France's Ultramontane party members are becoming discontented,…
1864 CE to 1875 CE
The working classes have abandoned their political neutrality
Disregarding Pierre-Joseph Proudhon's impassioned attack on communism, they had gradually been won over by the collectivist theories of Karl Marx and the revolutionary theories of Mikhail Bakunin, as set forth at the congresses of the International.
At these Labor congresses, the fame of which is only increased by the fact that they are forbidden, it had been affirmed that the social emancipation of the worker is inseparable from his political emancipation.
The union between the internationalists and the republican bourgeois has become an accomplished fact.
The Empire, taken by surprise, seeks to curb both the middle classes and the laboring classes, and forces them both into revolutionary actions.
There are multiple strikes.
The elections of May 1869, which take place during these disturbances, inflict upon the Empire a serious moral defeat.
In spite of the revival by the government of the cry of the "red terror", Émile Ollivier, the advocate of conciliation, is rejected by Paris, while forty irreconcilables and one hundred and sixteen members of the Third Party are elected.
Concessions have to be made to these, so by the senatus-consulte of September 8, 1869, a parliamentary monarchy is substituted for personal government.
On January 2, 1870, Ollivier is placed at the head of the first homogeneous, united and responsible ministry.
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