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Defeated in the département of the Seine<!-- which elections? February 1871? -->, he sat for the [[Marne (department)|Marne]] in the National Assembly, and resumed the portfolio of Education in the first cabinet of [[Adolphe Thiers]]'s presidency. He advocated free primary education yet sought to conciliate the clergy by all the means in his power; but no concessions removed the hostility of [[Félix Dupanloup|Dupanloup]], who presided over the commission appointed to consider his draft of an elementary education bill. The reforms he was actually able to carry out were concerned with secondary education. He encouraged the study of living languages, and limited the attention given to the making of [[Latin]] verse; he also encouraged independent methods at the École Normale, and set up a school at Rome where members of the French school of [[Athens]] should spend some time.
He retained office until a week before the fall of
His clerical enemies then induced [[Patrice Maurice de Mac-Mahon|Marshal MacMahon]] to take advantage of a vote on the press law carried in Jules Simon's absence from the Chamber to write him a letter regretting that he no longer preserved his influence in the Chamber, and thus practically demanding his resignation. His resignation in response to this act of the president, known as the "[[Seize Mai]]", which he might have resisted by an appeal to the Chamber, proved his ruin, and he never again held office. He justified his action by his fear of providing an opportunity for a ''coup d'état'' on the part of the Marshal. However, the May 1877 crisis eventually ended in MacMahon's demise and in the victory of the Republicans over the monarchist [[Orleanist]]s and [[Legitimist]]s.
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