government during the regime of Combes. In attempting to thwart the
Clerical Party he let himself lapse into methods as objectionable as
theirs. His anti-clericalism breathed the spirit of persecution, as much
as did the intrigues of the clergy during the early days of the
Republic. He transformed Waldeck-Rousseau's plans for the regulation of
religious orders into a measure of proscription. He countenanced
underhanded intrigues, and allowed his Minister of War to undermine army
discipline by his methods of political espionage almost as much as it
had been undermined in the days of the supremacy of the Clericals. The
concessions of the Ministers of War and of Marine to the Socialists and
pacifists considerably weakened the efficiency of both army and navy.
Combes's administration was pre-eminently one of self-seeking
politicians.

Yet, on the other hand, certain very praiseworthy achievements may be
registered to its credit. One of these was the act of General Andre, in
1903, instituting a new private investigation of the Dreyfus case. It
resulted in the discovery of material sufficient to justify a new demand
for revision, which the Cour de Cassation admitted in March, 1904.
Another achievement was the _rapprochement_ with England known as the
_Entente cordiale_ or friendly understanding, which following the new
amity with Italy greatly strengthened France face-to-face with Germany.
The Russian alliance had given France one definite European ally, and
the cordiality with Italy, a member of the Triple Alliance, cleared the
situation in the Mediterranean and on the frontier of the Alps. The
_Entente cordiale_ was engineered by Edward VII as a result of his visit
to Paris in 1903. The accord of April, 1904, was really due to English
as well as French fear of German aggression. It liquidated all the old
contentions between England and France, one of which, the French Shore
Dispute over Newfoundland fishing rights, dated back to the Treaty of
Utrecht in the early eighteenth century. But, above all, France
definitely gave up her Egyptian claims in return for freedom of action
in Morocco guaranteed by England. For France was anxious to add Morocco
to her African sphere of influence. A secret arrangement with Spain gave
that country reversionary claims to certain parts of Morocco. By the
agreement with England the bad blood caused by the Fashoda incident was
wiped away, a new intimacy sprang up between "Perfidious Albion" and