During this time, the Moderate Republicans were also divided in two groups, namely the Sleeping Republicans (active until the February Revolution) and the Morning-after Republicans that opportunistically endorsed the new regime. The latter were the Legitimists who hated the OrléanistJuly Monarchy and the Catholics who suffered until the Louis Philippe I's restrictions.[1] After the 1848 election, the Moderate Republicans became the majority in the National Assembly, but this group was composed mainly of Morning-after Republicans with a temporary union.[3]
The internal conflict in the Moderate Republicans caused a division regarding the official candidate between Cavaignac and Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, but at the end chose to support Cavaignac. Bonaparte's victory in the presidential election of 1848 signalled the end of the Moderate Republicans government.[4] The legislative elections of 1849 brought the Moderate Republicans' isolation as they obtained only 75 seats, down from 600 the previous year, losing to the conservative Party of Order. The disown was massive.[1]
Under the Second Empire
After 1849, the main opponents of the now commonly named Republicans were the Catholic Church, for its counter-revolutionary and reactionary ideas. However, Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte was a strong supporter of clericalism and the Concordat of 1801. In this time, the Republicans and the Bonapartists started a bitter rivalry. After the coup d'état of 1851 and the proclamation of the Second French Empire, Napoleon III (the official title of Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte) repressed the Republicans, with 239 being imprisoned to Cayenne and 6,000 of 10,000 people interned in military camps in Algeria while some were guillotined or sentenced to house arrest in France. At the end, around 1,500 Republicans like Victor Hugo were exiled from France. Despite the amnesty of 15 August 1859, some exiled Republicans never returned to France (like Hugo, former Montagnard Ledru-Rollin, Louis Blanc and Armand Barbès). Hugo coined the expression "When liberty returns, I will return".
With the weakening of the French Empire, the Republicans returned to the political scene and took advantage of the liberal laws of 1868 and some diplomatic difficulties. They became the official opposition group with the Léon Gambetta's Belleville Agenda of 1869 based on radical, progressive, laicist and reformist goals. In the final years of the French Empire, the Republicans were divided in three factions:
The Moderates like Émile Ollivier that accepted Napoleon III's rule and the French Empire's ideas.
The Pragmatics, de jure aligned with the Empire, but de facto its enemies.
The Close Left, whom refused to vow loyalty to the French Empire and checked out of the political scene.
