Félix Faure's first Cabinet was led by the Republican Moderate Alexandre Ribot. It lasted less than a year and its history was chiefly noteworthy, at least in foreign affairs, by the increasing openness of the Franco-Russian _rapprochement_ at the ceremonies of the inauguration of the Kiel Canal. In internal affairs there were some violent industrial disturbances and strikes. In October, 1895, the Moderates gave way to the Radical Cabinet of Léon Bourgeois. It was viewed with suspicion by the moneyed interests, who accused it of gravitating toward the Socialists. The cleavage between the two tendencies of the Republican Party became more marked. The Moderates joined forces with the Conservatives to oppose the schemes for social and financial reforms of the Radicals and of the representatives of the working classes. Prominent among these was the proposal for a progressive income tax. The Senate, naturally a more conservative body, was opposed to the Bourgeois Cabinet, which had a majority, though not a very steadfast one, in the Chamber of Deputies. The Senate, usually a nonentity in determining the fall of a cabinet, for once successfully asserted its power and, by refusing to vote the credits asked for by the Ministry for the Madagascar campaign, caused it to resign in April, 1896. The enemies of the Senate maintained that the Chamber of Deputies, elected by direct suffrage, was the only judge of the fate of a cabinet. But Bourgeois's hold was at best precarious and he seized the opportunity to withdraw. The Méline Cabinet which followed was a return to the Moderates supported by the Conservatives. Its opponents accused it of following what in American political parlance is called a "stand-pat" policy, but it remained in office longer than any ministry up to its time, a little over two years. It afforded, at any rate, an opportunity for the adversaries of the Republic to strengthen their positions and encouraged the transformation of the Dreyfus case into a political instead of a purely judicial matter. In foreign affairs the most spectacular events were the visit of the Czar and Czarina to France in 1896 and the return visit of the French President to Russia in 1897. At the banquet of leave-taking on the French warship _Pothuau_, in their prepared speeches, the Czar and the President made use of the same expression "friendly and _allied_ nations," thus publicly proclaiming to Europe the alliance suspected since 1891.