The deputy was at first uneasy about these pious practices, which were ridiculed by the demagogic newspapers, but he was soon reassured, for he saw all around him democratic leaders joyfully becoming reconciled to the aristocracy and the Church.

They found that they had reached one of those periods (which often recur) when advance had been carried a little too far.  Hippolyte Ceres gave a moderate support to this view.  His policy was not a policy of persecution but a policy of tolerance.  He had laid its foundations in his splendid speech on the preparations for reform.  The Prime Minister was looked upon as too advanced.  He proposed schemes which were admitted to be dangerous to capital, and the great financial companies were opposed to him.  Of course it followed that the papers of all views supported the companies.  Seeing the danger increasing, the Cabinet abandoned its schemes, its programme, and its opinions, but it was too late.  A new administration was already ready.  An insidious question by Paul Visire which was immediately made the subject of a resolution, and a fine speech by Hippolyte Ceres, overthrew the Cabinet.

The President of the Republic entrusted the formation of a new Cabinet to this same Paul Visire, who, though still very young, had been a Minister twice.  He was a charming man, spending much of his time in the green-rooms of theatres, very artistic, a great society man, of amazing ability and industry.  Paul Visire formed a temporary ministry intended to reassure public feeling which had taken alarm, and Hippolyte Ceres was invited to hold office in it.

The new ministry, belonging to all the groups in the majority, represented the most diverse and contrary opinions, but they were all moderate and convinced conservatives.* The Minister of Foreign Affairs was retained from the former cabinet.  He was a little dark man called Crombile, who worked fourteen hours a day with the conviction that he dealt with tremendous questions.  He refused to see even his own diplomatic agents, and was terribly uneasy, though he did not disturb anybody else, for the want of foresight of peoples is infinite and that of governments is just as great.

* As this ministry exercised considerable influence upon the destinies of the country and of the world, we think it well to give its composition:  Minister of the Interior and Prime Minister, Paul Visire; Minister of Justice, Pierre Bouc; Foreign Affairs, Victor Crombile; Finance, Terrasson; Education, Labillette; Commerce, Posts and Telegraphs, Hippolyte Ceres; Agriculture, Aulac; Public Works, Lapersonne; War, General Debonnaire; Admiralty, Admiral Vivier des Murenes.

The office of Public Works was given to a Socialist, Fortune Lapersonne.  It was then a political custom and one of the most solemn, most severe, most rigorous, and if I may dare say so, the most terrible and cruel of all political customs, to include a member of the