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| Jules Grévy |
François Paul Jules Grévy was a President of the French Third Republic and one of the leaders of the Opportunist Republicans faction. Given that his predecessors were monarchists who tried without success to restore the French monarchy, Grévy is seen as the first real republican President of France.
Jules Grévy looked like just the man for the job. A man of sober and modest tastes, he had served many years in the Chamber of Deputies and was, by all accounts, a well-respected, if unremarkable parliamentarian. That he was elected to the presidency on January 30th 1879 with support from all sides surprised no-one. His commitment to republican ideals was, however, beyond question, and once in office, he immediately acted to ensure that the presidency could never again be used as a bridge to the re-establishment of the monarchy. Declaring himself a servant of the people’s will, he abandoned the president’s right to dissolve parliament, leading Léon Gambetta to observe that France had finally become a ‘true’ Republic. It was on October 7th 1887 – barely two years into his second term – that Grévy’s otherwise exemplary standing was brought to ruin. On that morning, the gossip-loving Parisian press implicated Daniel Wilson – the president’s son-in-law – in a corruption scandal that struck at the heart of Grévy’s administration. In return for huge bribes intended to fund his own business ventures, Wilson had been using his influence at the Élysée Palace to procure decorations (especially various grades of the Légion d’honneur) for prominent individuals. Worse still, it was revealed that Wilson – who was himself a deputy for Indre-et-Loire – had a number of highly-placed accomplices, including at least one general, and had conducted his nefarious deals in two well-known brothels. Honest to a fault, Grévy himself had not been directly involved in the scandale des décorations. But despite his steadfast refusal to accept responsibility for something he had not done, he could not escape the fall-out. Under mounting pressure from Jules Ferry and Georges Clemenceau – past and future prime ministers of France – Grévy had no option but to resign, leaving the Republic he had worked so hard to defend looking little better than a market for self-interested horse-trading at the public expense.
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