For his great services in bending all the powers of France to this great financial feat, Thiers was universally acclaimed as the Liberator of the Territory.
Yet that very same period saw him overthrown.

To read this riddle aright, we must review the outlines of French internal politics.

We have already referred to the causes that sent up a monarchical majority to the National Assembly, the schisms that weakened the action of that majority, and the peculiar position held by M.Thiers, an Orleanist in theory, but the chief magistrate of the French Republic.

No more paradoxical situation has ever existed; and its oddity was enhanced by the usually clear-cut logicality of French political thought.

Now, after the war and the Commune, the outlook was dim, even to the keenest sight.
One thing alone was clear, the duty of all citizens to defer raising any burning question until law, order, and the national finances were re-established.