ABSTRACT
The extension of the parliamentary suffrage to the urban masses conceded by the Act of 1867 looked very threatening for the Conservative party. The boroughs, which had always been the stronghold of Liberalism, were now about to throw the counties definitively into the shade. Popular Toryism was in fact the bridge which Disraeli built for himself when he passed from Radicalism to Conservatism at the beginning of his career. Throwing in his lot with the latter, he set to work to clear Toryism, in his own mind, from the stigma of being the reactionary party which was generally held to attach to it. "The National Union of Conservative and Constitutional Associations" exhibited just as little vitality, its annual meetings were dull and insignificant. The profound calm of the early years of the Tory administration was followed by the Eastern question, which made the whole country hang on the doings of Disraeli.
