od aloof, and politics were abandoned for the most
part to professional adventurers, while the _bourgeoisie_ assumed the
form of an omnipotent plutocracy. This naturally attracted to France all
the financial adventurers in Europe, and in the train of the immigration
came not a few German Jews, alienated from their own country by the
agitation of Marr and Stocker. Thus the _bourgeoisie_ was not only more
powerful in France than in other countries, but the obnoxiousness of its
Jewish element was accentuated by a tinge of the national enemy. The
anti-clericalism of the _bourgeois_ republic and its unexampled series
of financial scandals, culminating in the Panama "Krach," thus sufficed
to give anti-Semitism a strong hold on the public mind.

Nevertheless, it was not until 1882 that the anti-Jewish movement was
seriously heard of in France. Paul Bontoux (b. 1820), who had formerly
been in the employ of the Rothschilds, but had been obliged to leave
the firm in consequence of his disastrous speculations, had joined the
Legitimist party, and had started the Union Generale with funds obtained
from his new allies. Bontoux promised to break up the alleged financial
monopoly of the Jews and Protestants and to found a new plutocracy in
its stead, which should be mainly Roman Catholic and aristocratic. The
bait was eagerly swallowed. For five years the Union Generale, with the
blessing of the pope, pursued an apparently prosperous career. Immense
schemes were undertaken, and the 123-fr. shares rose gradually to 3200
francs. The whole structure, however, rested on a basis of audacious
speculation, and in January 1882 the Union Generale failed, with
liabilities amounting to 312,000,000 francs. The cry was at once raised
that the collapse was due to the manoeuvres of the Jews, and a strong
anti-Semitic feeling manifested itself in clerical and aristocratic
circles. In 1886 violent expression was given to this feeling in a book
since become famous, _La France juive_, by Edouard Drumont (b. 1844).
The author illustrated the theories of German anti-Semitism with a
_chronique scandaleuse_ full of piquant personalities, in which the
corruption of French national life under Jewish influences was painted
in alarming colours. The book was read with avidity by the public, who
welcomed its explanations of the obviously growing debauchery. The
Wilson scandals and the suspension of the Panama Company in the
following year, while not bearing out Dr