Page:American Historical Review vol. 6.djvu/776

 766 DociDuents ministry was defeated in the Senate over a Public Education Bill ; and M. de Marcere, who was Minister for the Interior, was com- pelled to withdraw from the cabinet, owing to an incident concern- ing the military honors to be paid to deceased members of the Legion of Honor. Though M. Dufaure's ministerial stability was weakened by the vote of the Senate, the Marshal did not consider the matter impor- tant enough to warrant a government crisis. Being anxious to re- tain M. Dufaure in the cabinet, he thought it sufficient merely to arrange for the substitution of another minister for M. Marcere in the Interior Department. With this in view, on December 9, 1 876, the President summoned a meeting of the cabinet for half-past nine in evening, at the Elysee. The only minister who was not invited was M. Dufaure, he being in the country for a rest. I am able to publish for the first time the minutes of this cabi- net meeting, which have great historic value as revealing Marshal de MacMahon in a light somewhat new and unexpected, at the same time that they add fresh information to what is already known of this episode in the parliamentary history of the Third Republic. These minutes were very accurately set down, and addressed to M. Jules Simon, by one of the most distinguished of the former ministers present at the meeting, who is now dead, but whose name I am not at liberty to reveal. The only survivor of those present is M. Christophle, now, as then, deputy. These minutes were dictated to the minister's wife, the original document, which I have seen, being in a feminine handwriting. It is well known that this meeting resulted in a statu quo of the cabinet, save that M. Jules Simon replaced M. Dufaure as prime minister, taking also M. de Marcere's functions at the Interior De- partment, while M. Martel, who later became President of the Senate, succeeded M. Dufaure as Minister of Justice. The fall of this cabinet, six months later, precipitated by Marshal MacMahon's famous letter of May 16, addressed to M. Jules Simon, brought on the crisis of " the sixteenth of May," which came so near ending the Third Republic. Theodore St.anton. On December 9, 1876, Marshal MacMahon convoked a Council at the Elysee, at which were present : The Due Decazes, Minister of Foreign Affairs; Vice-Admiral Fourichon, Minister of Marine ; M. Teis- serenc de Bort, Minister of Agriculture ; M. Leon Say, Minister of Fi- nance ; M. Christophle, Minister of Public Works ; and M. Waddington, Minister of Public Instruction. The Marshal began by reading a letter from M. Dufaure, the prime