Chapter 8: “The Third Republic: Semaine Sanglante to the First World War”

1. What is the difference established by the author between Paris and the French provinces?
2. Describe, very briefly, the war between France and Prussia. 
3. The proclamation of the New German Empire takes place in Versailles. What were the consequences of this ceremony?
4. Why did Bismarck insist on elections in France?
5. What was the nature of the new Assembly established in Versailles?
6. What is the Commune? 
7. What happened during the Semaine Sanglante?
8. Why does the author refer to la Commune as “an embarrassing family secret” for France?
9. What was Marx’s opinion about la Commune? 
10. Why did the model of the Commune fail?
11. When does the Third Republic, formally, start? 
12. What were the changes in education proposed by Jules Ferry?
13. Who were the impressionists? Can you relate this tendency in painting to the invention of photography?
14. Explain the “Panama scandal” (1892). Why does it pave the way for the “affair Dreyfus”?
15. Explain the “affair Dreyfus.” 
16. Why does the author describe a social division “overlaid by religious or anti-clerical beliefs...polarized by a troubled century of post-revolutionary history”? (page 142).
17.  What is the new concept of “nationalism” emerging during these years? (page 142).
18. When does France become, formally, a secular republic?
19. Why does Germany emerge, once again, as a menacing power?
20. What is the “entente cordiale”?