Definitive establishment of the Republic.
_The Third Republic._--The Third Republic had at first a provisional government, unanimously acclaimed by the people of Paris. It was accepted by France, exercised full powers, and sustained by no means ingloriously a desperate struggle against the enemy; a certain number of its _décrets-lois_ are still in force. After the capitulation of Paris, a National Assembly was elected to treat with Germany. It was elected in accordance with the electoral law of 1849, which had been revived with a few modifications, and it met at Bordeaux to the number of 753 members on the 13th of February 1871. It was a sovereign assembly, since France had no longer a constitution, and for this very reason it claimed from the outset constituent powers; the Republican party at the time, however, contested this claim, the majority in the assembly being frankly monarchist, though divided as to the choice of a monarch. But for some time the National Assembly either could not or would not exercise this power, and up to 1875 affairs remained in a provisional state, legalized and regulated this time by the Assembly. This was an application, though unconscious, of a form of government which M. Grévy had proposed to the Constituent Assembly in 1848. There was a single assembly, with one man elected by it as head of the executive power (the first to be elected was M. Thiers, who received the title of president of the Republic in August 1871), who was responsible to the Assembly and governed with the help of ministers chosen by himself, who were also responsible to it. Thiers fell on the 24th of May 1873. His place was taken by Marshal MacMahon, on whom the Assembly later conferred, in November 1873, the position of president of the Republic for seven years, when the refusal of the comte de Chambord to accept the tricolour in place of the white flag of the Bourbons had made any attempt to restore the monarchy impossible. Henceforth the definitive adoption of the Republican form of government became inevitable, and the opinion of the country began to turn in this direction, as was shown by the elections of deputies which took place to fill up the gaps occurring in the Assembly. The Assembly, however, shrank from the inevitable solution, and when a discussion was begun in January 1875 on the projected constitutional laws prepared by the _commission des trente_, the only proposals made by the latter were for a more complete organization of the powers of one man, Marshal MacMahon. But on the 30th of January 1875 was adopted, by 353 votes to 352, an amendment by M. Wallon which provided for the election of an indefinite succession of presidents of the Republic; this amounted to a definitive recognition of the Republic. In this connexion it has often been said that the Republic was established by a majority of one. This is not an accurate statement, for it was only the case on the first reading of the law; the majority on the second and third readings increased until it became considerable. There was a strong movement in the direction of a reconciliation between the parties; and there had been a _rapprochement_ between the Republicans and the Right Centre. At the end of February were passed and promulgated two constitutional laws, that of the 25th of February 1875, on the organization of the public powers, and that of the 24th of February 1875, on the organization of the senate. In the middle of the year they were supplemented by a third, that of the 16th of July 1875, on the relations between the public powers.