Resigning office, he was sent as Royal Commissioner to Bari in May 1898, where, without recourse to martial law, he succeeded in restoring public order suppressing street demonstrations demanding "bread and work". Upon the fall of Rudinì in June 1898, after the Bava-Beccaris massacre, General Pelloux was entrusted by King Umberto with the formation of a new government, and took for himself the post Prime Minister and Minister of the Interior. He resigned office in May 1899 over his Chinese policy, but was again entrusted with the formation of a government. His new cabinet was essentially military and conservative, the most decisively conservative since 1876.