It is also an open secret that Bismarck worked hard to prevent all possibility of a royalist Restoration; and when the German ambassador at Paris, Count Arnim, opposed his wishes in this matter, he procured his recall and subjected him to a State prosecution. In fact, Bismarck believed that under a Republic France would be powerless in war, and, further, that she could never form that alliance with Russia which was the bugbear of his later days. A Russian diplomatist once told the Duc de Broglie that the kind of Republic which Bismarck wanted to see in France was "_une République dissolvante_." Everything therefore concurred to postpone the monarchical question, and to prolong the informal truce which Thiers had been the first to bring about. Accordingly, in the month of November, the Assembly extended the Presidency of Marshal MacMahon to seven years--a period therefore known as the Septennate. Having now briefly shown the causes of the helplessness of the monarchical majority in the matter that it had most nearly at heart, we must pass over subsequent events save as they refer to that crowning paradox--the establishment of a Republican Constitution. This was due to the despair felt by many of the Orleanists of seeing a restoration during the lifetime of the Comte de Chambord, and to the alarm felt by all sections of the monarchists at the activity and partial success of the Bonapartists, who in the latter part of 1874 captured a few seats. Seeking above all things to keep out a Bonaparte, they did little to hinder the formation of a Constitution which all of them looked on as provisional. In fact, they adopted the policy of marking time until the death of the Comte de Chambord--whose hold on life proved to be no less tenacious than on his creed--should clear up the situation. Accordingly, after many diplomatic delays, the Committee which in 1873 had been charged to draw up the Constitution, presented its plan, which took form in the organic laws of February 25, 1875. They may be thus summarised:--