199

ILLUSTRATIONS

RAYMOND POINCARE _Frontispiece_

ADOLPHE THIERS 32

EDME-PATRICE-MAURICE DE MAC-MAHON 50

LEON GAMBETTA 70

JULES FERRY 78

SADI CARNOT 96

MARIE-GEORGES PICQUART 124

RENE WALDECK-ROUSSEAU 136

[Illustration: Raymond Poincare]

A HISTORY OF THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC

CHAPTER I

THE ANTECEDENTS OF THE FRANCO-PRUSSIAN WAR

Two men were largely responsible, each in his own way, for the third
French Republic, Napoleon III and Bismarck. The one, endeavoring partly
at his wife's instigation to renew the prestige of a weakening Empire,
and the other, furthering the ambitions of the Prussian Kingdom, set in
motion the forces which culminated in the Fourth of September.

The causes of the downfall of the Empire can be traced back several
years. Napoleon III was, at heart, a man of peace and had, in all
sincerity, soon after his accession, uttered the famous saying:
"L'empire, c'est la paix." But the military glamour of the Napoleonic
name led the nephew, like the uncle, into repeated wars. These had, in
most cases, been successful, exceptions, such as the unfortunate Mexican
expedition, seeming negligible. They had sometimes even resulted in
territorial aggrandizement. Napoleon III was, therefore, desirous of
establishing once for all the so-called "natural" frontiers of France
along the Rhine by the annexation of those Rhenish provinces which,
during the First Empire and before, had for a score of years been part
of the French nation.

On the other hand, though France was still considered the leading
continental power, and though its military superiority seemed
unassailable, the imperial regime was unquestionably growing "stale."
The Emperor himself, always a mystical fatalist rather than the hewer of
his own fortune, felt the growing inertia of his final malady. A
lavishly luxurious court had been imitated by a pleasure-loving capital.
This had brought in its train relaxed standards of governmental morals
and had seriously weakened the fibre of many military commanders.
Outwardly the Empire seemed as glorious as ever, and in 1867 France
invited the world to a gorgeous exposition in the "Ville-lumiere." But
Paris was more emotional year by year, and the Tuileries and Saint-Cloud
were dominat