Background
Following the Franco-Prussian War, the elections for the National Assembly had brought about a monarchist majority, divided into Legitimists and Orleanists, which conceived the republican institutions created by the fall of Napoleon III in 1870 as a transitory state. Until the 1876 elections, the royalist movement dominated the legislature, thus creating the paradox of a Republic led by anti-republicans. The royalist deputies supported Marshal MacMahon, a declared monarchist of the legitimist party, as president of the Republic. His term was set to seven years – the time to find a compromise between the two rival royalist families.
In 1873, a plan to place Henri, comte de Chambord, the head of the Bourbon branch supported by Legitimists, back on the throne had failed over the comte's intransigence. President MacMahon was supposed to lead him to the National Assembly and have him acclaimed as King. However, the Comte de Chambord rejected this plan in the white flag manifesto of 5 July 1871, reiterated by an 23 October 1873 letter, in which he explained that in no case would he abandon the white flag, symbol of the monarchy (with its fleur-de-lis), in exchange for the republican tricolor. Chambord's decision thus ruined the hopes of a quick restoration of the monarchy.
In 1875, Adolphe Thiers joined with the initiative of moderate Republicans Jules Ferry and Léon Gambetta to vote for the constitutional laws of the Republic. The next year, the elections were won by the Republicans, although the end result was contradictory:
- in the Senate, which gave disproportionate influence to rural areas, the majority was made up of monarchists, who had a majority of only one seat (151 against 149 Republicans)
- in the Chamber of Deputies, the overwhelming majority composed of republicans.
- the president was MacMahon, an avowed monarchist.
Political crisis was thus inevitable. It involved a struggle for supremacy between the monarchist President and the republican Chamber of Deputies.
Read more about this topic: 16 May 1877 Crisis
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