For two years longer the marshal held the reins of government, but he resigned on being required to sign a resolution changing the generals who commanded the four army corps.  “In a letter full of dignity,” says M. Gabriel Monod, “and which appeared quite natural on the part of a soldier more concerned for the interests of the army than for those of politics, he tendered his resignation.  The two Chambers met together, and in a single sitting, without noise or disturbance, M. Jules Grevy was elected, and proclaimed president of the French Republic for seven years.”

It is said that in 1830, when Charles X. published his ordinances and placarded his proclamation on the walls of Paris, a young law-student, who was tearing down one of them, was driven off with a kick by one of the king’s officers.  The officer was Patrice MacMahon; the law-student Jules Grevy.

M. Grevy was pre-eminently respectable.  He was born in the Jura mountains, Aug. 15, 1813.  His father was a small proprietor.  Diligence and energy rather than brilliancy distinguished the young Jules in his college career.  When his college life ended, he went up to Paris and studied for the Bar.  MacMahon’s kick roused his pugnacity.  He went home, took down an old musket, and joined the insurgents, leading an attack upon some barracks where the fighting was severe.  The Revolution having ended in a constitutional monarchy, he went into a lawyer’s office, and plodded on in obscurity for eighteen years.

In 1848 he rendered services to the Provisional Government, and the farmers of his district in the Jura elected him their deputy.  He went into the Chamber as an Advanced Republican, and voted for the banishment of the Orleans family, for a republic without a president, and for other extreme measures.  Before long he was elected vice-president of the Chamber.

Then came the Empire, and M. Grevy went back to his law-books.  He and his brother must have prospered at the Bar, for in 1851 they had houses in Paris, in which after the coup d’etat Victor Hugo and his friends lay concealed.

When the emperor attempted constitutional reforms, in 1869, Grevy was again elected deputy from the Jura.  He acted with dignity and moderation, though he voted always with the advanced party.  Gambetta he personally disliked, having an antipathy to his dictatorial ways.  When the National Assembly met at Bordeaux to decide the fate of France, Grevy was made its Speaker, or president; but when the coup d’etat in favor of Henri V. was meditated, he was got rid of beforehand, after he had presided for two turbulent years over an Assembly distracted and excited.  Everyone respected M. Grevy.  There was very little of the typical Frenchman in his composition.  He was of middle height, rather stout, with a large bald, well-shaped head.  He was no lover of society, but was a diligent worker, and his favorite amusements were billiards and the humble game of dominoes.  His wife was the good woman suited to such a husband; but his daughter, his only child, was considered by Parisian society pretentious and a blue-stocking.  She married, after her father’s elevation to the presidency, M. Daniel Wilson, a Frenchman, in spite of his English name.  M. Grevy’s Eli-like toleration of the sins of his daughter’s husband caused his overthrow.