d
resigned his office in 1873, in consequence of a dispute with the
Assembly, the true history of which may one day be edifying, and the
Assembly had elected the Marechal-Duc to fill his place.

I have been told by one of the most distinguished public men in France
that, in his passionate desire to prevent the election of the Marechal
Duc, M. Thiers was bent upon promoting a movement to bring against the
soldier of Magenta an accusation like that which led to the condemnation
of the Marechal Bazaine, and that he was with difficulty restrained from
doing this.

Monstrous as this attempt would have been, it hardly seems more
monstrous than the abortive attempt which was actually made, under the
inspiration of M. Gambetta and his friends, to convict the Marechal Duc
and his ministers, 'the men of the 16th of May,' of conspiring, while in
possession of the executive power, to bring about the overthrow of the
Republic and the restoration of the Monarchy.

M. Gambetta and his party having formed in 1877 what is known as 'the
alliance of the 363,' determined to drive the Marechal-Duc from the
Presidency, to take the control of public affairs entirely into their
own hands, and to reduce the Executive to the position created for Louis
XVI. by the revolutionists of the First Republic, before the atrocious
plot of August 10, 1792, made an end of the monarchy and of public order
altogether, and prepared the way for the massacres of September. Whether
the Marechal-Duc might not have resisted this revolutionary conspiracy
to the end it is not worth while now to inquire. Suffice it that he gave
way finally, and, refusing to submit to the degradation of the high post
he held, accepted M. Gambetta's alternative and relinquished it.

It appears to me that the true aim of the Republicans (who had carried
the elections of 1877 by persuading France that Germany would at once
invade the country if the Conservatives won the day) is sufficiently
attested by the fact that they chose, as the successor of the
Marechal-Duc, a public man chiefly conspicuous for the efforts he had
made to secure the abolition of the Executive office!

M. Grevy had failed to get the Presidency of the Republic suppressed
when the organic law was passed in 1875. He was more successful when, on
January 30, 1879, he consented to accept the Presidency. When he entered
the Elysee, the executive authority went out of it. The Third French
Republic, such as it now exists