The president was popular in the rural districts of France, but in Paris and other large cities the Republican party were alienated by press prosecutions and the attempted suppression of Republi can ideas. Matters were at a comparative deadlock in the Na tional Assembly, until the accession of some Orleanists to the Moderate Republican party in 1875 made it possible to pass various constitutional laws. In May 1877 the constitutional crisis became acute. A peremptory letter of censure from MacMahon to Jules Simon caused the resignation of the ministry. The duc de Broglie formed a cabinet, but Gambetta carried a resolution in the Chamber of Deputies in favour of parliamentary government. The president declined to yield, and being supported by the Senate, he dissolved the Chamber, by decree, on June 25. The prosecution of Gambetta followed for a speech at Lille, in which he had said, "the marshal must, if the elections be against him, se soumettre ou se demettre." In a manifesto respecting the elections, the president declared : "I cannot obey the injunctions of the dema gogy; I can neither become the instrument of Radicalism nor abandon the post in which the constitution has placed me." But the elections in October resulted in the return of 335 Re publicans and only 198 anti-Republicans, the latter including 30 MacMahonists, 89 Bonapartists, 41 Legitimists, and 38 Orleanists.
As a last resort the president called to power an extra-parlia mentary cabinet under General Rochebouet, but the Republican majority refused to vote supplies, and after a brief interval Mac Mahon had to accept a new Republican ministry under Dufaure. The prolonged crisis terminated on Dec. 14, 1877, and no further constitutional difficulties arose in 1878. But as the senatorial elec tions, held early in 1879, gave the Republicans an effective work ing majority in the Upper Chamber, they now called for the re moval of the most conspicuous anti-Republicans among the gen erals and officials. MacMahon resigned the presidency on Jan. 30, 1879, and Jules Grevy was elected as his successor.
MacMahon now retired into private life. He died at Paris on Oct. 17, 1893. A fine, tall, soldierly man, of a thoroughly Irish type, in private life MacMahon was universally esteemed as generous and honourable ; as a soldier he was brave and able, without decided military genius; as a politician he was patriotic and well-intentioned, but with no real statecraft.