After 1870 the military debate remained closely aligned to the character of the state and reflected the sharp divisions within the French political class. France was now finally a republic, a regime whose identity would evolve until, within a decade, it was defined not only by constitutional rules and a juridical system, but, in Maurice Agulhon's words, by ‘a complex set of values’ that were subject to ‘opposing interpretations and rival passions’. At the heart of these lay a republican ideal of citizenship, a male, secular citizenship rooted in universal suffrage and in revolutionary concepts of liberty and equality before the law. But it was an ideal that could not be achieved overnight. From its faltering beginnings in national defeat in September 1870, the Third Republic was a desperately insecure regime, fighting off the ambitions of both monarchists and Bonapartists as it groped to create new institutions and establish its legitimate authority. It was a task made all the harder by the recent bloodletting of the Commune, which led to widespread fear of disorder and antagonisms between Paris and the French provinces. Politics became polarised between the Right and Left, until in 1873 France came close to seeing the restoration of the monarchy, as an alliance of monarchists and conservative republicans seized the initiative and elected Marshal Patrice MacMahon, the military commander who had suppressed the Communards, to the presidency.