Alexander Sedgwick presents an intensive examination of the political problems confronting French Royalists, Catholics, and conservative Republicans in their attempt to form a conservative party, within the framework of the Republic, in the decade dominated by the Panama Scandal and the Dreyfus Affair. Basing his analysis on unpublished papers and contemporary newspapers, pamphlets, and reviews often neglected in studies of the period, the author demonstrates that the failure of the movement can be traced to endemic French political attitudes, and that the Ralliement has significant historical implications which have not been generally recognized.

This is a study of the Ralliement, which according to Sedgwick, was not simply a reconciliation between French Catholics and the republic in response to the admonitions of the Pope, but was an attempt on the part of some French Royalists, Bonapartists, and Opportunists to form a broad, conservative party that would abandon fruitless monarchist aims, work for more harmonious relations between Church and state, curb the growth of socialism, and endeavor to solve the economic and social problems of the day… This study adds to our understanding of the complex political forces of the Ralliement and the reasons for its failure.
-- American Historical Review