Patrice de Mac-Mahon, the only monarchist President of the Third Republic, respectful of the legal forms of power, served under all regimes until the Third Republic.

Born into Irish family settled in France since the XVII^th century, he trained at Saint Cyr (1827), and was promoted to Major General (1852). Having acquitted himself with valour in Algeria, Mac-Mahon entered into legend on the 8^th of September 1855, when he led the assault on the Malakoff bastion, forcing the Russians to abandon Sebastopol. He earned for himself the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour and an appointment as Senator in 1856. Having made him the Duke of Magenta and Marshal of France in 1859, Napoleon III appointed him Governor General of Algeria (1864-1870).

Recalled in 1870 and placed at the head of the 1^st corps of the Rhine army, Mac-Mahon was wounded and made prisoner at Sedan. Freed soon after, he was placed at the head of the Versailles army by Thiers, and his repression of the Commune ensured him the regard of the conservative members of the Assembly.

After the fall of Thiers, the conservative royalist majority chose him to be President of the Republic (24^th of May 1873). But, after the adoption of republican constitutional laws, he proclaimed the dissolution of the Assembly (1877). The elections of October 1877 gave the majority to the Republicans once more, and he had no choice but to "submit or resign" (Gambetta). He did both, submitting to the republican Dufaure Government and then resigning after the senatorial elections of January 1879.