property in Paris
had been destroyed.

On May 31, 1871, however, Thiers was finally elected president for a
term of three years. Considering the many and difficult problems
which the new Government had to solve, it is rather surprising that
it lasted as long as it did, even if its end came before the
appointed time. For in May, 1873, both the president and his
ministry resigned, and General MacMahon was elected president by the
Assembly. Early that fall (1873) the last parts of the German army
of occupation left France after the last installment of the war
indemnity had been paid, and in the latter part of the same year
President MacMahon's term was extended to a period of seven years.

The part which England had played during and immediately after the
German-French War was typical of England's cleverness in playing
foreign politics. Intimate as at that time were the Prusso-English
relations, and inactive as England remained during the war, it still
managed to impress the French nation with a strong feeling of
gratefulness for the apparently friendly attitude which England felt
toward France. In a way this is very remarkable, for after the fall
of the empire, England extended its hospitality to ex-Empress
Eugenie and her young son, and then, later, after Napoleon Ill's
release from German captivity, to the ex-emperor himself.

In 1876 France had sufficiently recovered from its apparently
complete breakdown of a few years ago to be able to dispose of the
largest revenue that had ever been at the disposal of any French
Government, and this fact is of interest to us chiefly because it is
one of the most definite and most significant proofs of the
remarkable inherent strength of the French country and people.

In spite of this quick recovery, France for the next few years
played an absolutely inactive and comparatively unimportant part in
European affairs. During the Russo-Turkish War of 1876, for
instance, the republic declared and maintained a strict neutrality.
Internally, the republic continued to have to contend with many
difficulties. Again and again strong opposition to the republican
form of government showed itself, expressed at one time by the
followers of the Bonapartist party, at another by those of the
Royalist party. However, all of these dissensions had no actual
result, and in spite of them the republic continued to progress and
to flourish to such an extent that, only seven years after one of
the mos