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133-572: From 1900 to 1904, the prefectural administrations , the Masonic lodges of the Grand Orient de France and other intelligence networks established data sheets on officers, which were sent to General André's office in order to decide on which officers would be allowed to receive promotions and advance up the military hierarchy, as well as be awarded decorations, and who would be excluded from advancement. These secret documents were preferred by General André to

266-508: A duel with the editor of a republican newspaper”, “Gathered at his table a Capuchin following the closure of the convent of Castres ” or in defense as “Devoted to the government”. At the Ministry of War, these intelligence reports compiled by the Freemasons were used to classify officers in two files: Catholic and nationalist officers — generally to be excluded from promotions - were placed in

399-473: A circular addressed to the prefects, Combes summed up the action he intended to take in the public service: “Your duty requires you to reserve the favors you have available only to those of your citizens who have given unequivocal proof of loyalty to republican institutions. I have agreed with my cabinet colleagues that no appointment, no advancement of civil servant belonging to your department occurs without your having been consulted beforehand ” . The card system,

532-464: A law expelling all possible claimants to the crown from French territories. Boulanger communicated to d'Aumale his expulsion from the armed forces. He received the adulation of the public and the press after the Sino-French War , when France's victory added Tonkin to its colonial empire . He also vigorously pressed for the accelerated adoption, in just first five months of 1886, of a new rifle for

665-481: A period of political dominance by the Opportunist Republicans . Academics have attributed the failure of the movement to Boulanger's own weaknesses. Despite his charisma, he lacked coolness, consistency, and decisiveness; he was a mediocre leader who lacked vision and courage. He was never able to unite the disparate elements, ranging from the far left to the far right, that formed the base of his support. He

798-640: A point that even old Freemasons in the Eastern regions, I was told in recent days, are disgusted to see young officers entering the lodges only to satisfy their ambition. What leaven of hatred and discord will have left in the Army and in the Navy this disastrous trio: Combes, André, Pelletan! For Guy Thuillier, the major error in the intelligence reporting system made by the Grand Orient was to have tried to gather information on all

931-536: A policy of rehabilitation. Nevertheless, the card system continued after 1905, no longer based on spying from the Grand Orient but on prefectural information and backed by the practice of political pressure. In 1913, the Minister of War Alexandre Millerand put an end to it definitively. This political filing system, in addition to causing a certain moral and political crisis within Dreyfusard circles, which were divided on

1064-606: A proposal by the Prime Minister and the Minister of the Interior . They serve at the government's discretion and can be replaced at any meeting of the Council of Ministers. To uphold the law, they are authorised to undertake a wide variety of actions, such as coordinating police forces, enforcing immigration rules, controlling authorities' finances, as well as suing local collectivities in

1197-400: A rigorous application of this methodology, therefore continued. On the advice of General Percin — his chief of staff, in whom he has complete confidence — André met with Senator Frédéric Desmons , a Calvinist pastor and Grand Master of the Grand Orient of France, the most influential Masonic body in the country. This meeting, which took place at a date difficult to specify — probably between

1330-644: A sensation by alleging that Boulanger's London promoter Alexander Meyrick Broadley had taken Boulanger and Rochefort to the male brothel at the centre of the Cleveland Street scandal , an allegation that Dillon was forced to publicly deny. After his flight, support for him dwindled, and the Boulangists were defeated in the general elections of July 1889 (after the government forbade Boulanger from running). Boulanger himself went to live in Jersey before returning to

1463-658: Is better understood as the coalescence of the fragmented forces of the Left." This interpretation is part of a consensus that the ideology of France's radical right was formed in part during the Dreyfus era by men, ironically, who had been Boulangist partisans of the Far Left a decade earlier. For example, Boulanger had the support of a number of former Communards from the Paris Commune and some supporters of Blanquism (a faction within

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1596-515: Is the State's representative in a department or region . Regional prefects are ex officio the departmental prefects of the regional prefecture . Prefects are tasked with upholding the law in the department they serve in, including controlling the actions of local authorities. Prefects are appointed by decree by the President of France when presiding over the government 's Council of Ministers, following

1729-684: The Jeune École was motivated as much by his strategic vision as by the desire to promote young officers committed to his cause. The new battleships which left the shipyards were named in homage to the French Revolution : Liberté , Danton , Démocratie and even Patrie . The period of the Radical Republic was also marked by a militant secularization of the Navy: in 1901, daily prayers, religious instruction and statutory Masses were abolished; in 1903,

1862-508: The Ligue de la patrie française . First they authenticated Captain Mollin's handwriting to ensure the files were genuine and then decided on a plan of action. On 15 October, the file containing the documents was secured within a safe at Crédit Lyonnais , while Guyot de Villeneuve decided to press forward with the revelation of the scandal, perhaps advised in this by Msgr Odelin. Indeed, both feared that

1995-679: The Légion d'honneur ) and in the Cochinchina campaign , after which he became a captain and instructor at Saint-Cyr. During the Franco-Prussian War , Boulanger was noted for his bravery, and soon promoted to chef de bataillon ; he was again wounded while fighting at Champigny-sur-Marne during the Siege of Paris . Subsequently, Boulanger was among the Third Republic military leaders who crushed

2128-452: The chef-lieu de région is also the préfet de région , or the prefect of the région . Prefects operate under the Minister of the Interior . Their main missions include: Prefects may issue administrative orders in areas falling within the competency of the national government, including general safety. For instance, they may prohibit the use of certain roads without special tyres in times of snow . The prohibition on smoking or leaving

2261-664: The esprit de corps , as the officers jostled for position and personal advancement and would be one of the elements that would most scandalise public opinion, once the affair had been revealed. While the French Navy was not directly implicated in the Affair of the Cards, its leaders also undertook their own endeavors to carry out a "republicanization" of their officer corps. Indeed, the Navy, traditionally known as "the Royal", an ambivalent reference to

2394-453: The rue Royale — where the Navy staff sat, in the Hôtel de la Marine — and to its royalist sympathies, was closely watched by Republicans and criticized for its alleged particularism. They feared that its corps of officers, which cultivated its autonomy in relation to the political personnel in place, were still at end of the 19th century a danger to the regime. In fact, successive Ministers of

2527-474: The Central Revolutionary Committee ). This included men such as Victor Jaclard , Ernest Granger and Henri Rochefort . Général Boulanger inspired the 1956 Jean Renoir movie Elena and Her Men , a musical fantasy loosely based on the end of his political career. The role of Général François Rollan, a Boulanger-like character, was played by Jean Marais . IMDb notes that there was also

2660-575: The Constitution of France : In the local governments of the Republic, the representative of the State, representing each member of the Government, is in charge of national interests, of administrative checks, and the respect of Law. The exact role and attributions are defined in decrees , most notably decrees of 1964, 1982, 2004, each replacing the preceding one. The prefect of the département containing

2793-678: The French Socialist Party ) accused him of this, Humbert defended himself by publishing a letter in L'Humanité and took the opportunity to denounce on the one hand the practices of denunciation that he had undertaken to fight when he was still in the cabinet of André and on the other hand the treatment to which he was subjected in July 1902. The press also reported in September 1904 the words of General Peloux, in La Roche-sur-Yon . He presents

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2926-464: The Grand Orient de France in order to inform him about the political opinions of the officers by clandestine means. After the triumph of the Bloc des gauches in the legislative elections of 1902, General André was returned to the cabinet of Émile Combes , with whom he initially had good relations and who saw him as an executor of his policy of anti-clericalism in all areas of society. On 20 June 1902, in

3059-637: The Ixelles Cemetery in Brussels in September 1891 to kill himself with a bullet to the head on the grave of his mistress, Madame de Bonnemains (née Marguerite Brouzet ) who had died in his arms the preceding July. He was buried in the same grave. Some historians viewed the Boulangist movement as a proto-fascist right-wing movement. A number of scholars have presented Boulangism as a precursor of fascism, including Zeev Sternhell . France's traditional right

3192-561: The Paris Commune in April–May 1871. He was wounded a third time as he led troops to the siege of the Panthéon , and was promoted commander of the Légion d'honneur by Patrice de MacMahon . However, he was soon demoted (as his position was considered provisional), and his resignation in protest was rejected. With backing from his direct superior, Henri d'Orléans, Duke of Aumale (incidentally, one of

3325-562: The Polytechnic School , was known for his fervent republicanism and his "doctrinaire" character. His mission was to continue the task of his predecessor, namely to liquidate the last turmoil of the Dreyfus affair and to continue with "republicanization" of the Army at lightning fast speed. To achieve this, Gaston de Galliffet changed the de-centralised methods of advancement in rank in the Army: on

3458-729: The Radical Party , launched an offensive against the Catholic Church in France. The Combes government expelled religious orders from French territory  [ fr ] , and prepared the 1905 French law on the Separation of the Churches and the State , which was the strongest anticlerical measure of the early 20th century. This move against Catholicism in French society, under the banner of separation,

3591-587: The Schnaebele incident (April 1887), war was averted, but Boulanger was perceived by his supporters as coming out on top against Bismarck . For the Goblet government, Boulanger was an embarrassment and risk, and became engaged in a dispute with Foreign Minister Émile Flourens . On 17 May Goblet was voted out of office and replaced by Maurice Rouvier . The latter sacked Boulanger, and replaced him with Théophile Adrien Ferron  [ fr ] on 30 May. The government

3724-860: The Union Army and was killed in action during the American Civil War . After attending the Lycée of Nantes , Boulanger entered the Saint-Cyr Military Academy in 1855, graduating and entering the French Army in 1856. Boulanger first saw action in 1857 in Kabylia , during the French conquest of Algeria . He fought in the Austro-Sardinian War (he was wounded at Robecchetto con Induno , where he received

3857-490: The " Carthage " category (the name recalling the word of Cato the Elder , Carthago delenda est : "Carthage must be destroyed"), the republican and masonically aligned officers — whose career André cabinet sought to accelerate — found their place in the " Corinth " category (a reference to Non licet omnibus adire Corinthum : "Not everyone can go to Corinth"). The intelligence reports began to be compiled when General André arrived at

3990-458: The 9 January 1900, he issued a decree to abolish the regional advancement commissions which decided autonomously on the advancement table. Indeed, Galliffet suspected the military high command of partiality; by setting up arms commissions and a higher commission to make proposals, this left the War Ministry full latitude to make a final decision. These arms commissions having in their prerogatives

4123-605: The Army was nonetheless seen as anti-republican, a vision which was reinforced by the outbreak of the Dreyfus affair . The refusal of the military high command to let the truth come out as well as the haughty attitude of the officers called upon to testify at Dreyfus' second trial led the Republicans to make accusations. The Republicans described the army as a "state within a state" where scions of conservative families (ethnically French and religiously Catholic) could make successful careers when other fields were closed to them. Also, since

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4256-630: The Boulangist crisis, Edmond Lepelletier , founder of the Les Droits de l'Homme  [ fr ] lodge under the Grand Orient de France, proposed to set up committees, directly supported by the lodges and the Society of Human Rights and of the Citizen  [ fr ] , who would have been responsible for reporting "the servants of the State disposed to betray and the maneuvers of hiring, corruption, intimidation of monarchists, clerics and their new allies,

4389-551: The Boulangists". But this idea was opposed by the director of La Chaîne d'union  [ fr ] , Esprit-Eugène Hubert (the published review of the Grand Orient de France). Following the resignation in May 1900 of General de Galliffet , the President of the Council Pierre Waldeck-Rousseau appointed — on the advice of Henri Brisson — General Louis André to succeed him at the Ministry of War. This soldier, from

4522-485: The Comte de Paris encouraged his followers to support him. Once seen as a republican, Boulanger showed his true colors in the camp of the conservative monarchists. On 26 March 1888 he was expelled from the army. The day after, Daniel Wilson had his imprisonment repealed. It seemed to the French people that honorable generals were punished while corrupt politicians were spared, further increasing Boulanger's popularity. Although he

4655-593: The Constitution of the Grand Orient, which stipulated: “[The brothers] must refrain from all debates on acts of civil authority and any Masonic intervention in disputes between political parties”; this would appear to have included the Worshipful Masters of Masonic Lodges at Périgueux , Rochefort and Saint-Jean-de-Luz who turned down requests to provide reports. Freemasons from other obediences also participated in gathering intelligence and providing reports; one of

4788-513: The General Secretariat of the Grand Orient de France, to monitor the activities of the freemasons. In September 1904, the campaign against carding system resumed, this time in a series of articles in the newspaper Le Matin , which was known for its moderate republican outlook. The "denouncement in the Army" was itself denounced, Percin and Maurice Sarrail — a Freemason and former collaborator of General André — were severely criticised and

4921-570: The General Secretariat of the Grand Orient, after revealing their existence to him at the beginning of 1904. Bidegain indeed “returned to the Catholic faith after mourning and personal disappointments”, which would have pushed him to change tack. Father de Bessonies was the chaplain at Notre-Dame-des-Victoires, Paris and a staunch opponent of Freemasonry, was then in contact with the deputies Prache and Jean Guyot de Villeneuve  [ fr ] . However, he seems to have played only an intermediary role,

5054-496: The Grand Lodge of France. The intelligence files sent to the Ministry of War listed the political opinions and presumed skills of thousands of officers. The religious and philosophical convictions of their families are also mentioned. In instances where the "suspect" professed to be apolitical or the reporting Freemason was unable to pin down his political beliefs categorically, a number of derisory personal notes which pointed against

5187-517: The Grand Orient maintained ongoing relations, managed on the one hand by Narcisse-Amédée Vadecard  [ fr ] , Secretary-General of the Grand Orient, and on the other hand, by the Captain Henri Mollin  [ fr ] , orderly officer of the minister and a fellow freemason. According to Guy Thuiller, Desmons having had the principle of carding validated by the Council of the Order of

5320-523: The Grand Orient, it was in fact under the control of its president, Commander Nicolas Pasquier  [ fr ] , commander of the military prisons of Paris — he was appointed to this post by André in 1901 — and to this title director of the Cherche-Midi prison . Under his leadership, this company became a veritable intelligence agency, with the Freemasonic officers carried out a vigilant surveillance of

5453-404: The Grand Orient, the masonic lodges were invited to give their active support to Vadecard. However, historians of Freemasonry, Pierre Chevallier (historian)  [ fr ] and Patrice Morlat have claimed that the Council of the Order was not consulted, only the office was and gave its approval. The latter then requested the most reliable "venerable" freemasons to send the information back to

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5586-430: The Ministry of War and initially only contained the officers that the Minister had known during his career personally or that he had heard of — little more than 800 reports. The historian Serge Berstein has counted a total of 18,818 intelligence files written on officers as a result of the Grand Orient's activities between 1 September 1901 and 30 October 1903, a number lower than the total number of files established during

5719-593: The Navy — Édouard Lockroy (1896, 1898–1899), Jean-Marie de Lanessan (1899-1902) and Camille Pelletan (1902-1905) — endeavored to assimilate the Navy to the Republic. This enterprise reached its maximum intensity under Pelletan, who worked alongside General André in the Combes Cabinet. In fact, Pelletan "saw naval policy only through an ideological prism": he intended to promote the careers of petty officers and officers specializing in mechanics, because they were known for their republicanism; Likewise, his enthusiasm for

5852-609: The Officer Corps to the ruling regime of the Third Republic. The scandal was unveiled to the public on 28 October 1904, when Jean Guyot de Villeneuve  [ fr ] challenged the government in the Chamber of Deputies and revealed the filing system established by General André and the Grand Orient, producing in support of his accusations files which had been purchased from Jean-Baptiste Bidegain  [ fr ] , deputy of

5985-543: The Prefect who decided on the follow-up path to be taken after the proposals. However, the postponement request could only be made "with caution and only for very serious reasons," according to the Combes circular. The investigations were carried out by the local police, the special commissioners in charge of counter-intelligence and the municipal police , who were the main informants of the prefectural administration. The zeal shown by

6118-543: The Republic that it is transformed into a denouncing office. All of this must come to an end. The revelations of the newspaper provoked a new groundswell for pressing the government by the right — this time in the person of Lieutenant-Colonel Léonce Rousset  [ fr ] . Some suspected that Captain Charles Humbert was a force behind the scenes pushing the series of articles in Le Matin . When Jean Jaurès (leader of

6251-401: The Republican government was brought into disrepute and Boulanger's popular appeal rose in contrast. His position became essential after Grévy was forced to resign due to the scandal: in January 1888, the boulangistes promised to back any candidate for the presidency that would in turn offer his support to Boulanger for the post of War Minister (France was a parliamentary republic ). The crisis

6384-422: The Secretariat. Captain Mollin — who enjoyed almost exclusive relations with the Grand Orient — was responsible for the file system within the military cabinet. Of a "touchy" character and sometimes being accused of a persecution complex , he maintained difficult relations with his superior, General Percin. The latter however left him in charge of the filing service, which was quite sensitive in nature. When Mollin

6517-417: The accession to power of the Republicans, a certain number of generals were dismissed from their commands on the basis of these files, in order to make the military institution more malleable in the hands of the new regime. It was also the dismissals within the Army that provoked the anger and the resignation of Marshal Patrice de MacMahon , President of the Republic from 1873 to 1879. Nine years later, during

6650-442: The affair followed one another for several months, while the press regularly published the files in question. Despite the support of Jean Jaurès of the French Socialist Party and the republican Bloc des gauches , the Émile Combes government collapsed on 15 January 1905, due to the pressure from the affair. The Maurice Rouvier cabinet, which succeeded him, formally condemned the system, pronounced symbolic sanctions and pursued

6783-415: The aggressive opposition of the established government, combined with Boulanger's self-imposed exile, contributed to a rapid decline of the movement. The decline of Boulanger severely undermined the political strength of the conservative and royalist elements of French political life; they would not recover strength until the establishment of the Vichy regime in 1940. The defeat of the Boulangists ushered in

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6916-427: The angels, he has no sex”, “His inscription on the board paid for the services rendered by his wife to General D”. In France, the local prefecture administrations were, in theory, the main source of government information about military officers. However, in practice, information from the Grand Orient had more weight in the decisions of the Ministry of War. The systematic registration by Freemasonry preceded that which

7049-410: The beginning of the Dreyfus affair — even since the Boulangist crisis — the right had begun to embrace nationalism and the defense of the Army, while the left placed itself under the banner of an anticlericalism informed by Continental Freemasonry and — at least in part — anti-military sentiment. Nationalist agitation in 1899, contemporary with the Dreyfus affair, convinced the left that the Republic

7182-430: The cabinet of Émile Combes (himself a Freemason, belonging to the Grand Orient de France ) sought to entrench the regime by proceeding with a "purification" of any institutions which were considered anti-Dreyfusard , the foremost target among which was the Army. In parallel with the fallout from the Dreyfus affair, the Combes cabinet, cemented by Freemasonry (in particular the Grand Orient de France ) and spurred on by

7315-403: The carding system. In May 1904, a Masonic lodge in Bordeaux wrote a report on the subject of the displacement of a Captain of the local garrison — whom the Lodge had requested the removal —, a document which found its way into the hands of Laurent Prache  [ fr ] , member of the Union libérale républicaine  [ fr ] . On 17 June 1904, he challenged the government about

7448-435: The complete destruction of Imperial Germany as vengeance for the defeat and fall of the Second French Empire during the Franco-Prussian War (1870–71), into French culture and accordingly laid the foundations for the outbreak of the First World War . The elections of September 1889 marked a decisive defeat for the Boulangists. Changes in the electoral laws prevented Boulanger from running in multiple constituencies and

7581-422: The denunciation of "reactionary" soldiers as a duty to his officers: "If any of you showed any hostility to the government of today, I beg you to quarantine them and even I will give you a duty to denounce them to me ”. This declaration prompted the filing of a third interpellation with the government. In mid-September 1904, the nationalist deputy Jean Guyot de Villeneuve obtained from Captain Humbert documents that

7714-497: The end of 1900 and the beginning of 1901 — aroused the enthusiasm of Desmons: the latter, eager to fight Catholic "clerical reaction", declared himself in favor of the collection by the provincial lodges of information on the officers and their transmission to the office of the Minister of War, though clandestine spying means. The lodges, present in many garrison towns, would indeed serve as a detailed intelligence service. Following these preliminary contacts, André's military cabinet and

7847-446: The entire entourage of the President of the Republic, Émile Loubet , knew what was going on at the Ministry of War. Percin's was playing a double game: while he was managing the filing at the Ministry, he tried to put General André in difficulty by releasing the first leaks. Several hypotheses as to why he did this are possible: it is possible that he sought to provoke the fall of André in order to be able to personally replace him within

7980-399: The establishment of the French Third Republic , the French Army had kept itself relatively aloof from the political struggles which pitted the monarchists against the partisans of the Republic, a confrontation which ended in the latter's final victory in 1879 with the change of the Senate. Although it did not allow itself to be tempted by the adventurism of a coup d'etat , the officer corps of

8113-417: The exclusion without recourse of the officers considered too mediocre, General André decided on 15 March 1901 to abolish arms commissions to allow the ministry complete freedom of choice. The system set up by André outraged part of the hierarchy, including General Hippolyte Langlois , who said in the Revue des Deux Mondes : [It is established] in each army corps, lists containing all the candidates who meet

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8246-418: The fall of 1878, reviewed the careers and political tendencies of the officers of the Ministry of War, the School of War, the General Staff of the Army and the Grandes Military Schools. These files, established by a republican intelligence network supported by Masonic lodges, thus already pointed — well before the Affair of the Cards — to the monarchist officers thought to present a danger to the Republic. After

8379-418: The general public when the scandal eventually broke. According to Jean-Baptiste Bidegain (whose accuracy Thuillier doubts), Pasquier's network would have produced 3,000 files in total. The second secret network was the one owned by General André's military cabinet. Bernard André, the nephew of the Minister of War, was in particular in charge of analysing anonymous denunciations, very numerous, which were sent to

8512-483: The general's report, he concluded: Under the most cowardly pretexts, in a spirit of envy and jealousy, Commander X and Lieutenant Y waged a terrible campaign against their leader, Colonel Terme. They destroyed at La Flèche any spirit of discipline, practiced anonymous denunciation in all that it is most ashamed of and, feeling supported by certain politicians belonging to the lodges of which they are part, they have braved everything for more than six months. Such officers do

8645-439: The government — as the rumours accused him —, that he was working to put in place a successor whom he preferred — Eugène Étienne being the most appropriate candidate in this scenario — or that he sought to exonerate himself from the forthcoming card system scandal by throwing the responsibility on André and Mollin, knowing that it would eventually come to light. The second half of 1904 was to be marked by an upsurge in leaks about

8778-498: The greatest damage to the republican cause in the army, for which we fight here with the last energy, and it is unfortunate that prime positions are kept by men whose position to be given would be retirement and retirement. no activity. Reactionary and clerical officers must, when they fail in their duty, be struck with the last energy, but the black sheep, and there are many that have crept into our ranks for quite some time, must also be struck with equal energy. I therefore ask and this in

8911-446: The head of the civil cabinet, Jean Cazelles  [ fr ] , warned the Minister the dangers of these practices and the damage that could be caused by their revelation. Faced with the lack of success of their approach, Targe and Humbert went so far as to contact in 1902 the new president of the Council of the Order of the Grand Orient, Auguste Delpech  [ fr ] , to convince him to give up filing. These steps earned them

9044-478: The hostility of Mollin, Lemerle, Violette and Commander Jacquot, and the latter endeavored to discredit them with the minister, sometimes by calumny. In July 1902, an incident linked to Freemasonry allowed them to settle their quarrel: the commander of the military school of Flèche , Lieutenant-Colonel Terme, being the subject of intrigues, Captain Humbert — in charge of the direction of the Infantry — conducted an investigation, entrusted to General Castex. Having read

9177-422: The impact of the card system on advancement within the French Army: Never has parliamentary or Masonic action been exercised so widely and slyly; never was denouncement more in honor in the cabinet of the rue Saint-Dominique; on the observation or denunciation of a Brother, on the recommendation of a Venerable, an officer is excluded from the advancement table or added to this table. The intrigues are pushed to such

9310-414: The individual were indicated, such as "Attends the Mass ", "Has his children educated by religious brothers", "Reactionary and convinced Catholic", "Made a fool of himself four years ago when he fell to his knees in the passage of a procession ", "When you have such a name (in particular), you cannot be a Republican", "Close friend of the Bishop", "Accepted three years ago to represent a titled Lieutenant in

9443-427: The interest of the army and justice, to put Commander X in retirement and to approve the other measures proposed by the leadership of the infantry. This report triggered strong protests from the aforementioned Freemasonic-aligned politicians (though their names were censored in the report) and Humbert's enemies. André's arbitration was final: the head of the civil cabinet, Cazelles, was made to leave his post and Humbert

9576-545: The journalist Stéphane Lauzanne vigorously critiqued the actions of the Minister of War: It is not possible that you allow next to you, below you, outside you, to perpetrate this task of snitching and denouncing, which can be that of the police, but cannot be that of the French Army. There is no republicanism which can excuse a fault against honor and there is no masonry which can cover a spinning agency. The Republic does not need to live that thieving officers serve it, and Freemasonry does not need to continue to render services to

9709-427: The latter had taken with him following his dismissal from the cabinet of the Ministry of War. Certain documents relating to the files undeniably bore the signature of General André. On 30 September 1904, Guyot de Villeneuve met Father de Bessonies and photographed a number of Bidegain's files in his possession. On 10 October, he returned to study the file in detail, accompanied by his friend Gabriel Syveton , treasurer of

9842-690: The law banning the activities of secret societies . Shortly afterward the French government issued a warrant for Boulanger's arrest for conspiracy and treasonable activity. To the astonishment of his supporters, on 1 April he fled Paris before it could be executed, going first to Brussels and then to London . On 4 April the Parliament stripped him of his immunity from prosecution ; the French Senate condemned him and his supporters, Rochefort , and Count Dillon for treason, sentencing all three to deportation and confinement. In 1890 Le Figaro caused

9975-399: The legal conditions for advancement by choice. The different hierarchical heads indicate on these lists, in special columns, the number of preference which they grant to each subject; when an officer is judged incapable of taking the choice, the chief places the words “adjourned” before his name. From then on there was no longer and there is no longer any brake on arbitrariness; each year we see

10108-463: The magazine rifles of other European militaries that followed during late 1880s and 1890s (before Boulanger, the French military planned to adopt a much more modern design as well). Boulanger also ordered to produce a million rifles by May 1887, but his proposal how to achieve that was entirely unrealistic (with the best efforts in manufacturing it took several years). On Freycinet's defeat in December of

10241-495: The man destined to serve that revenge (nicknamed Général Revanche ). He also managed to quell the major workers' strike in Decazeville . A minor scandal arose when Philippe, comte de Paris , the nominal inheritor of the French throne in the eyes of Orléanist monarchists, married his daughter Amélie to Portugal's Carlos I , in a lavish wedding that provoked fears of anti-Republican ambitions. The French parliament hastily passed

10374-556: The military hierarchy. Paying as much attention to political opinions as to military qualities, General André sought an alternative source of information on officers, and in particular on all subaltern officers who, not enjoying public stature, were only identified in detail in the reports of their superior offices. Having addressed the prefects, André considered their information insufficient and considered their assessments too influenced by local circumstances. Pushed by General Alexandre Percin , his chief of staff, General André then turned to

10507-455: The minister oust the most appreciated officers from the roll and choose not only those who are presented last, but even those who are postponed! What disdain for the command! Indeed, General André and his cabinet were determined to promote the advancement of republican officers to the detriment of nationalists and monarchists; persuaded that the military command was being overrun by reactionaries , they were suspicious in principle of reports from

10640-613: The ministry by both officers and civilians. On the other hand, several orderly officers had informants. From 1901, Captain Lemerle — already the understudy of Captain Mollin for relations with the Grand Orient — undertook to structure a "network of denouncing" for officers subservient to the cabinet: "the moral police of the army by his care had soon military agents in almost all the troops; it was so often these agents spied on and denounced each other”. According to historian Guy Thuillier, this practice of informing officers caused significant damage to

10773-492: The motor running while filling the fuel tank of a motor vehicle is another example of a matter typically decided by a prefectoral administrative order. On official occasions, prefects wear uniforms . For much of the time after 1800, the departments largely functioned as transmission belts for policies developed in Paris. As such, prefects originally had fairly extensive powers of supervision and control over departmental affairs. This

10906-449: The name of the State. The prefects in Lille , Rennes , Bordeaux , Marseille , Lyon and Strasbourg each have additional tasks as heads of their regional defence and security zone ( zone de défense et de sécurité ). In the Paris area, the prefect of police is the head of the local zone. Overseas France has a similar zones system. Subprefects ( sous-préfets ) are responsible for

11039-442: The new popular movement was backed by notable conservative figures such as Count Arthur Dillon , Alfred Joseph Naquet , Anne de Rochechouart de Mortemart ( Duchess of Uzès , who financed him with immense sums), Arthur Meyer , Paul Déroulède (and his Ligue des Patriotes ). After the political corruption scandal surrounding President Jules Grévy ’s son-in-law Daniel Wilson, who was secretly selling Légion d'honneur medals,

11172-457: The officers of the French Army had already been collected with the assistance of Freemasonry. These “Gambetta papers”, named after the radical politician Léon Gambetta — who had them constituted for the use of the Republicans — contained notes on the military skills and political convictions of the main officers, in two files. The first, completed in the first days of 1876, reviewed the entire Army corps, division by division. The second, compiled in

11305-443: The officers, in a totalitarian manner, from the lowest Lieutenant up to the highest Generals of Divisions; the consequence of this abundance of files being that, most often without cross-checking, the collection of information on private life of the offices or information of questionable relevance to the issue at hand, for instance comments such as: "He is a perfect satyr, little girls from twelve to thirteen are good for him", "Just like

11438-405: The official public journals, in order to help maintain the secrecy of this enterprise. In addition to the Worshipful Masters, other Freemasons holding political office and considered dependable were contacted directly. The vast majority of Worshipful Masters diligently carry out the inquiries requested by Vadecard. Nevertheless, some isolated lodges expressed their opposition, based on article 19 of

11571-412: The official reports of the military command; this allowed him to set up a system whereby the advancement of republican, masonic and " free-thinking " officers was ensured and those who were identified as nationalist, Catholic or suspected to be sympathetic to any of the various strands of royalism would be hampered. For the Grand Orient and the cabinet of André, the purpose was to ensure the loyalty of

11704-479: The operation of the system, which began at the end of 1900 and stopped when the scandal was revealed at the end of 1904. At the time of this registration system, the total number of active French officers was around 27,000. The historian Guy Thuillier has reported the writings of General Émile Oscar Dubois  [ fr ] , head of the military house of the President of the Republic Émile Loubet , when he relates

11837-574: The parliamentary debates on the Law of Separation of Churches and State would open quickly and were determined to prevent the Combes cabinet from achieving its ends. Also, Guyot de Villeneuve unexpectedly filed a request for an interpellation , which was set for the session of 28 October, the same day as that scheduled for the interpellation of Rousset. Prefect (France) A prefect ( French : préfet , plural préfets , both [pʁefɛ] ) in France

11970-429: The political convictions of their comrades. This information was compiled in files by Commander Pasquier, sometimes at the request of the Grand Orient, sometimes on his own initiative. They were then communicated to the Ministry of War through the Grand Orient. The commander specialised in particular in the supervision of personnel in military schools. 180 files were written personally by Pasquier which would be published to

12103-446: The political influence of Freemasonry , opening hostilities in the Chamber of Deputies . He accused the Grand Orient of being "an occult agency for the surveillance of civil servants " and recalled an earlier scandal from 1894, where the Grand Orient acquired administrative services to "create information sheets on certain personalities". For Prache, officials, whoever they are, "suffer from this continual espionage"; he maintained that

12236-439: The prefects to respond to government requests varied greatly according to the departments; the administrative oversight of the military seemed exaggerated to some, while others, convinced that the Army was factious, responded eagerly. In 1902, Mollin wrote to Vadecard: "as some prefects are more Mélinists than radicals, they will naturally be inclined to mark [the officers] as very correct, even if they are not at all". In addition,

12369-461: The previous conversation to him. My opinion is that the procedure put in force at the War is inadmissible and will unleash legitimate anger when it is known. Combes agrees. All this must stop. The card system was beginning to be more widely known among management personnel of the regime in general, outside the Ministry of War. As early as January 20, 1903, General Émile Oscar Dubois reported in his diary that

12502-523: The priority to be given between the defense of the Third French Republic and the protection of freedom of conscience for all (including those they disagreed with), also weakened the French military high command, due to more than ten years of discrimination in the advancement of officers, which had consequences that were difficult to assess during the first months of the First World War . Since

12635-402: The quality of the information sometimes left much to be desired: many references were imprecise, the recently transferred officers were unknown to the police services, and the prefects themselves only moved in the circles of the senior officers. Xavier Boniface also notes that the tone of the prefectural files was more moderate and less militant than that of the Grand Orient files. In addition to

12768-453: The railway, but he was smuggled out. The general decided to gather support for his own movement, an eclectic one that capitalized on the frustrations of French conservatism , advocating the three principles of Revanche (revenge on Germany), Révision (revision of the constitution), Restauration (restoration of the monarchy). The common reference to it has become Boulangisme , a term used by its partisans and adversaries alike. Immediately,

12901-558: The real instigator of the connection between Bidegain and the Parti nationaliste  [ fr ] seeming to be Mgr Odelin, a member of the entourage of Cardinal François-Marie-Benjamin Richard . A minority thesis — defended in particular by Pierre Chevallier — claims that Bidegain (godson of Mgr Odelin), was from the very start a Catholic sleeper agent of the Archdiocese of Paris , infiltrating

13034-574: The registrations carried out by the Grand Orient Masonic lodges and the prefects, two other networks informed General André's office of the political opinions of the officers. The first was that of the Solidarité des Armées de terre et de mer , a company created in 1902 and bringing together Freemasonic officers "without any distinction of rites". In theory controlled by the Secretary-General of

13167-526: The same year, Boulanger was retained by René Goblet at the war office. Confident of political support, the general began provoking the Germans; he ordered military facilities to be built in the border region of Belfort , forbade the export of horses to German markets, and even instigated a ban on presentations of Lohengrin . Germany responded by calling to arms more than 70,000 reservists in February 1887. After

13300-399: The schools attended by their children (the significant question being whether their children attended a Catholic school or a liberal secular school). The prefects also transmitted their opinions of the officers' families, their respect for civil authority as well as their degree of collaboration in the regime's law enforcement missions. These inquiries were concluded with a personal opinion from

13433-545: The seat with 244,000 votes against the 160,000 of his main adversary. A coup d'état seemed probable and desirable among his supporters. Boulanger had now become a threat to the parliamentary Republic. Had he immediately placed himself at the head of a revolt he might have effected the coup which many of his partisans had worked for, and might even have governed France; but the opportunity passed with his procrastination on 27 January. According to Lady Randolph Churchill "[a]ll his thoughts were centered in and controlled by her who

13566-458: The secretary-general of the Grand Orient. The Minister at first denied having any knowledge of these actions, but during the meeting of 4 November 1904, Guyot de Villeneuve produced a document which directly incriminated André; the meeting was stormy and the nationalist deputy Gabriel Syveton slapped the Minister of War , triggering a tussle on the floor. The scandal had a major significance in French politics. The twists and turns and revelations of

13699-415: The semi-political character of the Grand Orient was in contravention of the 1881 law on freedom of the press and the association under the French law of 1901  [ fr ] . But his attack was not supported by very convincing documents and Louis Lafferre , Grand Master of the Grand Orient and representative of the Radical Party , succeeded him on the platform to respond to these accusations; during

13832-416: The sons of former King Louis-Philippe ), Boulanger was made a brigadier-general in 1880, and in 1882 Minister of War Jean-Baptiste Billot appointed him director of infantry at the war office, enabling him to make a name as a military reformer (he took measures to improve morale and efficiency). In 1884, he was promoted to general of division and appointed to command the army occupying Tunisia , but

13965-556: The subdivisions of departments, known as arrondissements , when the arrondissement is not that of the prefecture. The office of a prefect is known as a prefecture and that of a subprefect a subprefecture . From 1982 to 1988, under the Socialist administration of President François Mitterrand , prefects were called commissaires de la République (the Republic's commissioners) and subprefects commissaires adjoints de la République (the Republic's deputy commissioners). The post of prefect

14098-509: The subject, replied that he "was not afraid that an admiral, however monarchist he was, would bring a squadron to Paris". Masonic lodges were nevertheless occasionally consulted on career advancements. Captain Charles Humbert was dismissed from André's office in July 1902. He was the source of the first leaks concerning the file system. Ordered to leave the Army following the Termes incident, he

14231-472: The technically revolutionary smokeless powder Poudre B developed by P. Vielle two years earlier. Essentially, that backfired: hastily developed 8×50mmR Lebel cartridge became an unprecedented high-velocity ammunition but due to its double taper and rim handicapped French firearm development for decades to come, and hastily designed Lebel Model 1886 rifle , essentially a strengthened Kropatschek rifle from late 1870s, became obsolete much faster than any of

14364-612: The tradition of the blessing of the Fleet was stopped; in 1904, the tradition of Lenten season fastings on Good Friday was lifted; finally, the fleet chaplain corps was dissolved in 1907. Pelletan's uncompromising anti-Catholic campaign often met with hostility from the Navy command, but also from Republican political leaders who reproached him for his excesses: thus, Paul Doumer , described him as genuine “national peril”. The Navy, even under Pelletan, did not go so far as to practice extensive registration of officers. The minister, consulted on

14497-636: The two main writers of intelligence reports providing notes on Catholic and nationalist French Army officers was Bernard Wellhoff, Worshipful Master of the Masonic Lodge La Fidélité belonging to the Grand Lodge of France (representatives of the Ancient and Accepted Scottish Rite of Freemasonry in France). Wellhoff, scion of a noted Alsatian Jewish family, would in the following years become Grand Master of

14630-454: The use of these cards by Captain Mollin. Concealing his own responsibility for the establishment and operation of the card system, Percin spontaneously offered his resignation to the former President of the Council. Waldeck-Rousseau refused it, but deeply indignant about the entire affair and fearing the backlash for republicans once it was revealed, he complained about what he had learned to Émile Combes on 30 September: Seen Combes. I reported

14763-494: The vote, on 1 July 1904, Prache's position was supported by 202 votes and opposed by 339 votes, which sided instead with the sitting Emile Combes government  [ fr ] . In August 1904, Jean-Baptiste Bidegain, assistant to the Secretary-General of the Grand Orient Narcisse-Amédée Vadecard, sold to Father Gabriel de Bessonies  [ fr ] a set of files that he copied during his work at

14896-567: Was a French general and politician. An enormously popular public figure during the second decade of the Third Republic , he won multiple elections. At the zenith of his popularity in January 1889, he was feared to be powerful enough to establish himself as dictator. His base of support was the working-class districts of Paris and other cities, plus rural traditionalist Catholics and royalists. He introduced an obsessive and almost pathological anti-German sentiment , known as revanchism , which demanded

15029-426: Was a republican, because he was known not to attend Mass . However Boulanger would soon prove himself a conservative and monarchist. It was in the capacity of Minister of War that Boulanger gained most popularity. He introduced reforms for the benefit of soldiers (such as allowing soldiers to grow beards ) and appealed to the French desire for revenge against Imperial Germany —in doing so, he came to be regarded as

15162-400: Was a significant moral authority for republicans in the Third Republic — and inform him that André's cabinet gives too much credit to partisan informants when it came to advancements within the Army. General Alexandre Percin — former protector of Humbert — went even further on 20 September 1902, revealing to Waldeck-Rousseau the full extent of the Grand Orient involvement in the card system and

15295-666: Was able, however, to frighten Republicans and force them to reorganize and strengthen their solidarity in opposition to him. Boulanger was born on 29 April 1837 in Rennes , Brittany . He was the youngest of three children born to Ernest Boulanger (1805–1884), a lawyer in Bourg-des-Comptes , and Mary-Ann Webb Griffith (1804–1894), born in Bristol to a Welsh aristocratic family (the Griffiths of Burton Agnes ). His brother Ernest enlisted in

15428-695: Was appointed tax collector, first in Vincennes , then in Caen (the Minister of War having insisted on his removal from Paris). The dismissal of Humbert was commented on in the national press, which embarrassed André and his team, who feared that Humbert would seek revenge by publicly revealing the corrupt practices within the Cabinet, in regards to the filing system and Grand Orient surveillance network. This fear turned out to be well founded: eager for revenge, Humbert met with Pierre Waldeck-Rousseau — now withdrawn from politics but

15561-610: Was astonished by the revelation that Boulanger had received around 100,000 votes for the partial election in Seine , without even being a candidate. He was removed from the Paris region and sent to the provinces, appointed commander of the troops stationed in Clermont-Ferrand . Upon his departure on 8 July, a crowd of ten thousand took the Gare de Lyon by storm, covering his train with posters titled Il reviendra ("He will come back"), and blocking

15694-504: Was based in followers of the Catholic Church in France and customarily led by members of the French nobility whose ancestors had survived the Reign of Terror , but Boulanger's new movement was based on mass populist following that was national, rather than merely religious or class-based. As Jacques Néré says, "Boulangism was first and foremost a popular movement of the extreme left". Irvine says he had some royalist support but that, "Boulangism

15827-511: Was closely linked to the Affair of the Cards: the religious convictions of Catholic officers were considered as proof of hostility to the Republic. President Émile Loubet opposed Combes on the advisability of this law. Finally, it was with the aim of avoiding separation that Guyot de Villeneuve exposed the scandal of the files. In the first years of the French Third Republic, secret files on

15960-453: Was cut short by the election of Sadi Carnot and the appointment of Pierre Tirard as Prime Minister —Tirard refused to include Boulanger in his cabinet. During the period, Boulanger was in Switzerland , where he met with Prince Napoléon-Jérôme Bonaparte , technically a Bonapartist , who offered his full support to the cause. The Bonapartists had attached themselves to the general, and even

16093-565: Was decided that the Worshipful Master from each local Masonic Lodge would be required to respond to information requests about individuals in their locality, sent out from the Secretary-General of the Grand Orient de France. These requests came from lists of "suspects" drawn up by Henry Mollin (or where applicable, by Violette and Lemerle) and sent to Narcisse-Amédée Vadecard  [ fr ] and his assistant Jean-Baptiste Bidegain  [ fr ] . These instructions were not put in

16226-491: Was elected in the constituency of Nord . The boulangistes were, nonetheless, a minority in the Chamber. Since Boulanger could not pass legislation, his actions were directed to maintaining his public image. Neither his failure as an orator nor his defeat in a duel with Charles Thomas Floquet , then an elderly civilian and the Minister of the Interior , reduced the enthusiasm of his popular following. During 1888 his personality

16359-594: Was especially true during the Consulate and the First and Second Empires when even the most trivial local matter had to be referred to the prefect. Since 1982, local government has been progressively decentralized, and the prefect's role has largely been limited to preventing local policies from conflicting with national policy. Boulangist crisis Georges Ernest Jean-Marie Boulanger (29 April 1837 – 30 September 1891), nicknamed Général Revanche ("General Revenge"),

16492-427: Was expelled from the military cabinet. Camille Pelletan , Minister of the Navy offered to welcome Humbert into his own cabinet, but André categorically refused this. This maneuver allowed the Minister to silence the dissenting voices within his cabinet and it greatly served him with Republican parliamentarians hostile to his methods. By decision of the office of the Council of the Order of the Grand Orient de France, it

16625-412: Was first created on 17 February 1800 by then- First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte . Their roles were initially similar to those of the pre-revolutionary intendants . Prefects were initially charged with supervising local governments in their department, ensuring that taxes flowed to Paris and supervising conscription at the local level. Currently, the main role of the prefect is defined in article 72 of

16758-424: Was in danger. The attempt of the poet Paul Déroulède who, betting on the anti-Republican sentiments of the Army, tried unsuccessfully to tried to encourage General Gaudérique Roget  [ fr ] 's troops to march on the Élysée Palace during Félix Faure 's funeral on 23 February 1899, made the republicans fear for the worst. Also, the "government of Republican Defense" of Pierre Waldeck-Rousseau and then

16891-489: Was not in fact a legal candidate for the French Chamber of Deputies (since he was a military man), Boulanger ran with Bonapartist backing in seven separate départements during the remainder of 1888. Boulangiste candidates were present in every département . Consequently, he and many of his supporters were voted to the Chamber, and accompanied by a large crowd on 12 July, the day of their swearing in—the general himself

17024-494: Was on leave, he was replaced by two other Freemasons from the cabinet, Lieutenant Louis Violette  [ fr ] and Captain Lemerle. The other officers of the cabinet, informed of the registration system by the Grand Orient, were divided on the advisability of such methods. Thus, Captain Charles Humbert , supported by Commander Antoine Targe  [ fr ] , was opposed to the system of advancement by cards, and especially to denunciation between officers. Supported by

17157-485: Was recalled owing to his differences of opinion with Pierre-Paul Cambon , the political resident. He returned to Paris , and began to take part in politics under the aegis of Georges Clemenceau and the Radicals . In January 1886, when Charles de Freycinet was brought into power, Clemenceau used his influence to secure Boulanger's appointment as War Minister (replacing Jean-Baptiste Campenon ). Clemenceau assumed Boulanger

17290-403: Was set up by the prefectural administration following the circular of 20 June 1902. For promotions, desirable transfers or military decorations, the Minister of War transmitted to the local prefects — directly or through the services of the Minister of the Interior — the names of the officers in the running; the survey covered "the political attitudes and feelings of these candidates" as well as

17423-520: Was the dominating feature of French politics, and, when he resigned his seat as a protest against the reception given by the Chamber to his proposals, constituencies vied with one another in selecting him as their representative. His name was the theme of the popular song C'est Boulanger qu'il nous faut ("Boulanger is the One We Need"), he and his black horse became the idol of the Parisian population, and he

17556-471: Was the mainspring of his life. After the plebiscite...he rushed off to Madame Bonnemain 's house and could not be found". Boulanger decided that it would be better to contest the general election and take power legally. This, however, gave his enemies the time they needed to strike back. Ernest Constans , the Minister of the Interior , decided to investigate the matter, and attacked the Ligue des Patriotes using

17689-403: Was urged to run for the presidency. The general agreed, but his personal ambitions soon alienated his republican supporters, who recognised in him a potential military dictator . Numerous monarchists continued to give him financial aid, even though Boulanger saw himself as a leader rather than a restorer of kings. In January 1889, he ran as a deputy for Paris, and, after an intense campaign, took

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