Calamitous experiences had made it cautious.

Freedom and anarchy had so often been mistaken for each other, it was learning to move slowly, not by leaps and bounds as heretofore.
Gambetta, the republican leader, once so fiery, had also grown cautious.

A patriot and a statesman, he was the one man who seemed to possess the genius required by the conditions and the time, and also the kind of magnetism which would draw together and crystallize the scattered elements of his party.
It was the stimulus imparted by Gambetta which made the government at last republican in fact as well as in name; and as reactionary sentiment increased on the surface, a republican sentiment was all the time gathering in volume and strength below.
The death of the prince imperial, in 1879, in South Africa, was a severe blow to the imperialists, as the Bonapartists were also called, who were now represented by Prince Victor, the son of Prince Napoleon.
Although these rival princes occupied a large place upon the stage, other matters had the attention of the government of France, which moved calmly on.

The establishing of a formal protectorate over Algeria belongs to this period.
Ever since the reign of Louis XIV.

the hand of France had held Algeria with more or less success.