Gambetta himself, regarded in England as the most eloquent and capable leader of the Republican party, invented an excuse for the existence of the Republic which he had taken an active part in creating, by the formula, "It is that which divides us the least." Indifference on every important question except colonial expansion became the highest political wisdom. It was, in fact, hesitating opportunism and cowardly compromise which then dominated France. Such tactics evoked no loyalty and solved no problem. The old became cynical, the young contemptuous. To attack such flabby consistency in doing nothing seemed as bootless an enterprise as entering into conflict with a feather-bed. The early years of the French Republic constituted a period of apathy led, with one or two exceptions, by mediocrity. Even the scathing sarcasm and biting irony of Rochefort failed to produce any serious effect upon the smug stolidity of the rest-and-be-thankful representatives of the French middle class. Hence arose "a divorce between politics and thought," and men of capacity became disgusted with the form of government itself. All this played directly into the hands of reaction and was preparing the way for a series of attempts against the Republic. It was at this unhopeful period of stagnation, compromise and mediocrity that Clemenceau came to the front as leader of the Left in the National Assembly. He at once showed that he had every qualification for this important position--never more important than when there was a conspiracy afoot to prove to the world that there was no Radical Left at all. At the time he entered the Assembly in 1876 Clemenceau was thirty-five years of age, with an irreproachable past behind him and the full confidence of the Republicans of Paris around him. In his work in Montmartre and on the Municipal Council the people had come to know what manner of man he was. Without their steady support it would have been difficult, if not impossible, for him to carry on the uphill fight he fought for so many years. His principles upon every subject of public policy were from the first clear and well defined.