Word: coup
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Dates: during 1870-1879
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...minister does not always appoint the best men, but those who come to him the most strongly recommended, or those whose ideas are most conformable to his own. These professors - modest men, a truly honorable body - thus find themselves, in some sort, public functionaries. In 1852, after the coup d'etat of December, they were required to swear allegiance to the Empire. Certain of them, either because they had already sworn allegiance to the Republic, or because their sense of justice and morality was shocked by an illegal act, refused to swear allegiance to a government sprung from a violation...