cution of Louis
XVI. So he treated their advances haughtily, declined to receive the
comte de Paris, and issued a manifesto to the country proclaiming his
unwillingness to give up the white flag for the tricolor. Henry V could
not let anybody tear from his hand the white standard of Henry IV, of
Francis I, and of Jeanne d'Arc.

Such mediaevalism dealt the monarchical cause a crushing blow. The
Royalists had already begun to look askance at M. Thiers and hinted that
his readiness to go on with the Republic was a tacit violation of the
Bordeaux Compact. Under the circumstances, however, his sincerity need
not be doubted in believing a republic the only outcome, and his
ambition or vanity may be excused for wishing to continue its leader. By
the Rivet-Vitet measure of August 31, 1871, M. Thiers, hitherto "chief
of executive power," was called "President of the French Republic." He
was to exercise his functions so long as the Assembly had not completed
its work and was to be responsible to the Assembly. Thus the legislative
body elected for an emergency was taking upon itself constituent
authority and was tending to perpetuate the Republic which the majority
disliked.

From this time the tension grew greater between Thiers and the Assembly,
which begrudged him the credit for the negotiations still proceeding,
and already mentioned above, for the evacuation of France by the
Germans. It thwarted the wish of the Republicans to transfer the seat of
the executive and legislature to Paris. Thiers was, indeed, working away
from the Bordeaux Compact and was advocating a republic, though a
conservative one. This "treachery" the monarchists could not forgive,
though bye-elections were constantly increasing the Republican
membership. Thiers did not, on the other hand, welcome the advanced
republicanism of Gambetta declaring war on clericalism, and proclaiming
the advent of a new "social stratum" (_une couche sociale nouvelle_) for
the government of the nation.

By the middle of 1872, Thiers was the open advocate of "la Republique
conservatrice," and this gradual transformation of a transitional
republic into a permanent one was what the monarchists could not accept.
So they declared open war on M. Thiers. On November 29, 1872, a
committee of thirty was appointed at Thiers's instigation to regulate
the functions of public authority and the conditions of ministerial
responsibility. This was inevitably another step toward the affirmat