ne 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 begin