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192-513: Léon Gambetta ( French: [leɔ̃ ɡɑ̃bɛta] ; 2 April 1838 – 31 December 1882) was a French lawyer and republican politician who proclaimed the French Third Republic in 1870 and played a prominent role in its early government. Born in Cahors , Gambetta is said to have inherited his vigour and eloquence from his father, a Genoese grocer who had married a Frenchwoman named Massabie. At

384-472: A coal gas -filled balloon—the " Armand-Barbès "—and upon arriving at Tours took control as minister of the interior and of war. Aided by Freycinet , a young officer of engineers, as his assistant secretary of war, he quickly organized an army, which might have relieved Paris if Metz had held out, but Bazaine 's surrender brought the army of the Prussian prince Friederich Karl back into the field, and success

576-504: A coup d'état and the establishment of a dictatorship. With his base of support in the working districts of Paris and other cities, plus rural traditionalist Catholics and royalists, he promoted an aggressive nationalism aimed against Germany. The elections of September 1889 marked a decisive defeat for the Boulangists. They were defeated by the changes in the electoral laws that prevented Boulanger from running in multiple constituencies; by

768-425: A French credit merchant, had served up to three million customers and was affiliated with La Samaritaine , a large French department store established in 1870 by a former Bon Marché executive. The French gloried in the national prestige brought by the great Parisian stores. The great writer Émile Zola (1840–1902) set his novel Au Bonheur des Dames (1882–83) in the typical department store. Zola represented it as

960-671: A bell announces that the 3:00 p.m. session of the Assembly is about to begin. The room is lavishly decorated with a carpet from the period of Louis XIV, originally in Grand Gallery of the Louvre Palace ; and a tapestry which reproduces that tapestry of the School of Athens by Raphael that hangs over President's seat in the Assembly Chamber. The room was the original study of the house before

1152-452: A candidate for the presidency, but supported Jules Grévy ; nor did he attempt to form a ministry, but accepted the office of president of the chamber of deputies in January 1879. This position did not prevent his occasionally descending from the presidential chair to make speeches, one of which, advocating an amnesty to the communards , was especially memorable. Although he directed the policy of

1344-450: A classical Roman by Jacques-Louis David and the bas-relief behind the tribune, made of carved white marble framed in dark polychrome marble. It features two female figures representing allegorical figures of History and Fame. Fame is announcing the laws with a long trumpet, while History is inscribing them on a tablet. In the center is a bust of Marianne , the symbol of the Republic, wearing

1536-513: A constitutional coup d'état, which he denied. The October elections again brought a Republican majority to the Chamber of Deputies, reiterating public opinion. The Republicans would go on to gain a majority in the Senate by January 1879, establishing dominance in both houses and effectively ending the potential for a monarchist restoration. De MacMahon himself resigned on 30 January 1879 to be succeeded by

1728-433: A consumer version of the public square. It educated workers to approach shopping as an exciting social activity, not just a routine exercise in obtaining necessities, just as the bourgeoisie did at the famous department stores in the central city. Like the bourgeois stores, it helped transform consumption from a business transaction into a direct relationship between consumer and sought-after goods. Its advertisements promised

1920-416: A few allies. Consequently, the change of governments could be seen as little more than a series of ministerial reshuffles, with many individuals carrying forward from one government to the next, often in the same posts. The Dreyfus affair was a major political scandal that convulsed France from 1894 until its resolution in 1906, and then had reverberations for decades more. The conduct of the affair has become

2112-408: A few crowns were kept, their precious gems replaced by coloured glass. In 1889, the Republic was rocked by a sudden political crisis precipitated by General Georges Boulanger . An enormously popular general, he won a series of elections in which he would resign his seat in the Chamber of Deputies and run again in another district. At the apogee of his popularity in January 1889, he posed the threat of

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2304-590: A gallery to the Palais Bourbon, serves as the official residence of the National Assembly's president . The building underwent a major reconstruction in 1846–48 (see history), which added an additional story, but the 18th-century style of the exterior and interior layout of the building was preserved. The Cabinet du Départ takes its name from its function; the President of the Assembly departs from this room when

2496-532: A high point when M. le Président Schneider asked him to bring his supporters back into order. Gambetta responded, thundering, "l'indignation exclut le calme!" ("indignation excludes calm!") (Reinach, Discours et plaidoyers politiques de M. Gambetta , I.112) It was also in 1869 that Gambetta was initiated into Freemasonry at "La Réforme" lodge in Paris, sponsored by Louis-Antoine Garnier-Pagès . In this lodge he met Gustave Naquet and Maurice Rouvier . Gambetta opposed

2688-510: A hostile manner toward the State ('Nobilissima Gallorum Gens' ). In 1892, he issued an encyclical advising French Catholics to rally to the Republic and defend the Church by participating in republican politics ('Au milieu des sollicitudes' ). The Liberal Action was founded in 1901 by Jacques Piou and Albert de Mun , former monarchists who switched to republicanism at the request of Pope Leo XIII . From

2880-547: A locomotive of the new railways. A third salon was painted by Abel de Pujol, who painted scenes from the history of governments in France, from Charlemagne to Louis-Philippe. The project of reconstruction included a new library, on the east side of the Palace. The style was highly classical, and resembled that of the ancient Roman baths; pillars supported five cupolas, over a gallery closed by two semi-circular bays. The lighting came from

3072-505: A medallion of the Roman god Janus, whose two faces illustrate the motto that the experience of the past predicts the future. The construction of the Chamber drastically modified the building, as the roof had to be raised well above the old facade. It was also out of alignment with the long axis composed of the Church of the Madeleine, the place de la Concorde, and the pont de la Concorde; the view of

3264-399: A meeting took place in 1878 between Gambetta and Bismarck. That Gambetta after 1875 felt strongly that relations between France and Germany might be improved, and that he made it his object, by travelling incognito, to become better acquainted with Germany and the adjoining states, may be accepted, but M. Laur appears to have exaggerated the extent to which any actual negotiations took place. On

3456-419: A ministry under the President of the council ( prime minister ), who was nominally answerable to both the President of the Republic and the legislature. Throughout the 1870s, the issue of whether a monarchy should replace or oversee the republic dominated public debate. The elections of 1876 demonstrated strong public support for the increasingly anti-monarchist republican movement. A decisive Republican majority

3648-456: A modern and universal symbol of injustice. It remains one of the most striking examples of a complex miscarriage of justice in which a central role was played by the press and public opinion. At issue was blatant anti-Semitism as practised by the French Army and defended by conservatives and Catholic traditionalists against secular centre-left, left and republican forces, including most Jews. In

3840-507: A monument to the representative Baudin , who had been killed while resisting the coup d'état of 1851 , and Gambetta seized his opportunity to attack both the coup d'état and the government with a vigour which made him immediately famous. In May 1869, he was elected to the Assembly, both by a district in Paris and another in Marseille , defeating Hippolyte Carnot for the former constituency and Adolphe Thiers and Ferdinand de Lesseps for

4032-559: A national pension plan. Unlike Germany or Britain, the programs were much smaller – for example, pensions were a voluntary plan. Historian Timothy Smith finds French fears of national public assistance programs were grounded in a widespread disdain for the English Poor Law . Tuberculosis was the most dreaded disease of the day, especially striking young people in their twenties. Germany set up vigorous measures of public hygiene and public sanatoria, but France let private physicians handle

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4224-603: A new Constitution was adopted, which called for a parliament with two chambers, the Council of Five Hundred , the future National Assembly, and the Council of the Ancients. The Council of Five Hundred was given the Palais Bourbon as its future meeting place. The new government commissioned the architects Jacques-Pierre Gisors and Emmanuel-Cherubin Leconte to turn the apartments of the Palace along

4416-501: A new French government. French territories occupied by Prussia at the time did not participate. The resulting conservative National Assembly elected Adolphe Thiers head of a provisional government, ("head of the executive branch of the Republic pending a decision on the institutions of France"). The new government negotiated a peace settlement with the newly proclaimed German Empire : the Treaty of Frankfurt signed on 10 May 1871. To prompt

4608-524: A new Imperial Lord Privy Seal, putting him into direct conflict with the regime's de facto prime minister, Émile Ollivier . (see Reinach, J., Discours et plaidoyers politiques de M. Gambetta , I.102 – 113) His powerful oratory caused a complete breakdown of order in the Corps. The Monarchist Right continually tried to interrupt his speech, only to have Gambetta's supporters on the Left attack them. The disagreement reached

4800-511: A new seat of government at Versailles due to the encirclement of Paris by Prussian forces. New representatives were elected in February of that year, constituting the government which would come to evolve into the Third Republic. These representatives – predominantly conservative republicans – enacted a series of legislation which prompted resistance and outcry from radical and leftist elements of

4992-450: A newspaper would blackmail a business by threatening to publish unfavorable information unless the business immediately started advertising in the paper. Foreign governments, especially Russia and Turkey, secretly paid the press hundreds of thousands of francs a year to guarantee favourable coverage of the bonds it was selling in Paris. When the real news was bad about Russia, as during its 1905 Revolution or during its war with Japan, it raised

5184-560: A panorama of all the aspects of civilization. Despite the new construction, the Chamber of Deputies was still desperately short of space for meeting rooms and offices. The President of the Parliament lived far from the Palace – first on rue de Lille, then on Place Vendôme ; and the Duke of Bourbon still occupied the west wing of the Palais. The Chamber purchased the west wing of the Palace in 1830, and

5376-456: A recent innovation, skylights; it was later copied in the new National Library of France. The painter Eugène Delacroix was commissioned to paint the interior, a project which lasted from 1838 until 1846. Supported by a team of assistants, Delacroix painted the five cupolas and the two hemicycles of the library with a series of allegorical paintings on the themes of philosophy, natural history, legislation, eloquence, literature, poetry and theology;

5568-543: A scale in her left hand, and Athena , the symbol of wisdom, were placed in front of the facade on the Seine, along with statues of famous French royal ministers, Maximilien de Béthune, Duke of Sully , Jean-Baptiste Colbert , and Henri François d'Aguesseau , Poyet made two important modifications to the interior; he added two salons, the Salle des Gardes and the Salon de l'Empereur , which

5760-509: A series of republican presidents in the 1880s gradually quashed prospects of a monarchical restoration. The Third Republic established many French colonial possessions , including French Indochina , French Madagascar , French Polynesia , and large territories in West Africa during the Scramble for Africa , all of them acquired during the last two decades of the 19th century. The early years of

5952-455: A special session by the President of the Republic. The 577 deputies, elected for five-year terms, are seated in the hemicycle, with the deputies of the socialists and other parties of the left seated to the left of the speaker, and those of the more conservative parties to the right. The President of the Assembly is seated in the Perchoir , or perch, a desk high up against the wall of the chamber, at

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6144-421: A symbol of the new technology that was both improving society and devouring it. The novel describes merchandising, management techniques, marketing, and consumerism. The Grands Magasins Dufayel was a huge department store with inexpensive prices built in 1890 in the northern part of Paris, where it reached a very large new customer base in the working class . In a neighbourhood with few public spaces, it provided

6336-607: Is by the American sculptor Walter De Maria . It was added in 1989 to commemorate the bicentennial of the French Revolution. The salle des Séances , or meeting chamber of the Palais Bourbon, has the same basic appearance and arrangement as it did in 1832. By the French Constitution, the Assembly is in session for nine months, from the beginning of October until the end of June, but the deputies can be summoned at any time for

6528-481: Is no truth in the rumours being spread that I am refusing to stand for election in Paris. No. I accept, to the contrary, with pride and gratitude the Parisians' votes, if they would do me the honor of choosing me. I am prepared. (Lettres de Gambetta, no. 122) Gambetta returned to the political stage and won on three separate ballots. On 5 November 1871 he established a journal, La Republique française , which soon became

6720-617: Is now called the Salon Delacroix. Another Salon, known as the Salon de la Paix or Salon des pas perdus, was decorated with allegories by Horace Vernet , illustrating two themes important to Louis Philippe; peace in Europe and the expansion of commerce and industry. They showed French ships carrying goods from the new French colonies in Africa, ships in the port of Marseille, the textile mills of Lyon, and

6912-559: Is part of an emerging consensus that France's radical right was formed in part during the Dreyfus era by men who had been Boulangist partisans of the radical left a decade earlier. The Panama scandals of 1892, regarded as the largest financial fraud of the 19th century, involved a failed attempt to build the Panama Canal . Plagued by disease, death, inefficiency, and widespread corruption, and its troubles covered up by bribed French officials,

7104-606: The communards had disastrous consequences for the labour movement . The French legislative election of 1871 , held in the aftermath when the regime of Napoleon III collapsed, resulted in a monarchist majority in the French National Assembly that favoured a peace agreement with Prussia. Planning to restore the monarchy, the " Legitimists " in the National Assembly supported the candidacy of Henri, Comte de Chambord , alias "Henry V," grandson of King Charles X ,

7296-635: The Action française , the movement declined from 1908, when it lost the support of Rome. Nevertheless, the ALP remained until 1914 the most important party on the right. Palais Bourbon The original palace was built beginning in 1722 for Louise Françoise de Bourbon , Duchess of Bourbon, the legitimised daughter of Louis XIV and the Marquise de Montespan . Four successive architects – Lorenzo Giardini, Pierre Cailleteau , Jean Aubert and Jacques Gabriel – completed

7488-504: The Quartier latin , and he was soon known as an inveterate enemy of the imperial government. Gambetta was called to the bar in 1859. He was admitted to the Conférence Molé in 1861 and wrote to his father, "It is no mere lawyers club, but a veritable political assembly with a left, a right, a center; legislative proposals are the sole subject of discussion. It is there that are formed all

7680-796: The Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871, which the French Third Republic continued to wage after the fall of Emperor Napoleon III in 1870. Social upheaval and the Paris Commune preceded the final defeat. The German Empire , proclaimed by the invaders in Palace of Versailles , annexed the French regions of Alsace (keeping the Territoire de Belfort ) and Lorraine (the northeastern part, i.e. present-day department of Moselle ). The early governments of

7872-573: The French Revolution – in the same vein, the Gambetta monument visually overpowered Napoleon 's comparatively diminutive Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel . Most of the monument's sculptures were in bronze and in 1941 were melted for military use by German occupying forces . What remained of the Gambetta Monument was dismantled in 1954. A stone urn containing Gambetta's heart was placed in 1920 in

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8064-565: The French Revolution , and in May 1793 moved to the empty theater of the Tuileries Palace in Paris. The aristocracy fled into exile, and the Palais Bourbon and Hôtel de Lassay, like the Luxembourg Palace , Élysée Palace and Hôtel Matignon were nationalized, and used for government functions. The stables of the Palais became the headquarters of the administration of military transport, while

8256-542: The French Revolution . On the right stood conservative France, rooted in the peasantry, the Catholic Church , and the army. In spite of France's sharply divided electorate and persistent attempts to overthrow it, the Third Republic endured for 70 years, which makes it the longest-lasting system of government in France since the collapse of the Ancien Régime in 1789. The Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871 resulted in

8448-564: The Jesuits and Assumptionists —indoctrinated anti-republicanism into children. Determined to root this out, republicans insisted they needed control of the schools for France to achieve economic and militaristic progress. (Republicans felt one of the primary reasons for the German victory in 1870 was their superior education system.) The early anti-Catholic laws were largely the work of republican Jules Ferry in 1882. Religious instruction in all schools

8640-661: The Odéon Theater . Several different architects were engaged in the project, including for Jacques-Germain Soufflot , Bellisard and Charpentier. For the neoclassical palace of the Prince, the entrance on rue Université was replaced by a larger and more impressive gate, framed by a gallery of columns. The two wings of the building were extended, and a pavilion was created with apartments for one of his sons. An abundance of military decoration, including stucco sculptures of shields and weapons,

8832-460: The Orléanist Albert de Broglie to the office. The Chamber of Deputies declared the appointment illegitimate, exceeding the president's powers, and refused to cooperate with either de MacMahon or de Broglie. De MacMahon then dissolved the Chamber and called for a new general election to be held the following October. He was subsequently accused by Republicans and their sympathizers of attempting

9024-466: The Panama Canal Company went bankrupt. Its stock became worthless, and ordinary investors lost close to a billion francs. France lagged behind Bismarckian Germany, as well as Great Britain and Ireland, in developing a welfare state with public health, unemployment insurance and national old age pension plans. There was an accident insurance law for workers in 1898, and in 1910, France created

9216-532: The anti-clerical middle class, who saw the Church's alliance with the monarchists as a political threat to republicanism, and a threat to the modern spirit of progress. The republicans detested the Church for its political and class affiliations; for them, the Church represented the Ancien Régime , a time in French history most republicans hoped was long behind them. The republicans were strengthened by Protestant and Jewish support. Numerous laws were passed to weaken

9408-417: The "petite bourgeoisie" had won a certain hegemony over. On 24 June 1871, a letter was sent by Gambetta to his Parisian confidant, Dr. Édouard Fieuzal: Je veux déjouer l'intrigue de parti de ceux qui vont répétant que je refuse toute candidature à Paris. Non. J'accepte au contraire avec fierté et reconnaissance les suffrages de la démocratie Parisienne si elle veut m'honorer de son choix. Je suis prêt. There

9600-498: The 18th-century artist Heim. The Salle des fêtes and the Galerie des tapisseries are located in the building that connects the Hotel de Lassay with the Palais Bourbon. The Salle des fêtes was built between 1846 and 1849, replacing an early wooden passage built in 1809. It is used today for expositions, ceremonies for visiting dignitaries, and the annual New Years greeting by the President of

9792-426: The 1920s and 1930s. In terms of population however, on the eve of World War II, France and its colonial possessions totaled only 150 million inhabitants, compared with 330 million for British India alone. Adolphe Thiers called republicanism in the 1870s "the form of government that divides France least"; however, politics under the Third Republic were sharply polarized. On the left stood reformist France, heir to

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9984-671: The 20th century were dominated by the Democratic Republican Alliance , which was originally conceived as a centre-left political alliance, but over time became the main centre-right party. The period from the start of World War I to the late 1930s featured sharply polarized politics, between the Democratic Republican Alliance and the Radicals . The government fell less than a year after the outbreak of World War II, when Nazi forces occupied much of France , and

10176-539: The Agence Havas (now Agence France-Presse ), a telegraphic news service with a network of reporters and contracts with Reuters to provide world service. The staid old papers retained their loyal clientele because of their concentration on serious political issues. While papers usually gave false circulation figures, Le Petit Provençal in 1913 probably had a daily circulation of about 100,000 and Le Petit Meridional had about 70,000. Advertising only filled 20% or so of

10368-461: The Assembly voted with patriotic enthusiasm for a war with Prussia, despite the opposition of a few deputies, including Adolphe Thiers , but in a matter of weeks the French army was defeated, the Emperor was captured, and on 2–3 September the French Third Republic was founded. After the defeat at Sedan, A provisional government of Parliament leaders was formed, and tried to continue the war, but Paris

10560-702: The Assembly's unwillingness to fight, resigned and quit France for San Sebastián in Spain. Meanwhile, the Paris Commune had taken control of the city. Despite his earlier career, Gambetta voiced his opposition to the Commune in a letter to Antonin Proust , his former secretary while Minister of the Interior, in which he referred to the Commune as "les horribles aventures dans lesquelles s'engage ce qui reste de cette malheureuse France -

10752-482: The Assembly. The Gallerie des tapisseries was created in 1860, during the Second Empire, to display a collection of paintings. The paintings were removed in 1865 and replaced in 1900 by a set of nine Beauvais tapestries. The Palais Bourbon contains several installations of contemporary art. One is a work of modern sculpture, a large granite sphere on a marble pedestal, by the American sculptor Walter De Maria , which

10944-524: The Catholic Church. It favoured a progressive income tax, economic equality, expanded educational opportunities and cooperatives in domestic policy. In foreign policy, it favoured a strong League of Nations after the war, and the maintenance of peace through compulsory arbitration, controlled disarmament, economic sanctions, and perhaps an international military force. Followers of Léon Gambetta , such as Raymond Poincaré , who would become President of

11136-570: The Catholic Church. In 1879, priests were excluded from the administrative committees of hospitals and boards of charity; in 1880, new measures were directed against the religious congregations; from 1880 to 1890 came the substitution of lay women for nuns in many hospitals; in 1882, the Ferry school laws were passed. Napoleon's Concordat of 1801 continued in operation, but in 1881, the government cut off salaries to priests it disliked. Republicans feared that religious orders in control of schools—especially

11328-465: The Church's perspective, its mission was to express the political ideals and new social doctrines embodied in Leo's 1891 encyclical " Rerum Novarum ". Action libérale was the parliamentary group from which the ALP political party emerged, adding the word populaire ("popular") to signify this expansion. Membership was open to everyone, not just Catholics. It sought to gather all the "honest people" and to be

11520-583: The Constitution to allow him to run for a second term, Louis Napoleon organized a coup d'état, took power, and had himself proclaimed Emperor Napoleon III, bringing an end to the Second Republic. Opposition deputies were arrested and exiled. The Assembly continued to meet in the Palais Bourbon, but had little influence over the Emperor or the government. They were not allowed to speak from the Tribune, but only from

11712-487: The Council in the 1920s, created the Democratic Republican Alliance (ARD), which became the main center-right party after World War I. Governing coalitions collapsed with regularity, rarely lasting more than a few months, as radicals, socialists, liberals, conservatives, republicans and monarchists all fought for control. Some historians argue that the collapses were not important because they reflected minor changes in coalitions of many parties that routinely lost and gained

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11904-401: The Court in Versailles, but by the 1720s, she had had seven children and was widowed. The reputed lover of the Duchess, Armand de Madaillan de Lesparre, Count of Lassy ( Comte de Lassay ), proposed the site of the palace to her; he had purchased land next door along the Seine, and the two buildings were constructed at the same time. The parcel of land for the new palace was large, extending from

12096-404: The Directory, featured a legislature with two houses, the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate. The Palais Bourbon was formally returned to its aristocratic owner, the Prince of Condé, who had returned from exile. However, the building had been so modified it was impossible to use as a residence; the Prince rented a large part of the Palace to the new Chamber of Deputies. The first modification made by

12288-418: The Emperor entered for his annual address, was on the Seine, under the grand colonnade. Under the new plan, the main entrance was placed on the courtyard of honor, where a delegation of deputies met the new monarch, Louis-Philippe, when he came to the building each year to open the session. To give this entrance greater prominence, Joly constructed a neoclassical portico with four Corinthian columns, modeled after

12480-418: The Estates General in the Cathedral of Notre-Dame by Auguste Vinchon , and The Patriotic Devotion of the Bourgeois of Calais by Ary Scheffer . Next to the Salle des conférences is the Deputies Buffet, which was created in 1994 in the Belle Époque style and renovated in the same style in 1997. It is reserved exclusively for the use of current and former deputies. The adjacent Hôtel de Lassay, connected by

12672-403: The French Third Republic considered re-establishing the monarchy, but disagreement as to the nature of that monarchy and the rightful occupant of the throne could not be resolved. Consequently, the French Third Republic, originally envisioned as a provisional government , instead became the permanent form of government of France. The French Constitutional Laws of 1875 defined the composition of

12864-403: The French parliament as liberal and secular republicans gained a legislative majority during his presidency. In February 1875, a series of parliamentary acts established the constitutional laws of the new republic . At its head was a President of the Republic. A two-chamber parliament consisting of a directly elected Chamber of Deputies and an indirectly elected Senate was created, along with

13056-451: The Hôtel de Lassay in 1843. Joly once again was the architect chosen to redo the building; his plan called adding another story and restoring, as much as possible, the original italianate style, both inside and outside. The result was a building which was more intimate and elegant than its neoclassical neighbor. The work was begun in 1845, and was nearly finished when the 1848 French Revolution broke out. After days of turmoil and fighting,

13248-450: The Interministerial Press Commission to supervise the press closely. A separate agency imposed tight censorship that led to blank spaces where news reports or editorials were disallowed. The dailies sometimes were limited to only two pages instead of the usual four, leading one satirical paper to try to report the war news in the same spirit: Regional newspapers flourished after 1900. However the Parisian newspapers were largely stagnant after

13440-402: The King abdicated and departed France, and the Chamber of Deputies was dissolved, opening the way for the French Second Republic . Following the Revolution in February 1848, France and its legislature entered a turbulent period. The enormous painting of Louis Philippe taking his oath to the nation, over the tribune in the Chamber of Deputies was taken down, and replaced by a Gobelin tapestry of

13632-408: The Palace of Justice, State Council and other government buildings, which were set afire in the last days of the Commune. While the French Senate returned to Paris soon after the suppression of the Commune, the Assembly remained in Versailles until 27 November 1879. The new Assembly of the Third Republic was considerably larger than that of early governments, with 531 deputies, compared with 260 under

13824-570: The Palais Bourbon as the military court for the Luftwaffe , and it also housed the offices of the French bureau which sent French workers to factories in Germany. German propaganda banners decorated the Seine facade of the Palace. During the liberation of Paris in August 1944, parts of the Palace were badly damaged. A fire in the library started by the fighting destroyed twenty thousand books. Philippe de Gaulle ,

14016-703: The Palais Bourbon became in 1794 the Central School of Public Works, which later became, under Napoleon, the École Polytechnique , the famous military engineering school. In 1793 and 1794 the Revolution reached its peak of fury, under the Convention led by Robespierre and Saint-Just . The two leaders of the Terror were arrested and executed on 28 July 1794, and a new government, the Directory took power. On 23 September 1795

14208-472: The Palais Bourbon from the Place de la Concorde was blocked by the decoration of the bridge. The Council of Five Hundred began meeting on 21 January 1798, a date chosen because it was the anniversary of the execution of the "last tyrant", Louis XVI. The members arrived dressed in Roman togas and caps, in the neoclassical fashion. They found that the new Chamber had little ventilation, was feebly heated in winter, and

14400-514: The Place de la Concorde. The palace complex today has a floor area of 124,000 m (1,330,000 sq ft), with over 9,500 rooms, in which 3,000 people work. The complex includes the Hôtel de Lassay , on the west side of the Palais Bourbon; it is the official residence of the President of the National Assembly . The palace was built for Louise Françoise de Bourbon, Duchess of Bourbon (1673–1743),

14592-568: The Prussians to leave France, the government passed a variety of financial laws, such as the controversial Law of Maturities , to pay reparations. In Paris, resentment built against the government from late March through May 1871. Paris workers and National Guards revolted and took power as the Paris Commune , which maintained a radical left-wing regime for two months until the Thiers government bloodily suppressed it in May 1871. The ensuing repression of

14784-497: The Republic. It has put its representatives not in power, but in peril. The Republic was victorious against the invasion of 1792: the Republic is proclaimed. The Revolution has been carried in the name of the right of public safety. Citizens, watch over the City which is entrusted to you, tomorrow, along with the army, you shall avenge the Nation! Gambetta was one of the first members of

14976-578: The Restoration. Work continued, despite the Revolution of 1830 that brought down the Bourbon Monarchy, and replaced it with a new Constitutional Monarchy. Louis Philippe , the new King, came to take the oath to the Chamber in its temporary meeting place. A second project, that of constructing a library, was commenced April 1831. The new interior was completed in September 1832, and formally inaugurated by

15168-469: The Revolution (most famously including the tricolore ) , to restore unity between the monarchy and the nation. Compromise on this was impossible, Chambord believed, if the nation were to be made whole again. The general population, however, was unwilling to abandon the Tricolour flag. Monarchists therefore resigned themselves to delay the monarchy until the death of the ageing, childless Chambord, then to offer

15360-517: The Revolution. The desk was brought from the Chateau of Versailles in 1794 during the Revolution for the use of the Committee of Public Safety. The Salon des Jeux is a conference room on the ground floor of the residence, where the President of the Assembly meets with other Assembly leaders to set the agenda for the sessions. It takes its name from an illustration over the door of a game of lawn bowling by

15552-522: The Second Empire. The new President of the Chamber, Léon Gambetta, called for a study and plan to enlarge the meeting space. A long series of enlargement plans were considered between 1879 and 1913, but none were ever approved. During the Third Republic, the Palais Bourbon was the home of the primary institution of the French government. The Assembly selected the President of France, and controlled finances and foreign policy. Its membership divided between constitutional monarchists and conservatives, who sat to

15744-527: The Seine into a suitable meeting chamber. The chamber they designed was in the shape of a hemicycle, similar to a Roman theater. it was covered with a cupola modeled after that of the amphitheater of the Academy of Surgery, located not far away in Saint-Germain-des-Pres, which had been built between 1769 and 1774. The first session of the Council took place on 21 January 1798. It was quickly discovered that

15936-619: The Seine to the rue de l'Université . The original plan called for a country residence surrounded by gardens, modeled after the Grand Trianon palace at Versailles, designed by Jules Hardouin Mansart , the chief architect of Louis XIV. The Italian architect Lorenzo Giardini made the first plan, but he died in 1722, having made little but the first sketches. The project was taken over by Pierre Cailleteau , also known as Lassurance, who had been an assistant to Hardouin-Mansart. Cailleteau had worked on

16128-627: The Third Republic ruled during the Siege of Paris (19 September 1870 – 28 January 1871). As Paris was cut off from the rest of unoccupied France, the Minister of War Léon Gambetta succeeded in leaving Paris in a hot air balloon , and established the provisional republican government in the city of Tours on the Loire river. After the French surrender in January 1871, the provisional Government of National Defence disbanded, and national elections were called to elect

16320-400: The Third Republic. It consisted of a Chamber of Deputies and a Senate to form the legislative branch of government and a president to serve as head of state. Calls for the re-establishment of the monarchy dominated the tenures of the first two presidents, Adolphe Thiers and Patrice de MacMahon , but growing support for the republican form of government among the French populace and

16512-409: The acoustics of the new chamber were poor. A few other changes were made to the Palace; a vestibule and rotunda was added on the courtyard, and a wooden gallery was constructed to connect the Palace with the Hotel de Lassay. Two features of the original chamber can still be found in the new New Chamber; the desk and armchair of the President of the Assembly, made of wood and gilded bronze, designed in

16704-485: The acoustics were made it hard to hear the speakers. The acoustics in the end made little difference, because on 8 November 1799, Napoleon Bonaparte organized a coup d'état and seized power from the Council of Five Hundred, then meeting at the Chateau of Saint-Cloud. Napoleon formed a new legislature, the Corps Legislatif , whose only duty was to listen to an annual speech by Napoleon, the new First Consul, and to adopt

16896-546: The age of fifteen, Gambetta lost the sight of his right eye in an accident, and it eventually had to be removed. Despite this disability, he distinguished himself at school in Cahors. He then worked at his father's grocery shop in Cahors, the Bazar génois ("Genoese bazaar"), and in 1857 went to study at the Faculty of Law of Paris . His temperament gave him great influence among the students of

17088-416: The ancient Roman baths. with pillars supporting five cupolas, which provide light. It is closed at either end by curved bays. The decoration, by Eugène Delacroix and a team of assistants, was done between 1838 and 1847. The paintings on the ceiling around each of the cupolas represents a different branch of human knowledge; poetry; theology, legislation, philosophy and the sciences. The stories that illustrate

17280-461: The ancient Roman temple of Jupiter Stator. Joly's project greatly increased the interior space of the building, adding three new salons (now the Salons Delacroix, Casimir-Pierier, Abel-de-Pujol. Under the new plan, it was possible to go from one wing of the building to the other without having to cross the courtyard or pass through the meeting chamber. In 1837 a new project was begun to finish

17472-513: The ante to millions. During the World War, newspapers became more of a propaganda agency on behalf of the war effort and avoided critical commentary. They seldom reported the achievements of the Allies, crediting all the good news to the French army. In a sentence, the newspapers were not independent champions of the truth, but secretly paid advertisements for banking. The World War ended a golden era for

17664-464: The budding Third Republic due to the perceived restoration of conservative policies and values following the suppression of the Commune. De MacMahon, his popularity bolstered by his victory over the Commune, was later elected President of the Republic in May 1873 and would hold the office until January 1879. A staunch Catholic conservative with Legitimist sympathies and a noted mistrust of secularists, de MacMahon grew to be increasingly at odds with

17856-487: The buildings, and between the buildings and the Seine, was filled with gardens. In addition to the large reception rooms, the interior of the house had many small salons which could be arranged for a variety of purposes. It also had a novelty for buildings of the period; corridors, so one could pass through the building without walking through the rooms. None of the original apartments of the Duchess survive; they were demolished in

18048-680: The capital. Parisians broke into the Palais Bourbon , meeting place of the Chamber of Deputies , interrupting a session and calling for a Republic. Later that day, from the Hôtel de Ville , Gambetta proclaimed the French Republic to a large crowd gathered in the Place de l'Hôtel-de-Ville : Frenchmen! The people has forestalled the Chamber which was wavering. To save the Nation in danger , it has asked for

18240-593: The childless Comte de Chambord as king, with the Comte de Paris as his heir. This was the expected line of succession for the Comte de Chambord based on France's traditional rule of agnatic primogeniture if the renunciation of the Spanish Bourbons in the Peace of Utrecht was recognised. Consequently, in 1871 the throne was offered to the Comte de Chambord. Chambord believed the restored monarchy had to eliminate all traces of

18432-461: The date of the marriage had been fixed, when the accident which caused his death occurred in her presence. Contradictory accounts of this fatal episode exist, but it was certainly accidental, and not suicide. Her influence on Gambetta was absorbing, both as lover and as politician, and the correspondence which has been published shows how much he depended upon her. However, some of her later recollections are untrustworthy. For example, she claimed that

18624-510: The declaration of the Franco-Prussian War . He did not, however, like some of his colleagues, refuse to vote for funds for the army. On 2 September 1870, the French Army suffered a disastrous defeat at the Battle of Sedan , in which the emperor Napoleon III surrendered and was taken prisoner. The news arrived in Paris on the night of 3 September, and early on 4 September large-scale protests began in

18816-482: The defeat of France and the overthrow of Emperor Napoleon III and his Second French Empire . After Napoleon's capture by the Prussians at the Battle of Sedan (1 September 1870), Parisian deputies led by Léon Gambetta established the Government of National Defence as a provisional government on 4 September 1870. The deputies then selected General Louis-Jules Trochu to serve as its president. This first government of

19008-430: The deficient health and housing legislation of 1850. However, the reformers met opposition from bureaucrats, politicians, and physicians. Because it was so threatening to so many interests, the proposal was debated and postponed for 20 years before becoming law in 1902. Implementation finally came when the government realized that contagious diseases had a national security impact in weakening military recruits, and keeping

19200-506: The designer of the buildings around the Place de la Concorde. Both buildings were finished in 1728. Both the Palais Bourbon and the Hôtel de Lassay were in the Italian style, with roofs hidden by balustrades and invisible from street level. The Palais Bourbon was in a U-shape. The main building was parallel to the Seine, with two wings enclosing a courtyard. The entrance to the courtyard and building

19392-445: The director and publisher of the anti-Semitic newspaper La Libre Parole . The new trial resulted in another conviction and a 10-year sentence, but Dreyfus was given a pardon and set free. Eventually all the accusations against him were demonstrated to be baseless, and in 1906, Dreyfus was exonerated and re-instated as a major in the French Army. From 1894 to 1906, the scandal divided France deeply and lastingly into two opposing camps:

19584-502: The dry guillotine), where he spent almost five years. Two years later, evidence came to light that identified a French Army major named Ferdinand Walsin Esterhazy as the real spy. After high-ranking military officials suppressed the new evidence, a military court unanimously acquitted Esterhazy. In response, the Army brought up additional charges against Dreyfus based on false documents. Word of

19776-517: The east side of the Hemicycle, where the Deputies can read, talk and check their messages. It was originally the dining room of the Prince de Condé and was transformed in 1830 into its present use. The ceiling is richly decorated with paintings by Heim on the history of the monarchy and parliaments and on by the fireplace are large historical paintings on parliamentary subjects; Philip le Bel Brings assembles

19968-481: The education of his supporters. Gambetta proclamation of the Republic and call for a Levée en masse left a lasting impact on Germany in the decades following. Future Field Marshall Colmar Freiherr von der Goltz wrote in 1877: Should it come to pass that...our German fatherland suffers a defeat like that of the French at Sedan, I would wish a man emerges who knows how to inspire the sort of absolute resistance Gambetta tried to organize. In October 1918, when Germany

20160-529: The end, it recruited mostly among the liberal-Catholics ( Jacques Piou ) and the Social Catholics ( Albert de Mun ). The ALP was drawn into battle from its very beginnings (its first steps coincided with the beginning of the Combes ministry and its anticlerical combat policy), as religious matters were at the heart of its preoccupations. It defended the Church in the name of liberty and common law. Fiercely fought by

20352-624: The end, the latter triumphed. The affair began in November 1894 with the conviction for treason of Captain Alfred Dreyfus , a young French artillery officer of Alsatian Jewish descent . He was sentenced to life imprisonment for communicating French military secrets to the German Embassy in Paris and sent to the penal colony at Devil's Island in French Guiana (nicknamed la guillotine sèche ,

20544-601: The example of the Regent, the aristocracy began to move their residences from Versailles back to Paris. Building-space land was scarce in the traditional residential area of the nobility, the densely-populated Marais, so the aristocracy of the Regency looked for land with space for gardens at the edges of the city, either near the Champs-Élysées on the right bank or on the left bank. The Duchess of Bourbon had been known for frivolity at

20736-531: The exciting complex interactions with the newest and most fashionable merchandise and upscale customers. Throughout the lifetime of the Third Republic (1870–1940), there were battles over the status of the Catholic Church in France among the republicans, monarchists and the authoritarians (such as the Napoleonists). The French clergy and bishops were closely associated with the monarchists and many of its hierarchy were from noble families. Republicans were based in

20928-525: The exterior decoration, particularly on the facade facing the Seine. The original three bas-reliefs on the facade beneath the colonnade had been removed with the fall of the Empire, and were not replaced; but two new works replaced other Napoleonic bas reliefs; Prometheus animating the arts by Rude and Public Education by James Pradier . The bas-relief on the Fronton, which had originally depicted Napoleon bringing

21120-686: The facade featured bas-reliefs by sculptor Antoine-Denis Chaudet, showed scenes from the opening of the Corps Legislative in 1806; it showed Napoleon on horseback, offering to the members of the Legislature the flags which had been captured from the Austrians at the Battle of Austerlitz , and the inscription, "To Napoleon I the Great – the Corps Legislatif". In 1810, statues of the goddess Themis , holding

21312-459: The first microphones for speakers, but featured a large number of political parties and unstable coalitions which frequently collapsed. The Algerian Crisis of 1956 brought an end to the Fourth Republic, the approval of a new Constitution, and the adoption of the still-existing Fifth Republic . The Court of Honor, to the south of the Palais, has been the main entrance since the original palace

21504-512: The flags of Austerlitz to the Assembly, was replaced by a new work by Corton entitled France supported by Force and Justice . For the new entry portico on the court of honor, Joly commissioned two new statues by Gayard; titled France and Liberty . These two statues were not installed until 1860, under Napoleon III, and were given new names; "Force" and France deposits her ballot in the voting urn. The interior minister of Louis-Philippe, and future President of France, Adolphe Thiers , oversaw

21696-473: The floor of the Chamber. After 1860, the Emperor liberalized the regime, giving the deputies greater influence, freedom of speech and the press was reestablished, and debates resumed in the Palais Bourbon. On 31 May 1861 the halls resounded to a musical and theatrical evening from the Bouffes Parisiens company which included the premiere of Offenbach's M. Choufleuri restera chez lui le . . . . In 1870,

21888-416: The future of the Republic to be in the hands of "a new social level" ( une couche sociale nouvelle ) (Discours, III.101), ostensibly the petite bourgeoisie to which his father belonged. When Adolphe Thiers resigned in May 1873, and a Royalist, Marshal MacMahon , was placed at the head of the government, Gambetta urged his friends to a moderate course. By his tact, parliamentary dexterity and eloquence, he

22080-474: The gallantry of the resistance he organized during the Franco-Prussian War , by his tact in persuading extreme partisans to accept a moderate Republic, and by his energy in overcoming the usurpation attempted by the advisers of Marshal MacMahon. His death at forty-four cut short a career which had given promise of still greater things, for he had real statesmanship in his conceptions of the future of his country, and he had an eloquence which would have been potent in

22272-474: The gallery in 1890. The Assembly declared war in 1914 and celebrated victory in 1918, but was badly divided in the 1930s and was unable to manage the economic crisis and the approach of World War II. In June 1940, as the German army approached the capital, the government and Assembly abandoned Paris and moved first to Tours; then to Bordeaux; and then, under the Pétain Government, to Vichy. The Germans used

22464-593: The ghastly madness blighting what remains of our poor France". Gambetta's stance has been explained by reference to his status as a republican lawyer, who fought from the bar instead of the barricade and also to his father having been a grocer in Marseille. As a small-scale producer during the decades of the Second Industrial Revolution in France, Joseph Gambetta was nearly ruined by the competition of new chain-store food shops. This sort of "big business" made

22656-461: The government at Versailles sought to maintain the tenuous post-war stability which it had established. In May, the regular French Armed Forces , under the command of Patrice de MacMahon and the Versailles government, marched on Paris and succeeded in dismantling the Commune during what would become known as The Bloody Week . The term ordre moral ("moral order") subsequently came to be applied to

22848-466: The government's aggressive opposition; and by the absence of the general himself, in self-imposed exile with his mistress. The fall of Boulanger severely undermined the conservative and royalist elements within France; they would not recover until 1940. Revisionist scholars have argued that the Boulangist movement more often represented elements of the radical left rather than the extreme right. Their work

23040-460: The hall; an ellipse, rectangle, octagon and hemicycle, but the Chamber decided to keep the original hemicycle. De Joly also was asked to redesign the three salons which faced on the courtyard of honor. The plan was submitted in January 1828, approved in April 1829, the first stone placed on 4 November 1829. Over three hundred workers were engaged on the project, one of the largest undertaken in Paris during

23232-434: The hard-working middle-class - "petite bourgeoisie" - very resentful, not only of bourgeois industrial capitalism, but also of the working class, which now held the status of backbone of the French economy, rather than the class of small, independent shopkeepers. This resentment may have been passed down from father to son, and manifested itself in an unwillingness to support the lower-class Communards in their usurpation of what

23424-426: The height of the highest back row, symbolizing that the President is a deputy like the others. The armchair was designed by Jacques-Louis David for the Council of Five Hundred, the first legislature to meet in the building. Deputies vote electronically by pushing a button, and the count is displayed at the front of the Chamber. The sessions of the Chamber are open to the public though access must be requested through

23616-470: The interior decoration of the Assembly. He selected a promising young painter Eugène Delacroix , just 25 years old, to paint murals for the Salon of the King ( Salon du Roi ), though the King, Louis-Philippe, in fact detested Delacroix's style. Between 1833 and 1838 Delacroix created a series of allegorical figures representing Justice, Truth, Prudence, War, Industry, and Agriculture. The murals are preserved in what

23808-463: The just-concluded Seven Years' War . The Prince decided to largely rebuild it, turning it from a country house into a monumental palace, in the new classical revival style. With this end in mind, in 1768 he purchased the neighboring Hôtel de Lassay, and planned to make the two buildings into one. A new plan was drawn by Marie-Joseph Peyre , whose style was based on archeological studies of ancient Rome and Greece. Peyre's other neoclassical works included

24000-553: The last king from the senior line of the Bourbon dynasty . The Orléanists supported Louis-Philippe, Comte de Paris a grandson of King Louis Philippe I , who replaced his cousin Charles X in 1830. The Bonapartists lost legitimacy due to the defeat of Napoléon III and were unable to advance the candidacy of any member of the Bonaparte family . Legitimists and Orléanists eventually agreed on

24192-553: The latter. He chose to sit for Marseille, and lost no opportunity of attacking the Empire in the Assembly. Early in his political career, Gambetta was influenced by Le Programme de Belleville , the seventeen statutes that defined the radical program in French politics throughout the Third Republic . This made him the leading defender of the lower classes in the Corps Législatif . On 17 January 1870, he spoke out against naming

24384-615: The laws proposed by the Council of State, and debated by another new body, the Tribunat . While Napoleon gave the new legislature little power, he did give their building a new grandeur. In 1806 the Bureau of the Corps Legislatif proposed the construction of a new facade facing the Seine, which would be aligned with and would match that of the Temple of Glory (now the Church of the Madeleine ) which Napoleon

24576-464: The lead in attacking Dreyfus as a traitor and stirring up anti-Semitism. After Dreyfus was pardoned, the Radical government closed down the entire Assumptionist order and its newspaper in 1900. Banks secretly paid certain newspapers to promote particular financial interests and hide or cover up misbehaviour. They also took payments for favourable notices in news articles of commercial products. Sometimes,

24768-547: The legitimised daughter of Louis XIV and Madame de Montespan . Begun in 1722 and finished in 1728, it was located in what was then a largely rural quarter at the edge of Paris, which was about to become a very fashionable residential neighborhood, the Faubourg Saint-Germain. Until that time, the area, called the Pré-au-Clercs, was a wooded area popular for fighting duels. After the death of Louis XIV in 1715, following

24960-419: The melting pot sought by Leo XIII where Catholics and moderate Republicans would unite to support a policy of tolerance and social progress. Its motto summarized its program: "Liberty for all; equality before the law; better conditions for the workers." However, the "old republicans" were few, and it did not manage to regroup all Catholics, as it was shunned by monarchists, Christian democrats, and Integrists . In

25152-642: The military court's attempts to frame Dreyfus began to spread, chiefly owing to the polemic J'accuse , a vehement open letter published on the liberal newspaper L'Aurore in January 1898 by the notable writer Émile Zola . Activists put pressure on the government to re-open the case. In 1899, Dreyfus was returned to France for another trial. The intense political and judicial scandal that ensued divided French society between those who supported Dreyfus (now called "Dreyfusards"), such as Anatole France , Henri Poincaré and Georges Clemenceau , and those who condemned him (the anti-Dreyfusards), such as Édouard Drumont ,

25344-555: The moderate Republican Jules Grévy . He promised that he would not use his presidential power of dissolution, and therefore lost his control over the legislature, effectively creating a parliamentary system that would be maintained until the end of the Third Republic. Following the 16 May crisis in 1877, Legitimists were pushed out of power, and the Republic was finally governed by Moderate Republicans (pejoratively labelled "Opportunist Republicans" by Radical Republicans ) who supported moderate social and political changes to nurture

25536-627: The monarchists and clerical elements on the one hand, and the Socialists on the other. Many members had been recruited by the Freemasons. The Radicals were split between activists who called for state intervention to achieve economic and social equality and conservatives whose first priority was stability. The workers' demands for strikes threatened such stability and pushed many Radicals toward conservatism. It opposed women's suffrage for fear that women would vote for its opponents or for candidates endorsed by

25728-655: The monumental staircase leading to the crypt of the Panthéon in Paris. The Russian red quartzite stone that was used for the urn was part of the same shipment that was used for Napoleon's tomb at Les Invalides . [REDACTED]   This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain :  Chisholm, Hugh (1911). " Gambetta, Léon ". Encyclopædia Britannica . Vol. 11 (11th ed.). pp. 435–436. French Third Republic The French Third Republic ( French : Troisième République , sometimes written as La III République )

25920-600: The most influential in France. His public speeches were more effective than those delivered in the Assembly, especially the one at Bordeaux . His turn towards moderate republicanism first became apparent in Firminy , a small coal-mining town along the Loire River. There, he boldly proclaimed the radical republic he once supported to be "avoided like the plague" ( se tenir éloignés comme de la peste ) (Discours, III.5). From there, he went to Grenoble . On 26 September 1872, he proclaimed

26112-433: The new Government of National Defense , becoming Minister of the Interior . He advised his colleagues to leave Paris and run the government from some provincial city. This advice was rejected because of fear of another revolution in Paris, and a delegation to organize resistance in the provinces was dispatched to Tours , but when this was seen to be ineffective, Gambetta himself left Paris 7 October with Eugène Spuller in

26304-513: The new government, in July, 1815, just a month after Napoleon's final defeat at Waterloo, was to erase the inscription to Napoleon, the five bas-reliefs and the numerous Ns and eagles that had been carved on the facades. The bas-relief featuring Napoleon on tn the Seine facade was replaced by a plaster bas relief by Alexandre-Évariste Fragonard of Louis XVIII signing the Charter of 1814, the founding document of

26496-460: The new government. The Chamber of Deputies continued to rent the space until 1827, when it finally bought the building from the heir of the Prince of Condé in 1827, for 5,250,000 francs. The meeting hall was in deplorable condition, so the Chamber decided on a major renovation. The architect Jules de Joly (1788–1865) who had been official architect of the Chamber since 1821, was selected for the task. The architect proposed four possible new shapes for

26688-418: The new monarch on 19 November 1832. The meeting hall of the Deputies kept the same hemicycle form, but the floor was lowered, giving greater height to the ceiling, and increasing the height of the tribune and the desk of the President. A colonnade and balconies, in the form of an arch of triumph, was constructed behind the tribune, giving the appearance of a theatrical stage. The central panel above and behind

26880-533: The new regime, such as a purge of the civil service . The Jules Ferry laws making public education free, mandatory, and secular ( laїque ), were voted in 1881 and 1882, one of the first signs of the expanding civic powers of the Republic. From that time onward, the Catholic clergy lost control of public education. To discourage the monarchists, the French Crown Jewels were broken up and sold in 1885. Only

27072-399: The office of a deputy. The sessions are also transmitted live on the Internet site of the Assembly. The salons of the Palais Bourbon were created during the reign of Louis-Philippe and were decorated by prominent artists, most notably Eugène Delacroix . The Library was built beginning in 1830 against the side of the original Palais. The design is architect Jules de Joly, in the style of

27264-431: The opportunity to participate in the newest, most fashionable consumerism at reasonable cost. The latest technology was featured, such as cinemas and exhibits of inventions like X-ray machines (that could be used to fit shoes) and the gramophone . Increasingly after 1870, the stores' work force became feminized , opening up prestigious job opportunities for young women. Despite the low pay and long hours, they enjoyed

27456-424: The other hand, the increased knowledge of Gambetta's attitude towards European politics which later information has supplied confirms the view that when he died, France had prematurely lost a clear thinker whom she could ill spare. In April 1905 a monument by Dalou to his memory at Bordeaux was unveiled by President Loubet . Gambetta rendered France three inestimable services: by preserving her self-respect through

27648-424: The pages. The Roman Catholic Assumptionist order revolutionized pressure group media by its national newspaper La Croix . It vigorously advocated for traditional Catholicism while at the same time innovating with the most modern technology and distribution systems, with regional editions tailored to local taste. Secularists and Republicans recognized the newspaper as their greatest enemy, especially when it took

27840-425: The painting of Raphael, The School of Athens , made between 1683 and 1688. The Chamber of Deputies elected in 1846 was abruptly disbanded by the February Revolution. A new election by direct universal suffrage chose a Constituent Assembly. The Constituent Assembly met for the first time in the temporary chamber which had been constructed in the garden of the Palais Bourbon, and the on 4 May the French Second Republic

28032-401: The palace in 1728. It was then nationalised during the French Revolution . From 1795 to 1799, during the Directory , it was the meeting place of the Council of Five Hundred , which chose the government leaders. Beginning in 1806, during Napoleon 's French Empire , Bernard Poyet's Neoclassical facade was added to mirror that of the Church of the Madeleine , facing it across the Seine beyond

28224-438: The palace of Versailles and Les Invalides , and he knew the royal style very well, but he died in 1724. He was replaced by Jean Aubert , also a former assistant of Hardouin-Mansart. Aubert had built one of the grandest projects of the time, the stables of the royal residence at Chantilly. In the meanwhile, the construction of the neighbouring Hôtel de Lassay had begun, following a plan by another noted architect, Jacques Gabriel ,

28416-445: The people rose in revolution to save the fallen tricolor! The war continued with new energy! The revolutionaries bravely fought countless battles. The will to defend the state created the French Republic in 1870. It was a symbol not of dishonor nut of the upstanding will to preserve the nation. French national honor was revived by the Third Republic. What a contrast to our republic! A tall monument to Léon Gambetta  [ fr ]

28608-434: The political men of France; it is a veritable training ground for the tribune." Gambetta, like many other French orators, learned the art of public speaking at the Molé. However, although he contributed to a Liberal review edited by Challemel-Lacour , Gambetta did not make much of an impression until, on 17 November 1868, he was selected to defend the journalist Delescluze . Delescluze was being prosecuted for having promoted

28800-424: The population growth rate well below Germany's. There is no evidence to suggest than French life expectancy was lower than that of Germany. The most important party of the early 20th century in France was the Radical Party , founded in 1901 as the "Republican, Radical and Radical-Socialist Party" ("Parti républicain, radical et radical-socialiste"). It was classically liberal in political orientation and opposed

28992-639: The press the following day. His public funeral was on 6 January 1883. The love of his life was his connection with Léonie Léon , the full details of which were not known to the public until her death in 1906. She was the daughter of a creole French artillery officer. Gambetta fell in love with her in 1871. She became his mistress, and the liaison lasted until he died. Gambetta constantly urged her to marry him during this period, but she always refused, fearing to compromise his career; she remained, however, his confidante and intimate adviser in all his political plans. It seems she had just consented to become his wife, and

29184-452: The press. Their younger staff members were drafted, and male replacements could not be found (female journalists were not considered suitable). Rail transportation was rationed and less paper and ink came in, and fewer copies could be shipped out. Inflation raised the price of newsprint, which was always in short supply. The cover price went up, circulation fell and many of the 242 dailies published outside Paris closed down. The government set up

29376-410: The pro-Army "anti-Dreyfusards" composed of conservatives, Catholic traditionalists and monarchists who generally lost the initiative to the anti-clerical, pro-republican "Dreyfusards", with strong support from intellectuals and teachers. It embittered French politics and facilitated the increasing influence of radical politicians on both sides of the political spectrum. The democratic political structure

29568-425: The problem. The French medical profession guarded its prerogatives, and public health activists were not as well organized or as influential as in Germany, Britain or the United States. For example, there was a long battle over a public health law which began in the 1880s as a campaign to reorganize the nation's health services, to require the registration of infectious diseases, to mandate quarantines, and to improve

29760-403: The republican movement. In Paris, a series of public altercations broke out between the Versailles-aligned Parisian government and the city's radical socialists. The radicals ultimately rejected the authority of Versailles, responding with the foundation of the Paris Commune in March. The principles underpinning the Commune were viewed as morally degenerate by French conservatives at large while

29952-415: The republican party throughout France, which culminated in a speech at Romans (18 September 1878) formulating its programme. MacMahon, unwilling both to resign and to provoke civil war, had no choice but to dismiss his advisers and form a moderate republican ministry under the premiership of Dufaure . When the downfall of the Dufaure cabinet brought about MacMahon's resignation, Gambetta declined to become

30144-527: The restrictive practices that had been typical for a century. High-speed rotary Hoe presses , introduced in the 1860s, facilitated quick turnaround time and cheaper publication. New types of popular newspapers, especially Le Petit Journal , reached an audience more interested in diverse entertainment and gossip than hard news. It captured a quarter of the Parisian market and forced the rest to lower their prices. The main dailies employed their own journalists who competed for news flashes. All newspapers relied upon

30336-435: The right of the Chamber as seen from the podium, and the moderate and radical republicans and later socialists, who sat to the left. The chamber saw many eloquent and spirited debates between the leaders of the parties, and sometimes turmoil. In 1898, during the Dreyfus affair , the socialist leader Jean Jaurès was struck by a monarchist deputy while giving a speech in the Chamber, and a bomb placed by an anarchist exploded in

30528-418: The roles of railroads, republican schools, and universal military conscription . He based his findings on school records, migration patterns, military service documents and economic trends. Weber argued that until 1900 or so a sense of French nationhood was weak in the provinces. Weber then looked at how the policies of the Third Republic created a sense of French nationality in rural areas. Weber's scholarship

30720-405: The room represent Orpheus bringing the benefits of the arts and civilization and Attila and his barbarian hordes at the feet of Italy and the Arts. The original collection of the library was assembled from books confiscated from the libraries of the clergy and aristocracy who left Paris during the Revolution. It also includes many rare items donated to the Assembly, including the minutes of

30912-418: The son of Charles de Gaulle , was sent from Montparnasse Station on 25 August 1944 with orders for the Germans troops entrenched within National Assembly at the Palais Bourbon to surrender. Despite the risk of being killed alone and unarmed, he negotiated their surrender. The Fourth Republic was founded by the adoption of a new Constitution in 1946 and brought new technology to the Palais Bourbon, including

31104-413: The subsequent remodelings. The Duchesse de Bourbon died in 1743, and De Lassay died in 1750. The Palace was purchased by Louis XV , who seems to have wished to include it in the plan of the new place Royale (now the Place de la Concorde) which he was building on the other side of the river. But in 1756 he sold it to grandson of the Duchess, Louis Joseph, Prince of Condé , who had been a military hero in

31296-425: The system of small constituencies, giving one member to each district and one for vote to each elector. A bill to re-establish scrutin de liste was passed by the Assembly on 19 May 1881, but rejected by the Senate on 19 June. This personal rebuff could not alter the fact that his name was on the lips of voters at the election. His supporters won a large majority, and Jules Ferry 's cabinet quickly resigned. Gambetta

31488-407: The themes were taken from antiquity, rather than from French history. They represent the great thinkers ( Ovid , Demosthenes , Herodotus , and Aristotle , as well as scenes representing the dangers to democracy and civilization; the death of Saint John the Baptist , the death of Seneca the Younger , and the murder of Archimedes by a Roman soldier. The large paintings on the bays at either end of

31680-425: The throne to his more liberal heir, the Comte de Paris. A "temporary" republican government was therefore established. Chambord lived on until 1883, but by that time, enthusiasm for a monarchy had faded, and the Comte de Paris was never offered the French throne. Following the French surrender to Prussia in January 1871, concluding the Franco-Prussian War , the transitional Government of National Defence established

31872-422: The trial of Joan of Arc , the manuscripts of Jean-Jacques Rousseau , donated by his widow in 1794, and the Codex Borbonicus , an Aztec codex written by Aztec priests shortly before or after the Spanish conquest of the Aztec Empire . The library is reserved for he use of the members of the Assembly and their staffs and is not open to the public. The Salle des Conférences is a large room with tables and lamps on

32064-417: The tribune was occupied by a large painting of Louis-Philippe taking his oath before the Assembly. Niches were constructed on either side of the tribune, with statues of "Liberty" and "Public Order" by Pradet . The four columns of the arch were decorated with statues representing Force, Justice, Prudence and Eloquence. The plan by Joly also turned the building around. Under Napoleon, the main entrance, where

32256-536: The various ministries from behind the scenes, he evidently thought that the time was not ripe for asserting openly his direction of the policy of the Republic, and seemed inclined to observe a neutral attitude as far as possible. However, events hurried him on, and early in 1881 he headed off a movement for restoring scrutin de liste , or the system by which deputies are returned by the entire department which they represent, so that each elector votes for several representatives at once, in place of scrutin d'arrondissement ,

32448-469: The war. The major postwar success story was Paris Soir , which lacked any political agenda and was dedicated to providing a mix of sensational reporting to aid circulation and serious articles to build prestige. By 1939, its circulation was over 1.7 million, double that of its nearest rival the tabloid Le Petit Parisien . In addition to its daily paper, Paris Soir sponsored a highly successful women's magazine Marie-Claire . Another magazine, Match ,

32640-416: The words of the poet Jean Tardieu : "Men search for the light in a fragile garden where the colors tremble." The Salon of Marianne, created in 2004, displays busts of Marianne, the symbol of the Republic from different periods and in different styles. It has displayed since 2015 a work by the American graffiti artist JonOne , called Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité . Based on Delacroix's famous Liberty Leading

32832-414: Was added to the vestibule, and are still visible today. The palace was only finished at the end of the 1780s, when the French Revolution swept away the old regime. The Prince went into exile, and the two residences were confiscated by the state in 1792. The first French national assembly gathered without royal authorization on 20 June 1789 in the tennis court of the Palace of Versailles. the first step of

33024-412: Was building at the end of Rue Royale , to the north of the Place de la Concorde. The new neoclassical facade, designed by architect Bernard Poyet , had twelve corinthian columns in an entirely different style from Italianate 18th century palace behind it, but it was high enough to be visible from the Place de la Concorde and was correctly aligned to be visible from the Madeleine. The original fronton of

33216-399: Was constructed. It was considerably modified in the 1830s, with the addition of the ceremonial portico over the doorway, but still retains its original outlines. The sculptures on either side of the entrance represent Universal Suffrage and the Law. They were added during the Second Empire in 1860. The granite ball on a pedestal in the centre of the courtyard, called the Sphere of Human Rights,

33408-427: Was elected to the Chamber of Deputies while the monarchist majority in the Senate was maintained by only one seat. President de MacMahon responded in May 1877, attempting to quell the Republicans' rising popularity and limit their political influence through a series of actions known as le seize Mai . On 16 May 1877, de MacMahon forced the resignation of Moderate Republican prime minister Jules Simon and appointed

33600-491: Was forbidden, and religious orders were forbidden to teach in them. Funds were appropriated from religious schools to build more state schools. Later in the century, other laws passed by Ferry's successors further weakened the Church's position in French society. Civil marriage became compulsory, divorce was introduced, and chaplains were removed from the army. When Leo XIII became pope in 1878, he tried to calm Church-State relations. In 1884, he told French bishops not to act in

33792-412: Was impossible. After the French defeat near Orléans early in December the seat of government was transferred to Bordeaux . Gambetta had hoped for a republican majority in the general elections on 8 February 1871 . These hopes vanished when the conservatives and Monarchists won nearly 2/3 of the six hundred Assembly seats. He had won elections in eight different départements , but the ultimate victor

33984-444: Was installed in the Courtyard of Honor in 1989, to mark the 200th anniversary of the French Revolution. His design was selected after an international competition; the granite sphere contains a small heart made of gold. A work by the Belgian artist Pierre Alechinsky was created in 1992 and occupies a small rotunda along the passageway between the Hotel de Lassay and the Palais Bourbon. It is titled "The Fragile Garden" and illustrates

34176-490: Was instrumental in voting in the French Constitutional Laws of 1875 in February 1875. He gave this policy the appropriate name of "opportunism," and became one of the leader of the " Opportunist Republicans ." On 4 May 1877, he denounced "clericalism" as the enemy. During the 16 May 1877 crisis , Gambetta, in a speech at Lille on 15 August called on President MacMahon se soumettre ou se démettre , to submit to parliament's majority or to resign. Gambetta then campaigned to rouse

34368-437: Was intended for the use of Napoleon during his rare visits to the building. Both these rooms retain much of their original decor, tromp-l'oeil paintings by Alexandre-Évariste Fragonard , the son of the famous court painter of Louis XIV. After the fall of Napoleon in 1814, the Bourbon monarchy was restored under Louis XVIII, but preserved some of the democratic institutions begun during the Revolution. The new government, like

34560-444: Was modelled on the photojournalism of the American magazine Life. France was a rural nation, and the peasant farmer was the typical French citizen. In his seminal book Peasants into Frenchmen (1976), historian Eugen Weber traced the modernization of French villages and argued that rural France went from backward and isolated to modern with a sense of national identity during the late 19th and early 20th centuries. He emphasized

34752-424: Was on the Rue de la Université. The entrance to the courtyard had an ornate archway, flanked by two pavilions. The Hôtel de Lassay was rectangular, and more modest in size. The two buildings had identical facades facing the Seine. The facades featured alternating columns and windows, and decoration on the themes of the seasons, the elements, and, fitting for the daughter of the Sun King, about Apollo. The space between

34944-404: Was on the verge of defeat during the First World War , industrialist Walther Rathenau called for a German Levée en masse to reverse the deteriorating situation. Conservative Revolutionary Edgar Jung was also inspired by Gambetta. Adolf Hitler favorably contrasted Gambetta's actions with that of the post-revolutionary leaders of the Weimar Republic : With the collapse of France at Sedan,

35136-401: Was planned in 1884 and erected in 1888 in the central space of the Louvre Palace , now Cour Napoléon . That initiative carried heavy political symbolism, since Gambetta was widely viewed as the founder of the Third Republic , and his outsized celebration in the middle of Napoleon III's Louvre expansion thus affirmed the final victory of republicanism over monarchism nearly a century after

35328-425: Was proclaimed at the Palais Bourbon. On May 15 a mob with red flags invaded the chamber, demanding a much more radical government. Another unsuccessful attempt to seize the government was launched by in June 1848. A new National Assembly was elected, and a new president, Louis Napoleon Bonaparte , the nephew of the Emperor, who had lived most of his life in exile. On December 2, 1851, when the Assembly refused to change

35520-644: Was quickly justified. On 31 December 1882, at his house in Ville d'Avray, near Sèvres , he died from intestine or stomach cancer. Even though he was wounded a month earlier from an accidental revolver discharge, the injury had not been life-threatening. Five artists, Jules Bastien-Lepage , a realist painter, Antonin Proust , defender of the vanguard who Gambetta had named Minister of Fine Arts, Léon Bonnat , an academic painter, Alexandre Falguière , who did his mortuary mask, and his personal photographer Étienne Carjat all sat at his death-bed, making five widely different representations of him which were each published by

35712-403: Was replaced by the rival governments of Charles de Gaulle 's Free France ( La France libre ) and Philippe Pétain 's French State ( L'État français ). During the 19th and 20th centuries, the French colonial empire was the second largest colonial empire in the world only behind the British Empire ; it extended over 13,500,000 km (5,200,000 sq mi) of land at its height in

35904-416: Was soon surrounded by the Germans. The leader of the provisional government, Léon Gambetta , had to escape from Paris by balloon. The Palais Bourbon was abandoned; the Assembly moved first to Bordeaux, then to Versailles. The Paris Commune seized power in the city in March 1871, but in May was suppressed by the French Army. The Palais Bourbon escaped destruction, unlike the Tuileries Palace , Hotel de Ville,

36096-464: Was supported by the proliferation of politicized newspapers. The circulation of the daily press in Paris went from 1 million in 1870 to 5 million in 1910; it later reached 6 million in 1939. Advertising grew rapidly, providing a steady financial basis for publishing, but it did not cover all of the costs involved and had to be supplemented by secret subsidies from commercial interests that wanted favourable reporting. A new liberal press law of 1881 abandoned

36288-427: Was the Orléanist Adolphe Thiers , winner of twenty-three elections. Thiers's conservative and bourgeois intentions clashed with the growing expectations of political power by the lower classes. Hoping to continue his policy of "guerre à outrance" against the Prussian invaders, he tried in vain to rally the Assembly to the war cause. However, Thiers' peace treaty on 1 March 1871 ended the conflict. Gambetta, disgusted with

36480-417: Was the system of government adopted in France from 4 September 1870, when the Second French Empire collapsed during the Franco-Prussian War , until 10 July 1940, after the Fall of France during World War II led to the formation of the Vichy government . The French Third Republic was a parliamentary republic . The early days of the French Third Republic were dominated by political disruption caused by

36672-544: Was unwillingly asked by Grévy on 24 November 1881 to form a ministry, known as Le Grand Ministère . Many suspected him of desiring a dictatorship; unjust attacks were directed against him from all sides, and his cabinet fell on 26 January 1882, after only sixty-six days. Had he remained in office, he would have cultivated the British alliance and cooperated with Britain in Egypt; and when the succeeding Freycinet government shrank from that enterprise only to see it undertaken with signal success by Britain alone, Gambetta's foresight

36864-408: Was widely praised, but was criticized by some who argued that a sense of Frenchness existed in the provinces before 1870. Aristide Boucicaut founded Le Bon Marché in Paris in 1838, and by 1852 it offered a wide variety of goods in "departments inside one building." Goods were sold at fixed prices, with guarantees that allowed exchanges and refunds. By the end of the 19th century, Georges Dufayel ,

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