ious order or "congregation" could be formed without
specific authorization by law, that a religious order could be dissolved
by ministerial decree, and that no one belonging to an unauthorized
order could direct personally, or by proxy, an educational
establishment, or even teach in one. Thus the enemies of the lay
Republic who, under cover of the "esprit nouveau," and by years of
manipulation of the feeding sources of army and navy officers, had hoped
to grasp power, and had made a supreme effort at the time of the Dreyfus
agitation, now saw themselves thwarted, and faced the prospect of
severer treatment.

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 "delegation 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