 Some idealistic students, politicians and dissidents were inspired by the founding of the French Third Republic in 1870 and hoped that a similar regime could be installed in Portugal.The intellectual style was heavily middle-class and urban, and hardly concealed its cultural mimicry of the French Republic.Most of the Republican leadership were from the same generation; many were the best-educated in the country and were heavily influenced by the French positivist Comte and the socialist Proudhon.