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Ministerial Politics, 1890–1895

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Alexandre Ribot

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Abstract

In March 1890, Charles de Freycinet offered Ribot the post of minister for foreign affairs in his new cabinet. With the passing of the Boulangist threat, the republic appeared set upon a safer course in domestic politics, and Ribot paused only briefly before accepting his first ministerial portfolio. He realized that he would be eclipsed in the cabinet by the indispensable Freycinet as well as by Ernest Constans, minister of the interior, who had earned the reputation of political strong man for his role in harrying Boulanger into exile. Nor were these men Ribot’s political friends. His relationship with Freycinet was colored by the unhappy Egyptian crisis of 1882, although recently, serving as reporter for the 1889 budget, Ribot had supported the war minister’s program of military reform. This assistance, his opposition to Boulangism, and his leadership of the small band of centrists in the Chamber made Ribot attractive as moderate ballast in a cabinet dominated by old opportunists. Minister after twelve years in politics, Ribot finally received reward for his political evolution. Though the Journal des Débats refused to comment upon the appointment, Émile Boutmy spoke for his friends, observing that the decade-long decline of the left-center apparently made this political transaction necessary.1

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Notes

  1. Boutmy to Ribot, personal letter, n.d. [March 1890], Ribot MSS.

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  2. Ribot to Montebello, personal letter, 2 May 1890, AMAE, Ribot Papers.

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  3. Ribot to Waddington, personal letter, 6 May 1890, AMAE, Waddington Correspondence, vol. 5bis.

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  4. Waddington to Ribot, 9 May 1890, D. XXX, D.D.F., 1st ser., VIII, 78–81.

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  5. Lytton to Salisbury, 19 June 1890, T. 49, Great Britain, Public Record Office, Foreign Office, 27/3001.

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  6. Ribot to Waddington, personal letter, 2 July 1890, AMAE, Ribot Papers.

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  7. The idea of winning commercial freedom in Tunis from England came from Paul Leroy-Beaulieu who, even before 18 June, had recommended that France relinquish her Newfoundland fishing rights in exchange. Georges Picot, who had interests in Tunisian affairs, also pressed Ribot for a favorable solution (Picot to Ribot, personal letters, 11 and 18 June 1890; Ribot to Mme Ribot, personal letter, 18 June 1890, Ribot MSS).

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  8. Ribot to Waddington, personal letter, 28 June 1890, AMAE, Ribot Papers.

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  9. Francis Charmes to Ribot, personal letters, 25 and 26 August 1890, Ribot MSS.

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  10. Laboulaye to Ribot, 24 April 1890, D. 40, D.D.F., 1st ser., VIII, 59–61.

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  11. Ribot to Montebello, 10 July 1890, D. 219, AMAE, Correspondance politique, Turquie, 493, fols. 57–58.

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  12. Ribot to Mohrenheim, personal letter, [1 June 1890], AMAE, Ribot Papers.

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  13. Boisdeffre to Freycinet, 15/27 August 1890, memorandum, secret, D.D.F., 1st ser., VIII, 234–40.

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  14. Pierre de Boisdeffre, “Le général de Boisdeffre et Palliance franco-russe, 1890–1892,” Hommes et Mondes, IX (October 1954), 374.

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  15. Ribot to Laboulaye, 10 March 1891, T. 19, secret, D.D.F., 1st ser., VIII, 419.

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  16. Alexandre Ribot, “L’alliance franco-russe,” ed. Dr. Alexandre Ribot, Revue d’histoire de la guerre mondiale, XV (July 1937), 208.

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  17. Laboulaye to Ribot, personal letter, No. 2, 20 July 1891, D.D.F., 1st ser., VIII, 589–91.

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  18. Project of a note for the Russian government, 23 July 1891, AMAE, Russie, politique étrangère. Relations avec la France, négociations franco-russes, vol. 30 [new series], 54–57.

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  19. Ribot to Freycinet, personal letter, 6 August 1891, secret, D.D.F., 1st ser., VIII, 623–24.

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  20. Laboulaye to Ribot, 6 August 1891, T. 78, ibid., 624–25.

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  21. Ribot to Laboulaye, 7 August 1891, T. number lacking, very confidential, ibid., 630.

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  22. Freycinet to Ribot, personal letter, 9 August 1891, confidential and secret, ibid., 641–42; Ribot to Freycinet and Carnot, personal letters, 11 August 1891, ibid., 646–48.

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  23. Françoise Reverseau, “La presse parisienne et l’alliance franco-russe, 1891–1893” (unpublished thesis for Diplôme d’études supérieures, Faculté des Lettres, Université de Paris, 1956), p. 121.

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  24. Ribot to Waddington, personal letter, 8 August 1891, AMAE, Ribot Papers.

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  25. Ribot to Freycinet, personal letter, 11 August 1891, D.D.F., 1st ser., VIII, 646–47.

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  26. Le Temps, 28 September 1891, p. 1, cols. 3–4.

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  27. Ribot to Mohrenheim, personal letter, 27 August 1891, secret, D.D.F., 1st ser., VIII, 686–87.

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  28. Notes by Ribot, 20 and 21 November 1891, secret, D.D.F., 1st ser., IX, 109 and 111–14.

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  29. Ribot to Paul Cambon, 27 November 1891, T. 118, ibid., 121.

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  30. Ribot to Montebello, personal letter, 14 April 1892, AMAE, Ribot Papers.

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  31. Ribot to Montebello, personal letter, 4 February 1892, secret with annex, D.D.F., 1st ser., IX, 263–67.

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  32. Montebello to Ribot, 16 March 1892, T. 3, confidential and secret, ibid., 341.

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  33. Lefebvre de Béhaine to Charles Benoist, personal letter, 10 June 1892, Papiers de Charles Benoist, MSS, Institut de France, Paris, no. 4555. Confident in the status of Franco-Russian relations, Ribot chose this moment to press matters almost to the breaking point with Great Britain in an effort to resolve outstanding colonial issues. See below, p. 58.

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  34. Ribot to Montebello, personal letter, 8 July 1892, D.D.F., 1st ser., IX, 575–76.

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  35. Ribot to Montebello, personal letter, 22 July 1892, secret, ibid., 604–605.

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  36. Ibid.

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  37. Ribot to Montebello, 9 August 1892, T. number lacking; Ribot to Freycinet, personal letter, secret, 10 August 1892, D.D.F., 1st ser., IX, 638–39, 646.

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  38. Diary entry by Hanotaux, 23 August 1892, AMAE, Hanotaux Papers, Notes et souvenirs, vol. I: Journal, fol. 52.

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  39. Montebello to Ribot, 10 August 1892, T. number lacking, secret, D.D.F., 1st ser., IX, 643–44.

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  40. Journal des Débats, 9 August 1892, p. 1.

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  41. Waddington to Ribot, personal letter, 12 June 1892, AMAE, Ribot Papers. Waddington repeats verbal instructions from Ribot carried to him by Jules Jusserand, undersecretary at the Quai d’Orsay.

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  42. Henri Cambon (ed.), Paul Cambon: Correspondance, 1870–1924 (Paris: Éditions Bernard Grasset, 1940), 1, 355.

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  43. Ribot to Waddington, personal letters, 29 October and 9 November 1892, AMAE, Ribot Papers.

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  44. Lefebvre de Béhaine to Ribot, personal letter, 10 January 1891, Ribot MSS.

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  45. Memoir on the Panama scandal, Ribot MSS.

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  46. Ibid.

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  47. “Crises ministérielles, novembre-décembre 1892,” Ribot MSS.

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  48. Memoir on the Panama scandal, entry for 21 December 1892, Ribot MSS.

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  49. Speech by Ribot, Chamber of Deputies, 16 March 1893, An. Ch. Débats, session ordinaire de 1893, pp. 1224–25; Françoise Reverseau, “La presse parisienne et l’alliance francorusse, 1891–1893,” pp. 79–80.

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  50. DuBuit to Ribot, personal letter, 16 March 1893, Ribot MSS.

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  51. Journal des Débats, 12 February 1893, p. 1; Picot to Ribot, personal letter, 10 February 1893, Ribot MSS.

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  52. Journal des Débats, editorials by Francis Charmes, 3 and 31 March 1893.

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  53. Gabriel Hanotaux, journal entry, 1 April 1893, cited in Gabriel Jaray (ed.), “Garnets,” La Revue des Deux Mondes, 1 April 1949, p. 389.

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  54. Ribot to Montebello, personal letter, May 1893, D.D.F., 1st ser., X, 365–68.

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  55. Echo de Paris, 10 August 1893.

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  56. Le Mémorial artésien (St. Omer), 18 and 19 July 1893, 14 and 18 August 1893.

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  57. Ribot to Mme Ribot, personal letter, 5 March 1894, Ribot MSS.

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  58. Ribot to Mme Ribot, personal letter, 3 November 1893, Ribot MSS. The decline of the Journal des Débats confirmed Ribot’s assessment of the political situation, though the paper’s difficulties saddened him. The Débats had expanded to publish two issues daily at a time of failing readership, thereby compounding its financial problems (Ribot to Mme Ribot, personal letter, 27 January 1894, Ribot MSS). The death of editor Georges Patinot in 1895 further demoralized the staff.

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  59. Ribot to Mme Ribot, personal letter, 29 June 1894, Ribot MSS.

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  60. André Daniel, L’année politique: 1894 (Paris: G. Charpentier et Cie, 1895), pp. 238–240; Ribot to Mme Ribot, personal letter, 11 July 1894, Ribot MSS.

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  61. Speech by Ribot, Chamber of Deputies, 24 November 1894, An. Ch. Débats, session extraordinaire de 1894, PP. 447–449.

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  62. Reinach, Histoire de l’Affaire Dreyfus, Vol. I: Le procès de 1894 (Paris: Éditions de la Revue blanche, 1901), 561–562.

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  63. Chastenet, III, 78–79.

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  64. Speech by Ribot, Chamber of Deputies, 10 July 1894, An. Ch. Débats, session ordinaire de 1894, II, 788–795.

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  65. Speech by Ribot at Bordeaux, 11 May 1895, cited in Mémorial artésien, 14–15 May 1895; speech by Ribot, Chamber of Deputies, 29 June 1895, An. Ch. Débats, session ordinaire de 1895, II, 650–53.

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  66. Foissey to Ribot, personal letter, 28 January 1895, Ribot MSS; Dubar to Ribot, personal letters, 14 and 22 May 1895, Ribot MSS. Regional divisions on the alcohol question are discussed for a later period in Charles Warner, The Winegrowers of France and the government since 1875 (New York: Columbia University Press, 1960), pp. 33–36.

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  67. “Démonstration navale avec la Russie et l’Allemagne en 1895,” notes for 17–20 April 1895, Ribot MSS. French diplomacy and the Sino-Japanese War is discussed in Thomas Iiams Jr., Dreyfus, Diplomatists and the Dual Alliance: Gabriel Hanotaux at the Quai d’Orsay, 1894–1898 (Geneva: Librairie Droz, 1962), pp. 68–71 and passim.

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  68. “Démonstration navale avec la Russie et l’Allemagne en 1895,” note for 4 May 1895, Ribot MSS.

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  69. Hanotaux to Ribot, personal letter, 5 May 1895, Ribot MSS.

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  70. Ribot to Félix Faure, personal letter, copy, 22 August 1895, Ribot MSS.

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  71. Note for 29 October 1895, “Les souvenirs de Félix Faure,” Le Figaro littéraire, 16 January 1954, p. 5.

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Authors
  1. Martin E. Schmidt
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© 1974 Martinus Nijhoff, The Hague, Netherlands

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Schmidt, M.E. (1974). Ministerial Politics, 1890–1895. In: Alexandre Ribot. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-2067-1_3

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-010-2067-1_3

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Dordrecht

  • Print ISBN: 978-90-247-1639-5

  • Online ISBN: 978-94-010-2067-1

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