Affair of the Cards

These secret documents were preferred by General André to the official reports of the military command; this allowed him to set up a system whereby the advancement of republican, masonic and "free-thinking" officers was ensured and those who were identified as nationalist, Catholic or suspected to be sympathetic to any of the various strands of royalism would be hampered.

[1][2] Also, since the beginning of the Dreyfus affair — even since the Boulangist crisis — the right had begun to embrace nationalism and the defense of the Army, while the left placed itself under the banner of an anticlericalism informed by Continental Freemasonry and — at least in part — anti-military sentiment.

The attempt of the poet Paul Déroulède who, betting on the anti-Republican sentiments of the Army, tried unsuccessfully to tried to encourage General Gaudérique Roget [fr]'s troops to march on the Élysée Palace during Félix Faure's funeral on 23 February 1899, made the republicans fear for the worst.

Also, the "government of Republican Defense" of Pierre Waldeck-Rousseau and then the cabinet of Émile Combes (himself a Freemason,[4][5] belonging to the Grand Orient de France)[6] sought to entrench the regime by proceeding with a "purification" of any institutions which were considered anti-Dreyfusard, the foremost target among which was the Army.

The system set up by André outraged part of the hierarchy, including General Hippolyte Langlois, who said in the Revue des Deux Mondes:[18] [It is established] in each army corps, lists containing all the candidates who meet the legal conditions for advancement by choice.

[17] On 20 June 1902, in a circular addressed to the prefects, Combes summed up the action he intended to take in the public service: “Your duty requires you to reserve the favors you have available only to those of your citizens who have given unequivocal proof of loyalty to republican institutions.

[25] In July 1902, an incident linked to Freemasonry allowed them to settle their quarrel: the commander of the military school of Flèche, Lieutenant-Colonel Terme, being the subject of intrigues, Captain Humbert — in charge of the direction of the Infantry — conducted an investigation, entrusted to General Castex.

In instances where the "suspect" professed to be apolitical or the reporting Freemason was unable to pin down his political beliefs categorically, a number of derisory personal notes which pointed against the individual were indicated, such as "Attends the Mass", "Has his children educated by religious brothers",[28] "Reactionary and convinced Catholic",[29] "Made a fool of himself four years ago when he fell to his knees in the passage of a procession",[30] "When you have such a name (in particular), you cannot be a Republican",[31] "Close friend of the Bishop", "Accepted three years ago to represent a titled Lieutenant in a duel with the editor of a republican newspaper”, “Gathered at his table a Capuchin following the closure of the convent of Castres”[32] or in defense as “Devoted to the government”.

[49][50] A minority thesis — defended in particular by Pierre Chevallier — claims that Bidegain (godson of Mgr Odelin), was from the very start a Catholic sleeper agent of the Archdiocese of Paris, infiltrating the General Secretariat of the Grand Orient de France, to monitor the activities of the freemasons.

[8] Guyot de Villeneuve returned to the fray, providing material proof of General André's personal responsibility: producing a document initialed by him making explicit reference to the Grand Orient intelligence reports.

[63] The revelation of the card system shook traditional France in the provinces and stirred up popular sentiment against the "cardists": important incidents and quarrels occurred in nearly forty departments, as people who were personally attacked in the reports were outraged, seeking regress and those who were offended for religious reasons at the attempt to exclude French Catholics from participation in their national Army.

In La Roche-sur-Yon, in January 1905, Lieutenant-Colonel Visdeloup de Bonamour sued Stéphane Guillemé, mayor of the town, Worshipful Master of the Masonic Lodge and author of numerous files on individuals within his regiment.

Nevertheless, the radical newspaper Le Réveil du Nord having published the Avon files had asked Debierre to intervene in favor of his career as well as that of his father, the moderate conservative circles did not take sides with the two soldiers, whose conduct they did not approve of.

"; finally, the Revue des Deux Mondes published on 15 October an anonymous pamphlet entitled Le Ministère perpetuel, authored by the deputy Charles Benoist [fr], member of the Republican Federation:[74] [The government] punishes and rewards citizens and boroughs, depending on whether they voted "well" or "badly".

Eager to provoke the fall of the entire cabinet and not the only resignation of the minister, Loubet argues that it is impossible to separate the government from André in view of the insult he had received and that this would prove the Groupe républicain nationaliste [fr] right.

Finally, hoping to save his government, Combes forced André to resign on 15 November, without compensation — he was, in the words of Georges Clemenceau, “Turkish strangled”,[75] and replaced with Maurice Berteaux, a rising star of the Radical Party, a Freemason and also on good terms with President Loubet.

Indignant by this disavowal and attempt to make him the scapegoat for the affair, Captain Mollin withdrew his resignation — which had not yet been published in the Journal officiel de la République française — and sent a letter to Berteaux asking to appear before a board of inquiry.

But the Minister of Public Education Joseph Chaumié, feeling the turning tide and wishing to place himself in a future government, broke with this by reprimanding Gaumant, a teacher from the high school of Gap who denounced officers while trying to concealing his handwriting; the latter was exiled to the lycée in Tournon-sur-Rhône.

[77] At the same time as these pressures on the government, the Grand Orient resumed the offensive: on 23 November, Grand Master Louis Lafferre gave an interview to the newspaper Le Matin in which he affirmed that the obedience as a whole was not informed of the registration and called for a purification directed against the right: "It remains to be seen whether democracy, some day tired of being badly served or betrayed, will not seek to see clearly in its affairs and will not take the broom of the great days, without worrying about the hierarchical path or the virtue of parliamentarians, but only the purification of civil servants, which has been promised to him for thirty years, and which we claim to do without his assistance”.

[84] Following the incident of 4 November, Gabriel Syveton was prosecuted for his physical attack on the Minister of War; his friends, eager to make his trial a platform against the government, voted with the majority of deputies in favor of lifting his parliamentary immunity.

Individual complaints had already been addressed to the Grand Chancellor of the Legion of Honor, General Georges-Auguste Florentin [fr], but Combes had endeavored to cover the first legionaries incriminated, including Paul Ligneul, mayor of Le Mans.

To do this, Guyot de Villeneuve tabled a bill to set up a military commission in order to obtain career upgrades for the officers targeted by the denunciation, but the Minister of War refused, promising only to examine individual cases.

Ultimately, the second wave of publication of the cards was a political failure; the deputy was accused of "repeating old stories" and failed to influence the all important 1906 French legislative election, dominated by the question of the separation of Church and State.

In September 1906, Mollin received from the government the post of treasurer of Upper Senegal and Niger, his Freemason protectors Lafferre, Desmons, Auguste Delpech [fr] and his ex-father-in-law Anatole France having made use of their influence.

During the same session, he recommended that the left place politics above morality: “Republicans will say whether, at this dark and formidable hour that the destinies of this world are going through, it is appropriate to overthrow a government which has known how to keep the peace, and to indulge in all Caesareans, entrepreneurs of war and adventure […].

[117] Access to the rank of general notably requires sponsors in the republican political class – this is the case of Joseph Joffre, supported in his career by Eugène Étienne, Albert Sarraut and Arthur Huc [fr].

On 12 December 1911, he sent a circular to the prefects in which he wrote:[121] From now on, you will kindly send me, every six months, on the dates of 1 April and 1 October, through the intermediary of the President of the Council, Minister of the Interior, a detailed report on the officers in garrison in your department who, by public acts or a well-known general attitude, would have lacked the political correctness and loyalty that the Government of the Republic is entitled to demand of them.

[124] Republicanism, if it become a de facto majority among the officers, should not negate the fact that the affair of the files and its association with "the Republic," marked the resurgence of a strong current of conservative, Catholic, anti-Jewish and nationalist opinion, close to Action Française.

Nevertheless, due to the lack of officers firmly committed to the regime, the ministry also had to fill positions of responsibility with personalities known for their Catholic or "reactionary" convictions[126] — such as the future generals Charles Lanrezac, Louis Franchet d'Espèrey and Émile Fayolle[127] —, choices he made based on their military skill.

[119] Other Catholic officers who distinguished themselves in the Great War saw their advancement hampered, such as General Édouard de Castelnau – nicknamed the “booted Capuchin” by the anticlericals – or the future Marshal Ferdinand Foch – whose brother was a Jesuit.