The Bordeaux Pact refers to a proclamation made by Adolphe Thiers on 10 March 1871, establishing an institutional status quo between monarchists and republicans during the early days of the French Third Republic. This pact delayed the debate over the form of the new regime.
To end the Franco-Prussian War, the Government of National Defense requested an armistice with Prussia on 28 January 1871. Bismarck refused, insisting that negotiations could only take place with representatives elected by the people. Consequently, a National Assembly was elected on 8 February 1871. This Assembly, dominated by monarchists seeking peace, appointed Adolphe Thiers as head of the Executive Power on 17 February 1871. The peace treaty was signed in Frankfurt am Main on 10 May 1871.
The monarchists, who held a majority in the Assembly, were divided between Legitimists (a minority with 182 seats) and Orleanists (the majority with 214 seats). They anticipated a swift restoration of the monarchy, while the republicans, a minority in the Assembly, aimed to reform the Republic. Adolphe Thiers sought to avoid deciding the regime's nature until peace with Prussia was secured and postponed the debate to navigate this opposition. This agreement, known as the Bordeaux Pact, was reached while the government was based in Bordeaux. The pact was formalized between Thiers and the National Assembly, which convened at the Grand Théâtre.
Despite the pact, the regime quickly adopted a parliamentary character, and Thiers clashed with the Assembly as the government moved toward a conservative Republic. Paradoxically, these conflicts and the failure of the monarchist Restoration strengthened the Republic's tendency. The Rivet decree, passed almost unanimously, named Adolphe Thiers "Head of the Executive Power" of the French Third Republic [1] . The Rivet law (31 August 1871), the first constitutional act, officially designated Thiers as President of the Republic while stripping him of all executive power [2] .
Jules Claude Gabriel Favre was a French statesman and lawyer. After the establishment of the Third Republic in September 1870, he became one of the leaders of the Opportunist Republicans in the National Assembly.
Marie Joseph Louis Adolphe Thiers was a French statesman and historian who served as President of France from 1871 to 1873. He was the second elected president and the first of the Third French Republic.
Marie Edme Patrice Maurice de MacMahon, marquis de MacMahon, duc de Magenta, was a French general and politician who served as President of France from 1873 to 1879. He was elevated to the dignity of Marshal of France by Napoleon III.
Orléanist was a 19th-century French political label originally used by those who supported a constitutional monarchy expressed by the House of Orléans. Due to the radical political changes that occurred during that century in France, three different phases of Orléanism can be identified:
Léon Gambetta was a French lawyer and republican politician who proclaimed the French Third Republic in 1870 and played a prominent role in its early government.
The French Second Republic, officially the French Republic, was the second republican government of France. It existed from 1848 until its dissolution in 1852.
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The 16 May 1877 crisis was a constitutional crisis in the French Third Republic concerning the distribution of power between the president and the legislature. When the royalist president Patrice MacMahon dismissed the Moderate Republican prime minister Jules Simon, the parliament on 16 May 1877 refused to support the new government and was dissolved by the president. New elections resulted in the royalists increasing their seat totals, but nonetheless resulted in a majority for the Republicans. Thus, the interpretation of the 1875 Constitution as a parliamentary system prevailed over a presidential system. The crisis ultimately sealed the defeat of the royalist movement, and was instrumental in creating the conditions for the longevity of the Third Republic.
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Events from the year 1871 in France.
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Jean-Marie Allenou was a French ironmaster and conservative politician. He was deputy of Côtes-du-Nord, in Brittany, from 1871 to 1876, then Senator of Côtes-du-Nord from 1876 until his death in 1880.
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The Second Cabinet of Jules Dufaure is the 55th cabinet of France and the third of the Third Republic, seating from 18 May 1873 to 25 May 1873, headed by Jules Dufaure as Vice-President of the Council of Ministers and Minister of Justice, under the presidency of Adolphe Thiers.
The moral order was a coalition of the right that formed after the successive falls of Napoleon III and the provisional republican government. It is also the name of the policy advocated by the government of Albert de Broglie under the presidency of Marshal Patrice de Mac Mahon starting from 27 May 1873.
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