Matters had progressed even further than Waldeck-Rousseau himself perhaps desired. In the spring of 1902, new legislative elections took place for the renewal of the Chamber of Deputies. The policy of the Waldeck-Rousseau Ministry was endorsed by a sound majority, and yet at this moment of triumph, after the longest rule as Prime Minister of any hitherto in the history of the Republic, Waldeck-Rousseau resigned his post without an adverse vote. Undoubtedly the state of his personal health was partly responsible for his departure from office and he was destined not to live beyond 1904. The last important events of his administration were a visit of the Czar to France and a return visit of President Loubet to Russia. Waldeck-Rousseau's successor as Prime Minister was Emile Combes, a strong foe of the Church. Combes had himself been a former theological student and had, in his youth, written a thesis on the philosophy of St. Thomas Aquinas. He now had all the vindictiveness of one who burns what he formerly worshipped. Encouraged by the recent elections, he turned more and more against the Vatican and impelled by the more violent members of the _Bloc_, he drifted toward the rupture which his predecessor had tried to avoid. A committee of the different groups supporting the Cabinet, called the "délégation des gauches," had in time been instituted to formulate policies with the Prime Minister, who often had to obey it instead of guiding. Waldeck-Rousseau had intended not to apply his law retroactively. He had planned to spare educational establishments already in existence before July, 1901, when his measure went into operation, and had winked at lack of compliance on the part of many others. Combes applied the letter of the law ruthlessly. Amid public protestations and disturbances he closed a large number of these unauthorized schools; firstly, those which had actually been opened without permission since the promulgation of the law, then the many schools which were older than the law. In so doing he was called a persecutor, because the directors of the schools declared that they had allowed the time limit of application for authorization to go by, only through the understanding with the previous Administration that they were not to be interfered with. Now they could not help themselves.