Page:The Annual Register 1899.djvu/259

 1899.] France. — M. de Freycinet's Resignation. [251

escape defeat by misleading all parties. In reply to an inquiry addressed to the Minister of War with regard to the factious behaviour of certain officers, M. de Freycinet replied, " I strike in silence " ; but no one beheved that he would do anything of the sort.

The Easter session of the General Councils gave rise to no matters of general importance. The choice of M. Loubet was

fenerally hailed with satisfaction, and the method in which usiness was conducted or rather neglected in the Chamber with dissatisfaction. One or two of the northern departments, which suffered most from the scourge, insisted upon some restriction being placed upon the number of cabarets opened in the district. M. Max Eegis alone seemed anxious to keep up popular excitement. For the part he had taken in the recent disturbances at Algiers he was sentenced to four months' im- prisonment, and to his own surprise was made to undergo it forthwith, and from that moment his influence in the colony waned. By a skilful combination of energy and concessions the governor-general and the prefect managed to create a division Between the Anti-Semites and the [Republicans, and to oblige the former to join hands with the reactionaries. The inauguration at Tunis of the statue to Jules Ferry was made the occasion of officially endorsing his colonial policy, and the substitution of General Pennequin for General Gallieni as Governor of Madagas- car marked a change in the administration of that dependency.

When the session was resumed (May 2) no time was lost in calling upon M. de Freycinet to explain the suspension of the course of lectures at the Ecole polytechnique by M. Duruy, who had written several articles in the Figaro which clearly showed his bias in favour of a revision of the Dreyfus case. The students had thought proper to exhibit their feeling by disturbing the professor's lectures, and the Minister of War, instead of insist- ing upon order being maintained, thought fit to suspend the professor. Challenged in the Chamber to defend his action, M. de Freycinet tried to prove that the demonstration had been general and spontaneous, and that the reprimand he had addressed to the more culpable was severer than any impri- sonment. The Chamber, as might be expected, received such transparent evasions with derision, and M. de Freycinet gladly seized upon the pretext that he had not been treated with respect to tender his resignation.

M. de Freycinet's position in the Cabinet had for a long time been unsatisfactory. In a measure he was held prisoner by the military camurilla, which among other things had forced him to pass a law by which appointments to all the high military commands were transferred from the Minister of War to a com- mittee of generals. This abdication of the civil government raised the hopes of the military part to the highest, and its leaders entertained no doubt that they could hold their own against Kepublican opinion.