. In January, 1882, it had
to resign and Gambetta died on the last day of the same year. Thus, the
third Republic lost its leading statesman since the death of Thiers.

The year 1882 was filled by the two ineffective Cabinets of Freycinet
(second time) and of Duclerc. Under the former, France made the mistake,
injurious to her interests and prestige, of withdrawing from the
Egyptian condominium with Great Britain and allowing the latter country
free play for the conquest and occupation of Egypt. Thus the fruits of
De Lesseps' piercing of the Isthmus of Suez went definitely to England.
The death of Gambetta under the Duclerc-Fallieres Ministry[12] seemed to
reawaken the hopes of the anti-Republicans, and Jerome Napoleon, chief
Bonapartist pretender since the decease of the Prince Imperial, issued a
manifesto against the Republic. Parliament fell into a ludicrous panic,
various contradictory measures were proposed, and in the general
confusion the Cabinet fell after an adverse vote.

In this contingency President Grevy did what he should have done before,
and called to office the leading statesman. This was now Jules Ferry.
At last France had an administration which lasted a little over two
years. But Ferry was still intensely unpopular. He had become the
successor of Gambetta and the exponent of the policy of Opportunism,
which he tried to carry out with even more constructive statesmanship.
But he was totally wanting in Gambetta's magnetism, and his domineering
ways made him hated the more. The Clericals opposed him as the
"persecutor" of the Catholic religion, and the Radicals thought he did
not go far enough in his hostility to the Church. For Jules Ferry saw
that the times were not ripe for disestablishment, and that the system
of the _Concordat_, in vogue since Napoleon I, really gave the State
more control over the Clergy than it would have in case of separation.
The State would lose its power in appointments and salaries. Jules Ferry
knew that the Church could be useful to him, and the politic Leo XIII,
very different from Pius IX, was ready to meet him part way, though the
Pope himself had to humor to a certain extent the hostility to the
Republic of the French Monarchists and Clericals. Jules Ferry, like
Gambetta, also had to put up with the veiled hostility of President
Grevy, working in Parliament through the intrigues of his son-in-law
Wilson. Moreover, Ferry was made to bear the odium for a long period of
f