But, obvious as this was to everybody else, the respectable old soldier who had been a party to all this reactionary turmoil was still unconvinced of the error of his ways! He repeated the formula of the Malakoff fortress: _J'y suis, j'y reste_. But the Republicans were more tenacious than the Russians. They resolved to dislodge him, political Marshal though he was. A resolution was passed by the Assembly to inquire into corrupt practices during the election. It was a challenge to battle, and signed by such men as Albert Grévy, H. Brisson, Jules Ferry, Léon Gambetta, Floquet, Louis Blanc and Clemenceau. A great debate, lasting several days, followed, in which de Broglie defended himself in a high-handed manner against the fervid denunciations of Gambetta. A Committee of Inquiry was nominated and the arena of the struggle changed to the Senate, which presently, as might have been expected from its reactionary character, gave a small vote of confidence in the Marshal and his Ministers. Nevertheless the feeling in the country was such that even MacMahon could not hold on. De Broglie resigned, and the Marshal evolved--almost from the depths of his inner consciousness--an "extra-Parliamentary Cabinet" which might have been called "The Cabinet of Men of No Account." But these were so unknown and so incompetent that all France made fun of them; and the will of the old Marshal, which nothing else could conquer, was broken by ridicule. In December, 1877, the President of the Republic saw that unless he appealed to the army, as the Buonapartists vigorously incited him to do, an appeal which more than probably the army itself would have rejected, there was no course open to him but the alternative which Gambetta had pointed out as being the Marshal's inevitable destiny if he kept within the limits of law and order--to give in or get out. The old soldier of the Empire gave in, and did his country a service by accepting the rebuff which he had courted: a moderate Republican Ministry under the Premiership of M. Dufaure took office. MacMahon himself remained President of the Republic until January, 1879 (when he was succeeded by Jules Grévy), but his reactionary power was broken and France entered on a moderately peaceful era of recognised Republicanism. Gambetta was the acknowledged leader of the Republican majority; and Clemenceau, after this first taste of victory, now began that fine career of destructive, anti-opportunist Radicalism and semi-Socialist democracy which made him for many years the most redoubtable politician and orator in the Republic. The Radical-Socialist Clemenceau stood next in succession to the Opportunist Gambetta. CHAPTER VII THE TIGER