ABSTRACT
In 1888, the six deputies, the two senators, the majority of the counseillers généraux of Meurthe-et-Moselle and a large number of mayors, including the mayor of Nancy, as opportunist members of the Alliance Républicaine, won 52 per cent of the votes at the legislative elections of 1885, against 5 per cent for the radicals and 39 per cent for the conservatives/reactionaries. They represented a current of opinion that was at the same time republican, patriotic and moderate. But their dominant position was shaken by the dissidence of part of their electorate and by the formation of an antiministerial coalition, directed first by extreme left-wing revisionists, then by so-called ‘nationalist’ or ‘national’ right-wingers.
