
sympathy. On the return to France the same fleet visited Portsmouth by
invitation, and was welcomed by the Queen and the authorities. The visit
to England did not, however, have the same meaning as the Russian one.
"Portsmouth" meant an expression of England's freedom of action
face-to-face with the Triple Alliance, and an endeavor to smooth French
susceptibilities recently ruffled by Lord Salisbury. After an
Anglo-French compact, in August, 1890, for the partition of
protectorates and zones of influence in Africa, the British Prime
Minister alluded rather scoffingly in the House of Lords to the lack of
value of the Sahara assigned to the French. "Cronstadt," as opposed to
"Portsmouth," meant an active understanding, to be followed in 1892 by a
military defensive compact negotiated in St. Petersburg by General de
Boisdeffre, head of the French General Staff.

The return visit of the Russians took place at Toulon in 1893, and
Admiral Avellan with his staff visited Paris, which went wild with
enthusiasm. At that moment French relations with Italy were strained,
partly because the Italian Government was jealous of the cordiality
between the Pope and the Republic. The Franco-Russian manifestation was
a new veiled warning.

In 1892, under the leadership of Jules Meline, the Chamber adopted a
protective t