In spite of this quick recovery, France for the next few years played an absolutely inactive and comparatively unimportant part in European affairs. During the Russo-Turkish War of 1876, for instance, the republic declared and maintained a strict neutrality. Internally, the republic continued to have to contend with many difficulties. Again and again strong opposition to the republican form of government showed itself, expressed at one time by the followers of the Bonapartist party, at another by those of the Royalist party. However, all of these dissensions had no actual result, and in spite of them the republic continued to progress and to flourish to such an extent that, only seven years after one of the most disastrous defeats that any European nation had ever suffered, France was able, in 1878, to invite the rest of the world to witness at Paris the most wonderful international exposition that had ever been staged in the history of mankind. Early in the following year President MacMahon resigned, having been practically forced to this step by public sentiment which disapproved of and feared his monarchistic leanings. M. Grévy was elected as his successor. The early summer of this year (1879) brought death to the only son of Napoleon III while he was fighting under the English flag during the campaign against the Zulus in South Africa, and this event practically ended all danger of a Napoleonic restoration, because the representatives of the Napoleonic family left were neither closely enough related to Napoleon III nor possessed the necessary ability to accomplish a change of government.
The year 1880 brought the beginning of a strong anti-Catholic movement in France. At first this movement was directed only against the Jesuits, but it rapidly spread and in a way may be considered the forerunner of the radical legislation along this line which was passed in recent years. Throughout these years the life of the different ministries was very short and in most instances measured by months rather than by years. To go deeper into the causes for this condition is not necessary; but one of its results undoubtedly was that France continued to refrain from active participation in European politics because it stands to reason that a continuous change of the head of the Department of Foreign Affairs made it more or less difficult, if not impossible, for France to establish a definite foreign policy. However, in 1881 France began again to take a more lively interest in its colonial affairs. It was in that year that Tunis gave up its resistance to French occupation and from that time on dates the preponderating influence which France has held ever since in north Africa. For our purposes it is important only to remember the fact of this preponderancy, although it may be difficult to understand why this condition should exist, for neither then nor during the years to come has France shown any particular adaptability to colonial problems nor was it able to register in its colonies successes such as England and Germany had to show. The colonial expansion of France, however, continued. In 1882 new territory was acquired in Annam and, in 1884, Cambodia. This aggrandizement of France at the cost of China finally resulted in a declaration of war on the part of the latter country against France in August, 1884, lasting until June, 1885, and resulting in the confirmation of the French possessions in the Far East, not, however, until the French troops had suffered severe reverses. In 1885 a protectorate was established over Madagascar.