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THE STATESMEN SERIES.
EDITED BY LLOYD C. SANDERS.
GAMBETTA.
[All Rights Reserved.]
THE STATESMEN SERIES.
LIFE OF
LÉON GAMBETTA.
BY
Clic
Art
FRANK T. MARZIALS.
LONDON:
W. H. ALLEN & CO., 13 WATERLOO PLACE.
PALL MALL. S.W.
1890.
***
LONDON:
PRINTED BY W. H. ALLEN & Co., 13 WATERLOO PLACE,
PALL MALL. S.W.
PREFATORY NOTE.
GAMBETTA's earlier public life, till the end of the Franco-
German war, lies, as one may say, in the regions of
pure history, and offers comparatively few difficulties
to the biographer. Whether he was right in endea-
vouring to overturn the Empire, and afterwards in
so desperately resisting the German invasion-these
are points on which a fairly complete judgment can
already be formed. But when once the debatable
land between history and politics has been reached,
when once the biographer begins to deal with that
part of the great Tribune's life which was spent in
breaking down the opposition of the reactionary
Monarchists, and endeavouring to found a strong
and permanent Republic, then difficulties increase a
hundred-fold. It is not merely that the materials
relating to the later events are less abundant. It is
that those materials are of a less trustworthy
character-the newspaper as against the book, the
biassed personal impression as against the sober
recorded fact. It is, especially, that the fight in which
Gambetta took so keen a part during the last twelve
years of his career is not yet fought out; that, though
he has fallen, the battle is still full of confused noise,
316230
*
vi
PREFATORY NOTE.
and dim with smoke and dust, and the final issue
only matter of conjecture.
In the following pages it has been my object to
remove Gambetta, as far as possible, even with regard
to his later life, out of the strife of politics, and to look
at him historically. No one can now tell whether the
Republic, which he did more than any other man to
found, will prove to be France's ultimate form of
Government; neither can anyone tell whether the
political principles which he advocated with such
passion, and, as far as their essence was concerned,
so consistently, will ultimately prove beneficial to
mankind, or the reverse. But already it is possible to
form a dispassionate, and, I think, almost final judg-
ment, as to what the man himself really meant, as
to the objects he had in view, as to the degree of
rectitude and patriotism with which he pursued those
objects, as to the place he holds among orators and
statesmen. To help the reader to form such a judg-
ment has been my endeavour in this volume. What
the French call "reportage "-the anecdotes, the per-
sonalities, the scandal that in these days of publicity
gather round a great public man-I have pretty
resolutely eschewed. The figure of Gambetta is,
and will ever remain, a great historical figure, and
as such I have tried to treat it.
It would be tedious, as it is quite unnecessary, to
enumerate all the books, reviews, and newspaper
articles consulted in the process of writing this
little volume. Four Lives of Gambetta are now be-
fore me: one, Gambetta, 1869-1879, published anony-
mously in 1879, and therefore incomplete, as having
appeared three years before his death; a second, Le
Grand Patriote Gambetta, by M. Alfred Barbou, pub-
PREFATORY NOTE.
vii
lished shortly after Gambetta's death; a third, Gam-
betta, sa Vie, ses Idées politiques, by M. Émile
Neucastel, published in 1885; a fourth, Le Grand
Patriote, by M. Edmond Deschaumes, published last
year. None of these can be considered final. The
two last, however, may be read with interest.
But the work that must ever retain its place as a
standard authority on Gambetta's public life is the
excellent edition of his Speeches, published, in eleven
large volumes, by M. Joseph Reinach. This work
was begun before Gambetta's death, and completed
in 1885. It contains all, or very nearly all, his
speeches, accompanied, in each case, by such com-
ments as are necessary to explain the circumstances
under which the speech was delivered; and it contains
also several of his early articles, a detailed medical
account of his last illness and death, and a full record
of the funeral honours paid to his memory. M.
Reinach, who was one of Gambetta's friends, and
has remained one of his most devoted disciples, has
also published a large and important volume, Le
Ministère Gambetta, Histoire et Doctrine; and further,
a collection of his Despatches, Circulars, Decrees,
Proclamations, and Discourses during the war.
Gambetta's part in the great struggle between
France and Germany has been judged from a Ger-
man point of view, but with great equity, and one
may even say in a very sympathetic spirit, by Baron
Colmar von der Goltz, in Gambetta und seine Armeen,
of which there is a French translation.
Beyond this I do not know that I need extend my
catalogue very much. The curious reader will find a
good deal relating to Gambetta in the later volumes
of M. Taxile Delord's History of the Second Empire,
viii
PREFATORY NOTE.
and may also consult with advantage M. Jules
Simon's three books, entitled respectively, Origine et
Chute du Second Empire, Le Gouvernement de la
Défense Nationale, and Le Gouvernement de M. Thiers.
But if I once begin to enumerate the works, relating
to the period of the war, in which mention is made of
Gambetta and his doings-such, for instance, as
Jules Favre's Gouvernement de la Défense Nationale,
and M. de Freycinet's La Guerre en Province-I shall
soon exceed all bounds.
The only review articles, among the very many I
have seen, that seem to call for special mention are
two articles by the Marquis de Castellane in the
Nouvelle Revue for the 1st and 15th of November
1888, entitled “Essais de Psychologie politique, Gam-
betta." These are remarkable as being an honest
attempt, on the part of an erewhile opponent, to really
analyse Gambetta's teaching, and estimate the value
of his influence.
F. T. M.
CONTENTS.
A press trial under the Empire-Occasion thereof-The Coup d'Etat-
Baudin killed on the barricades-The Empire falls into the sere
and yellow leaf-Interest in Baudin revived-Demonstration over
his grave-Subscription started for a monument-Government
determine to prosecute newspapers publishing subscription lists
-Trial on 13th and 14th of November 1868-Speech of a young
advocate — Immense sensation caused thereby - That young
advocate Léon Gambetta
p. 1
J
CHAPTER I.
THE BAUDIN TRIAL.
1868.
•
CHAPTER II.
EARLY LIFE.
1838-1868.
Parentage Birth Cahors - Childhood
- Loses one of his eyes-
Becomes a law student in Paris-Student life-Enabled by his
aunt's generosity to start as an advocate in Paris-Life in Paris-
Turns to Politics rather than Law-Contributes to Revue poli-
tique et littéraire-Chosen as advocate for Delescluse in the
Baudin trial
p. 13
•
CHAPTER III.
AN IRRECONCILABLE OPPONENT OF THE EMPIRE.
1868-1870.
Parties in France in 1868-Gambetta takes his place among the
extreme Republicans-Offered a seat at Marseilles-Then in
Paris-Programme of his political opinions-Elected in Paris at
the head of the poll in May 1869-And also at Marseilles-
b
X
CONTENTS.
Chooses to sit for Marseilles-Will the Empire attempt to líberalise
itself?-Gambetta falls into momentary unpopularity-Forma-
tion of the Ollivier Ministry-M. Ollivier-His aims-Radical
unsoundness of the Empire-Meeting of the Corps Législatif in
January 1870-A debate in which Gambetta intervenes-He
declares himself an irreconcilable opponent of the Empire-
Death of Victor Noir-His funeral-Gambetta defends M. Roche-
fort in the Chamber-His attitude throughout the Session-
Opposes the Plébiscite-Arguments on incompatibility of Uni-
versal Suffrage and Monarchy-" Banquet of Youth "-Proroga-
tion of Chamber
p. 28
CHAPTER IV.
COMMENCEMENT OF THE WAR AND FALL OF THE
EMPIRE.
+
1870.
Incidents preceding the war-Responsibility for the war-The Hohen-
zollern incident-Meeting of the Corps Législatif on the 15th of
July 1870-Gambetta exhorts the Chamber to pause-The Minis-
try refuses to produce despatches-Inferiority of France in arms
and statecraft-When once the war is declared, Gambetta votes
supplies-Defeat of the French-Chambers meet on 9th of
August-Gambetta foresees ruin-The Emperor marches north-
ward to Sedan-Where he is caught in a trap-News of capitula-
tion of Sedan received in Paris-Meeting of the Chamber-The
4th of September-Gambetta tries to induce the mob to keep
order while the members deliberate-The Chamber invaded-
Proclamation of the Republic at the Hôtel de Ville-New
Ministry-Gambetta Minister of the Interior-Estimate of his
conduct during preceding events
p. 52
CHAPTER V.
·
MINISTER OF THE INTERIOR AND DICTATOR.
•
1870-1871.
Terrible situation confronting new Ministry-Gambetta wishes Minis-
try to leave Paris-He himself leaves on the 7th of October-
-The delegates at Tours-Position of affairs when Gambetta
reaches that place-Everything to be reorganised-His energy
and good spirits-Fall of Metz-French victory at Coulmiers-
Inactivity of D'Aurelles de Paladine-Gambetta assumes conduct
CONTENTS.
xi
of operations-His personal courage-French driven back in all
directions-News of Capitulation of Paris-Gambetta indignant—
M. Jules Simon sent to Bordeaux to bring him to reason-He
resigns on the 6th of February 1871-Grandeur of his attitude
during the war
p. 75
-
CHAPTER VI.
FROM THE END OF THE WAR TO THE FALL OF THIERS.
1870-1873.
* {
Elections-Gambetta elected by nine constituencies-Treaty of Peace
voted-Gambetta resigns and goes to St. Sebastian-Returns to
public life-Position of parties-Thiers-Pacte de Bordeaux——
Speech of Gambetta-His attitude in the Assembly-Starts the
République Française— The Bagman of the Republic"-He
excites the ire of the majority-Changarnier-Gambetta shows
great qualities of statesmanship-Majority determine to over-
throw Thiers-The Barodet election-Mistake made by Gam-
betta Thiers overthrown Marshal MacMahon elected
President
p. 101
CHAPTER VII.
GAMBETTA FOUNDS THE REPUBLIC.
1873-1875.
•
Danger of disturbances-Gambetta deprecates appeal to physical
force—A scene in the Assembly-The three Monarchical parties-
Attempts to found a monarchy-The Comte de Chambord refuses
to give up the white flag-End of the De Broglie Ministry-
Resuscitation of Imperialist party-Gambetta denounces their
intrigues-Efforts of Thiers and Gambetta in favour of a Re-
public—“ Opportunism ”—Its success-Republic founded de jure
on the 30th of January 1875-A hitch-It is overcome-The
foundation of the Republic-The country mainly indebted for
this result to Gambetta .
p. 126
Ką
CHAPTER VIII.
GAMBETTA FINALLY DEFEATS THE ANTI-REPUBLICAN
COALITION.
1875-1877.
Gambetta's view of the task of the Republicans-Election of members
for the Senate-Anti-Republicans defeated-Speech at Bordeaux
on "Rocks ahead"-Elections go against the Ministry-M.
Buffet resigns-Dufaure Prime Minister-Gambetta endeavours
xii
CONTENTS.
to abolish the divisions among the Republicans-Appointed
President of the Committee on the Budget-He is urgent to
obtain changes among the permanent officials-Clericalism-
Dufaure resigns on the 1st of December 1876-His successor,
M. Jules Simon, dismissed on the 16th of May 1877-The de
Broglie-Fourtou Cabinet-Duel between that Cabinet and Gam-
betta-Dissolution of the Chamber-Efforts of the Ministry to
secure a majority-Counter-efforts of Gambetta-Success of the
Opposition Resignation of the Ministry-The Chamber refuse
to recognise their successors-Dufaure forms a Ministry—Re-
publicans successful at last
p. 149-
CHAPTER IX.
PRE-EMINENCE, PREMIERSHIP, AND FALL.
1877-1882.
Gambetta the foremost man in France-Something large about him-
He should then have been made Prime Minister-Invalidation of
elections-New elections for Senate-Speech at Romans - His
political programme-Resignation of Dufaure and end of Marshal.
MacMahon's presidentship-Election of M. Grévy-Gambetta, on
1st February 1879, elected President of Chamber-M. Wadding-
ton's Cabinet falls to pieces-Gambetta repudiates the accusa-
tion of exercising an occult influence-Everything contributes
to thrust power upon him-Scrutin de Liste-Gambetta its
passionate advocate-Voted by the Chamber but rejected by the
Senate Meeting at Belleville refuses to listen to him-Fall of
M. Ferry's Ministry on the 9th of November 1881-Gambetta at
last called to power-His Ministry-He brings forward the ques-
tion of the Scrutin de Liste-Is defeated thereon-Did he court
defeat?-His foreign policy-His house at Ville-d'Avray--Is
wounded in the hand-Becomes severely ill-Dies on the
31st December 1882- Immense sensation caused by his
death
p. 175.
CHAPTER X.
CONCLUSION.
Objects for which Gambetta strove-The Empire-The War-The
establishment of the Republic-Where he was wrong-Democracy
-His eloquence-His supreme honour
p. 213
•
LIFE OF LÉON GAMBETTA.
CHAPTER I.
THE BAUDIN TRIAL.
1868.
A press trial under the Empire-Occasion thereof-The Coup d'État—
Baudin killed on the barricades-The Empire falls into the sere
and yellow leaf-Interest in Baudin revived-Demonstration over
his grave-Subscription started for a monument-Government
determine to prosecute newspapers publishing subscription lists
-Trial on 13th and 14th of November 1868-Speech of a young
advocate - Immense sensation caused thereby - That young
advocate Léon Gambetta.
On the 14th of November 1868, some twenty-one years
ago, the "Sixth Chamber of the Correctional Tri-
bunal of the Seine " was engaged in trying a batch of
journalists on the then familiar charge of " endeavour-
ing to disturb the public peace, and cause the Govern-
ment to be hated and brought into contempt." The
trial had been begun on the previous day, when, after
the usual preliminaries, an old and well-known
advocate and politician, M. Crémieux, had spoken,
and spoken with some eloquence, in defence of one of
the accused. Now, on this 14th of November, another
1
2
LIFE OF LÉON GAMBETTA.
advocate and politician, also old and well-known,
M. Arago, had followed on the same side, and addressed
the Court with equal fervour. When he had con-
cluded, a young man previously almost unknown to
fame, whether at the bar or in politics, rose to address
the Court;—and of his speech it may be said, without
undue exaggeration, that it marked an epoch, not
only in the orator's own life, but even in the history
of France.
In order, however, to understand the bearing of
this trial, and how it came to acquire such import-
ance, we must go back to one of the most striking
episodes in the battle between Right and Might, known
as the Coup d'État of 1851.
It was on the night of the 1st of December in that
year that Louis Napoleon struck his great blow at
the liberties of France. Almost before the late winter
dawn on the morning of the 2nd, sixteen of the
deputies from whose opposition he had most to fear
were arrested and thrown into prison, and the Palais
Bourbon, the place where the Assembly held its
meetings, was in the hands of the troops. When the
Parisians sallied forth to their work in the dim
twilight, they found the walls placarded with a pro-
clamation, addressed "To the French People," and
announcing that the Assembly was dissolved, Universal
Suffrage established in view of a new Constitution,
and Paris in a state of siege. Such measures, it
might have been supposed, would excite general in-
dignation. There is no evidence that they did any-
thing of the kind. The Prince President had been
playing his cards with extraordinary skill during the
last few months. If the ultimate result had not been
fraught with such ruin to France, there would be
-
THE BAUDIN TRIAL.
3
something almost amusing in the story of the means
by which this man of halt tongue and enigmatic taci-
turnity succeeded in baffling some of the noblest
orators who have ever used human speech for pur-
poses of government. While they were speaking he
was acting. And when the crisis came he was found
to be the master of the situation, holding in his grasp
the army, the police, all the administrative machinery,
and being regarded, moreover, as the "strong man,'
the "saviour of society"; while they held in their
grasp just nothing, and were discredited with the
upper and middle classes as incapable of preserving
order, and with the lower classes as ruthless in the
repression of anarchy.
So the Parisians, after reading the placards an-
nouncing the downfall of parliamentary government
in France, went, for the most part, on their several
ways, this man to his workshop, and that man to his
merchandise, little thinking how terribly the future
of the country was at stake. Naturally, the Assembly
did not take their dismissal quite so easily. But
what could they do? What can a body of men do
against a determined and unscrupulous adversary,
when they have the support neither of the army nor
the people? The deputies, never much accustomed
to act together, met here and there in small
groups on the morning of that fatal 2nd of December.
Some succeeded in effecting an entrance, by an un-
guarded door, into the Palais Bourbon, whence they
were roughly ejected by the troops. At eleven
o'clock about two hundred and fifty, mostly belong-
ing to the "Right," or Conservative party, assembled,
with some show of order, in a large municipal build-
ing not far off. Berryer, the puissant Legitimist orator
-
1 *
4
LIFE OF LEON GAMBETTA.
and advocate, took the leading part in the pro-
ceedings. With his great voice he proposed to
decree that Louis Napoleon had ceased to be Pre-
sident of the Republic, and that the executive
power reverted of right to the representatives of
the people. The decree was passed unanimously,
and with enthusiasm. Shortly afterwards the deputies
were being marched through the streets by a file of
soldiers, and incarcerated in some neighbouring bar-
racks. But this was not quite to be the end. Blood
had to flow in the cause. The imprisoned deputies
belonged for the most part to the "Right." The
members of the "Left," or Radical party, were still
at large. To them armed resistance, even under less
provocation, would have appeared as a sacred duty.
With feverish activity, and hunted hither and thither
by the police, they endeavoured to stir the people to
insurrection. They might as well, on that first day
at least, have flogged the proverbial dead horse. Evi-
dently some strong effort to rouse the popular feeling
was needed. Accordingly on the next morning, the
morning of the 3rd, fifteen or twenty deputies and
journalists proceeded to the Faubourg Saint-Antoine,
the classic region of revolt, and harangued the work-
men. The workmen, who remembered too well the
terrible castigation received in June 1848, replied that
they had no arms. Nevertheless, some eighty or a
hundred of them helped to erect a poor, inefficient
barricade part-way across the road. Whereupon the
troops made their appearance, and most of the insur-
gents fled. "Why should we sacrifice ourselves for
the 'twenty-five francs'?" asked the workmen,
alluding to the salary of the deputies. "You will
see how men die for twenty-five francs," answered one
THE BAUDIN TRIAL.
5
сл
of the deputies who stood there, Baudin by name.
Only about fifteen persons, including eight deputies,
remained on the barricade. Of these latter seven, not
including Baudin, went forward to remonstrate with
the advancing soldiers. During the discussion that
ensued the men on the barricade thought their com-
panions were being attacked and fired, killing one of
the soldiers. The soldiers replied, and two men fell
dead. Baudin was one of them. His twenty-five
francs had been well earned that day.
Thus died Deputy Baudin, bravely and in a good
cause; but vainly enough, it must have seemed at
the time. The barricade he had defended fell almost
immediately into the hands of the attacking party.
The armed resistance he may be said to have com-
menced, though it spluttered on for some few hours
more or less fitfully, and once or twice with even a
show of life, was, within four days, ruthlessly
trampled out. Providence once more befriended the
big battalions. The Coup d'État was for the nonce
successful. Baudin's name passed out of men's
memories, and for long years he slept well-nigh for-
gotten in the cemetery of "trim Montmartre."
.
But as time went on changes took place among the
living, and the peace that reigned round the long unre-
membered grave was disturbed. It is the nemesis of
a government like that of Louis Napoleon that it
cannot endure failure. If the strong man ceases to
be strong, and rules weakly and inefficiently, he ceases
to justify his existence. He is not worth his price.
So long as France remembered the political and
social dangers by which she had been threatened
before the Coup d'État, so long as the Emperor could
point to such works of his as the humbling of Russia
6
LIFE OF LEON GAMBETTA.
in the East, the defeat of Austria, the making of a
United Italy-so long there was no general dis-
position on the part of the country to inquire too
curiously into the genesis of the Government. Its
history was, as one may say, "taken as read." But
in 1867 and 1868 things had changed very much.
Time had enveloped in kindly haze the wild acts and
words of the Revolutionary party of 1848. The
Emperor had failed, and failed conspicuously and dis-
creditably, in Mexico. The country felt-in an obscure
manner, perhaps, yet most justly-that the victories
of Prussia over Austria were in reality victories over
France, and that in allowing Prussia to gain such
preponderance in Europe there had been grievous
mismanagement somewhere. At the same time the
Emperor, with a view probably to the future of his
dynasty, was making serious efforts to liberalise the
government. The press was in a great measure un-
gagged. Papers that some few months before would
never have been tolerated for a moment, now circu-
lated comparatively undisturbed. "We feel ourselves
more free," a French journalist said to me in 1867,
with a gesture denoting the enjoyment of greater
elbow-room. And to the Republicans, very naturally,
recovered liberty meant recovered opportunities of
attack.
About this time there appeared a history of the
Coup d'Etat, by a certain M. Ténot. The book was
eagerly read. Victor Hugo's scathing Napoléon le
Petit had always been rigorously excluded from
France. Mr. Kinglake's History of the Crimean War,
which contains an almost equally scathing account of
the events of December 1851, was, as being in English,
unintelligible to the French public. It may be
THE BAUDIN TRIAL.
7
doubted if many of the younger generation, which
had grown to manhood between 1851 and 1868, had
more than a hazy notion of the means by which
Louis Napoleon had usurped power. M. Ténot's
book came on the country, therefore, in some sort
as a revelation. Among the figures that lived once
more in its pages was the figure of Baudin. Cer-
tain Republicans, casting about for means of dis-
crediting the Government, determined to make a
demonstration over his grave. For this purpose All
Souls' Day, "the Day of the Dead" as the French
call it the day universally observed in France-
offered the most fitting opportunity. On the 2nd
of November 1868, some few persons, twenty or
thirty perhaps, made a pilgrimage to Montmartre, and
after finding the grave-no very easy task, for it was
of the humblest character, and quite forgotten-
demonstrated, in the approved manner, with a little
heated speechifying, and a little impassioned recita-
tion, and the brandishing of a revolver. Immediately
afterwards, the Radical press, not to neglect so excellent
an opening for attack, announced a subscription for
the purpose of erecting a suitable monument to
Baudin's memory.
The Imperial Government, quite obviously, should
have allowed the matter to rest there. The French-
man is seldom enthusiastic in his response to an
appeal for a subscription, and it may safely be affirmed
that, without some very strong stimulus, Baudin's
monument would not have been erected on a very
grandiose scale. That stimulus the Government pro-
ceeded to supply. They announced that the insti-
gators of the demonstration at Baudin's grave, and
the editors of the papers which had published the
AN
8
LIFE OF LÉON GAMBETTA.
appeal, would be prosecuted. Immediately the sub-
scription lists swelled to the proportions of a political
manifesto. The dying Berryer contributed not only
his money and his name, but a letter which Imperialism
would have done well not to provoke.
The Government, however, at this stage probably
felt that it had gone too far to recede. The trial was
begun on the 13th November 1868, and on the 14th,
as I have already said, a young and comparatively
unknown advocate rose to address the Court.
Before he had spoken many words the audience
were captivated by the charm of his voice, which was
at once sweet and powerful, and they set themselves to
listen the more intently. He began quietly enough,
declaring that he should studiously avoid any such
violence of language as might justify the Court in in-
terrupting him. He then proceeded to say that he
agreed with the Public Prosecutor as to the real ques-
tion at issue. It was this:
Whether, in a civilised country, state policy, issuing in a Coup d'État,
can ever be justified, under pretext of securing the public safety, in
violating the laws, overturning the Constitution, and treating as
criminals those who defend the laws at the peril of their lives.
After replying to this question at some length and,
of course, in a negative sense, he came to the special
Coup d'État with which the Court was concerned.
Remember [he cried, in tones which had singularly deepened in
power and passion since he began his speech, tones which had in them
something of that "lion's brool" audible erewhile in the voice of
Mirabeau], remember what the 2nd of December means! Remember
what happened on that day! The story has just been told for us
again by M. Ténot in all its heartrending detail. You have read his
account, which is no more than a plain narrative of facts, but, from
its very simplicity and impartiality, all the more scathing and revenge-
ful. You know what blood, and sorrow, what tears that date stands
THE BAUDIN TRIAL.
9
for. On these matters I need not dwell here. What, however, I
would wish to bring home to you, to make you touch, as it were, is
the nefarious conspiracy by which that criminal enterprise was brought
about, is the evil that sprang from it, the harm it did to France, the
confusion it cast into men's consciences. Here lies its terrible
responsibility. Seeing this, you will recognise how entirely we are
entitled to receive your help and protection when we step forward to
honour the memory of those who fell in defence of the violated laws
and of the Constitution.
Yes, on the 2nd of December a band of men, previously quite
unknown, had gathered about a pretender. They had neither talents,
nor honour, nor rank, nor position; they belonged to the class that
has at all times been the accomplices of deeds of violence, the class
of which one may say what Sallust said of the mob that followed
Catiline, what Cæsar himself said when he drew the portraits of his
accomplices, the class which for ever stands outside the pale of all
regular society:
"Ære alieno obruti et vitiis onusti."
"A mass of men whelmed in debt and crime," as Corneille trans-
lates it.
In contrast to these malefactors, the orator enume-
rated the men who were opposed to the Coup d'Etat,
and whom it had either imprisoned or exiled--Berryer,
Thiers, Rémusat, the Generals Cavaignac, Lamoricière,
Changarnier-all the most illustrious "representatives
of the Orleanist, Legitimist, Republican parties."
On which side [he asked] were genius, uprightness, virtue?
Everything went to rack in that criminal enterprise. Centralisa-
tion and terror [he continued] did it all. Paris was deceived with
reports from the provinces. The provinces were deceived with
reports from Paris. . . . The news
The news was telegraphed through the
departments that Paris was acquiescent. Acquiescent! It was being
riddled with musketry, mowed down with grape-shot. I who am
speaking these words-I pray you to listen to what I am saying-I
had friends who were killed as they came out of the law-schools.
They were unarmed. . . . And now, after seventeen years of rule, has
it struck you that it would be well to obtain for the deeds then done the
posthumous sanction of this court, and so prevent them from being
even discussed? No, that you never will obtain. That satisfaction
will ever be denied to you. For in this great cause there is no final
10
LIFE OF LÉON GAMBETTA.
court of appeal. It is a cause that was being tried yesterday, that
will be tried to-morrow, the day after to-morrow, for ever tried
without cessation or end till justice is fully satisfied. Do what you
will, the acts of the 2nd of December will remain at the bar of
judgment in Paris, in London, in Berlin, in New York, throughout
the whole world, and everywhere the universal conscience of mankind
will deliver the same verdict.
And see, this alone would suffice to condemn our adversaries.
Listen! For seventeen years you have held absolute sway in France,
and ruled the expression is yours-according to your own good
pleasure. We are not here to inquire what use you have made of
her blood, her treasure, her honour and her glory. We will not
speak now of her compromised security, nor ask what has become
of the fruits of her industry, nor pause to dwell upon those financial
disasters which, as all know, are exploding like mines beneath your
feet. But what condemns you irrevocably-because it witnesses to
your own shame and remorse-is this: that you have never dared to
say,
"We will place the 2nd of December among the great national
anniversaries in the history of France, and give it honour and cele-
bration!" And yet all previous governments have had, a pride in
the day that gave them birth. The 14th of July and the 10th of
August had due observance. The three days of July were observed
also, and the 24th of February. There are only two anniversaries
which have never been placed among the national birthdays, and
those two are the 18th Brumaire and the 2nd of December. And
why? Because you know well that if you wished so to honour them,
the universal conscience of mankind would say you nay.
Well, that anniversary which you have rejected, we claim it, we
take it for ourselves; we shall keep it always, and without ceasing.
Every year it shall be sacred to the memory of our dead until that
day when the country, her own mistress once more, shall inflict on
you a great national expiation in the name of liberty, equality, and
fraternity.
The court presented a striking spectacle while the
young orator, in all the disarray of his sæva indignatio,
was thundering out these words. Invective as terrible
had, no doubt, been hurled at the Emperor by Victor
Hugo and the other exiles of the Coup d'État. But
their denunciations had never been suffered, except
surreptitiously, to cross the frontier. It was a new
thing, amid the enforced silence of the Empire,
THE BAUDIN TRIAL.
11
to hear so tremendous an arraignment addressed
to a French court of justice and to the French
people. The magistrate who presided at the trial is
said to have had Orleanist proclivities, and certainly
he made no effectual efforts to restrain within due
bounds the lava-stream of the advocate's eloquence.*
Naturally the Public Prosecutor was angry and
outraged. He rose from his seat again and again,
protested, tried to interrupt, gesticulated, vociferated.
All in vain. "He wanted to stop me," said the young
advocate afterwards, "but I submerged him,"—which
was almost literally true-the floods of speech had
gone over that unhappy Public Prosecutor. As to the
audience-Republicans for the most part, and friends
of the accused-their enthusiasm knew no bounds. At
each point they openly expressed their approbation, and
when the speaker finally resumed his seat, hot, di-
shevelled, with his gown awry, those who were nearest
embraced him fervidly, and loud applause rolled
through the court, and was echoed by the overflowing
crowd upon the stairs and in the yard below.
That the Government, of its own free will, should
have created the opportunity for the delivering of such
a speech seems almost like madness. The Imperialists
certainly had no interest in concentrating public atten-
tion on the Coup d'État. Rather should they have
done everything to cloak its guilt and shame. Oblivion
was their best hope. However, the mistake had been
committed, the Coup d'État dragged from its obscurity.
And who was this who had taken such immediate and
dexterous advantage of the mistake, flashing upon the
foul thing the light of his eloquence, and making it
* An eye-witness told Mr. Washburn that the Court were too
stupefied to call the daring young advocate to order.
12
LIFE OF LÉON GAMBETTA.
visible to all men? Within twenty-four hours his
words were reported all over France, and his name,
previously almost unknown, was in everybody's mouth.
Who and what was he? Whence did he spring, and
whither was he tending? Would he prove a mere
gladiator of the tongue, good only for slashing and
sword play, or a statesman and real ruler of men?
Such questions must have presented themselves to
many on the day following that 14th of November
1868, when the young advocate his name
Léon Gambetta-made his great speech in the Baudin
trial.
was
?
prof
را
CHAPTER II.
EARLY LIFE.
1838-1868.
Parentage-Birth — Cahors — Childhood — Loses one of his eyes-
Becomes a law student in Paris-Student life-Enabled by his
aunt's generosity to start as an advocate in Paris-Life in Paris-
Turns to Politics rather than Law-Contributes to Revue poli-
tique et littéraire-Chosen as advocate for Delescluse in the
Baudin trial.
Or the young advocate's parentage, birth, and early
years, there was not much to be learnt in 1868, nor is
there very much to be said now. His father, Joseph
Gambetta, was (and is) an Italian, a native of the
province of Genoa, who had settled at Cahors, in
central southern France, and established himself in
business there as a grocer. A notable man, according
to all accounts, this father of the orator—a man of
ready tongue and picturesque southern speech, whose
conversation is altogether striking. In 1837, being
then about twenty-three years of age, he had seemingly
so far flourished in his affairs as to warrant his marry-
ing Madeleine Massabie, a young woman a year
younger than himself, and the daughter of a chemist.
14
LIFE OF LÉON GAMBETTA.
and druggist in the town. Nor were children slow in
making their appearance. On the 2nd of April 1838
was born Léon Michel, the subject of this biography,
and not very long afterwards a daughter, Benedetta.
Two children, a boy and a girl-this, according to
French ideas, would constitute the very ideal of a
family.
Cahors, though the chief town of a department, and
the seat of a bishopric, is a comparatively small place,
containing no more than fourteen thousand and odd
inhabitants. It has its history, of course-for what
ancient agglomeration of men has not? Dante, in his
dread “Inferno," brackets it with Sodom, as a hell of
usury; and, later, there are tales of surprise and blood,
belonging to the days when Henry of Navarre fought the
Huguenot battles. The town has had its distinguished
sons also, a Pope, John XXII., and Clément Marot,
the poet of the Renaissance and Reformation-to say
nothing of the subject of this memoir. Some manu-
factures it may boast too—if in a very boastful mood,
for these are of no great importance, the chief trade
being in the wine of the surrounding district. As to
general aspect, it may be enough to say that the town
is built over and under a rocky eminence which stands
within a wide loop of the river Lot; that the river is
spanned by three bridges, one of which is turreted and
very old; that the streets, save in the new quarter,
are narrow and irregular; that there are several
buildings of interest, and particularly a cathedral,
dating in its earlier parts from about the beginning of
the twelfth century, and with many subsequent altera-
tions and additions.
It is in the shadow of this edifice, in the great
market square of the town, that stands the grocer's
EARLY LIFE.
15
""
shop where young Léon first saw the light, and
spent his earliest years. The building is of no great
pretensions even as a place of business. On the sign-
board are inscribed the words "Bazar Génois
designation evidently due to the owner's affectionate
remembrance of his native place—and a notice to the
effect that "Gambetta jeune et Cie." sell "Sugars
of Havre, Nantes, and Bordeaux" at "1 franc the
kilo." The door-joints, too, are embellished with
designs of sugar-loaves. In brief, it is a little old-
fashioned provincial Italian-grocery, not differing at
all from other shops of its class, and very much sur-
prised, doubtless, if houses have any feeling, at being
dragged from its native obscurity, and made much of
in paint and prose.
And here, even thus early in my narrative, two
points may, I think, be noted. The first is, that the
future patriot, who loved France so passionately and
so well, was in blood but half a Frenchman, and only
became legally a French citizen by his own deliberate
act, after he had attained to manhood. The second
notable point is that the future advocate of the
"Nouvelles Couches sociales," the new social strata,
did not himself spring from the workman class,
the proletariat, but from the petite bourgeoisie, the
lower middle-class, which had made good its claim to
power in 1830.
_a
When the boy was eight years old, a grievous acci-
dent befell him. One afternoon he had gone to watch
a cutler, a friend of his father's, drilling holes in some
knife-handles. The instrument used for this purpose
was a kind of bow made of steel and cat-gut. Sud-
denly it broke. The sharp steel flew into the child's
eye. We are told that the wound was unskilfully
·
16
LIFE OF LEON GAMBETTA.
treated, both by the local practitioner and afterwards
at Toulouse. Be that as it may, glaucoma set in.
The sight on the right side was utterly destroyed,
and for many years, besides being greatly disfigured,
Gambetta suffered at intervals a good deal of pain.
At last, towards 1867-it will be seen that I am anti-
cipating the other eye was sympathetically affected,
and, to avert further mischief, the surgeons declared
that the sightless organ ought to be removed. So
said, and so done. The orator was wearing a glass
eye when he made his memorable speech on the 14th
of November 1868.
Republicanism, like Roman Catholicism, has its
pious legends, and at one time Gambetta's accident
seems to have been used by the Liberal Party for pur-
poses of edification. He had lost his eye, so ran the
story, by his own act, and to induce his parents to
take him away from a hated seminary at Monfaucon,
where his childhood languished under the withering
influence of priests. So great, indeed, is the tempta-
tion to show the future enemy of clericalism as thus
early a martyr in the good cause, that though this
story has perforce been abandoned as apocryphal, it
has been tentatively revived in another form. M.
Barbou suggests that he possibly "threatened to
destroy the sight of his remaining eye if he was not
quickly removed from that gloomy establishment." So
hard do pious legends die! All, I think, that the
serious biographer need note with regard to the Mon-
faucon seminary is that Léon must have been a very
little boy when he went thither, and still a very little
boy when he came away, and that nothing very defi-
nite is known as to the reason why he was sent to the
place, or the reason why he was removed.
EARLY LIFE.
17
In 1849, or thereabouts, he entered the Lycée, or
public government school of Cahors, at first as a day-
boy and afterwards as a boarder. And here again
definite information is rather wanting. That Léon
was quick and clever, with an excellent memory and
great readiness in the assimilation of knowledge, may
easily be believed. We can also easily believe that he
was an omnivorous reader; that he wrote many
essays on philosophical subjects; studied Proudhon,
whose heterodox economics were then in the air
took high places in his various classes; and was
much looked up to by his fellow pupils. All these are
quite the right characteristics for a future king of men,
but not, after all, if we except the study of Proudhon,
very distinctive. Almost as much might probably be
said of many another clever French school-boy between
the years 1849 and 1856.
;
When the time came, as it did at the latter of these
dates, for Léon, now a young Bachelor of Arts, to
leave the Lycée, he determined, or his parents deter-
mined for him, that he should study law. The father,
from motives of economy, would have wished him to go
through the necessary course at Toulouse. The youth
himself, with higher ambition, made choice of Paris,
and carried his point. Accordingly we find him, in
January 1857, installed in the Latin quarter of the
incomparable city, and forming part of that joyous
student-band whose light lives, and almost lighter loves,
whose struggles and shifts and expedients, have so
often been described in prose and verse.
Here we
seem to get a closer touch of him than as a school-boy.
His exuberant individuality has begun to assert itself.
We can almost see him, in all the ardour of his
southern youth, slim, active, raven-haired, with a more
2
18
LIFE OF LEON GAMBETTA.
than double share of vivacity in his one seeing eye,
and can almost hear him arguing, orating, perorating,
filling the cafés, and the silent streets, even in the
small hours, with the thunder of his voice.
He was such then as we have known him since [says M. Alphonse
Daudet]. He was full of the joy of life and the joy of speech. A
loquacious Roman, grafted upon a Gallic stock, he deafened and
stunned even himself with the clangour of his own words, made the
very windows tremble with the claps of his thunderous eloquence,
and then would generally finish up with an outburst of noisy laughter.
He was already hailed as a ruler by the general throng of his com-
panions. In the Latin quarter he was a personage of some import-
ance, the more so as he received 300 francs* every month from Cahors
—which was an enormous sum for a student in those days. We have
become friends since. But at that time I was still a raw provincial
lad, just landed in Paris, and hardly civilised. I had perforce to
content myself, therefore, with watching him from a distance,
admiringly, but with some little envy, placed as I was at the
bottom of the table at which we dined every Sunday. .. Gambetta
and his friends were ardent politicians. From the Latin quarter they
had already begun to lay siege to the Tuileries.
•
Joyous, exuberant, eloquent, such we see him in
these student days. He is fond of mouthing out pas-
sages from Demosthenes, ore rotundo. He has a
passion for the works of Rabelais. He disdains none of
the pleasures to which the Latin quarter lends itself
so readily. He has a great following, mainly of
swarthy, dark-haired, hirsute young fellows from the
south, who accent the last syllable of his name in an
explosive manner, carry about with them a fine odour
of garlic and cigarettes, and are altogether a crew of
noisy and disreputable young gentlemen. But amid all
this haranguing and riot, there is room, on Gam-
betta's part at least, for real work. He pursues his
-
* It is but right to say that M. Barbou reduces these 300 francs to
the much more modest total of 100 francs.
EARLY LIFE.
19
law studies with quite sufficient assiduity, and in due
time, viz. on the 19th January 1860, has passed all
necessary ordeals, and is standing forth, according to
the old-world traditional custom, to maintain his
"thesis" against all comers, and so conquer his place as
a "licentiate" duly qualified to plead. That he should
show himself a doughty champion and disputant on
such an occasion goes almost without saying. Has he
not been drinking delight of wordy battle with his
peers ever since he came to Paris? *
C
But though the young advocate had completed his
education, the problem of his future was still un-
solved. The Latin quarter is not a health-resort, and
after defending his thesis he went back to Cahors weary
and ill. Soon, however, home, quiet, and his native air
restored him to health. Then came the question what
he should do next. A kind of family council appears
to have been held. Léon himself, feeling his own
power, and filled with a natural ambition, wished
to practise in Paris. But in order to face the
inevitable years of brieflessness, money was, of course,
absolutely necessary, and money his father did not see
his way to providing. He had done what he could in
educating Léon; Léon was now twenty-two, and must
keep himself; and, as the chance of success in Paris
was so very remote, would it not be better for him
either to come into the grocery business, or to get
some local Government appointment? The mother,
in this discussion, was swayed this way and that be-
tween wifely duty and motherly love and ambition. On
the one hand it seemed wrong to add to her husband's
* The "Thesis" is dedicated "to my father and mother," and to
"M. Sisco, officer in the French army." By some curious mistake,
the date of Gambetta's birth is given as the 11th of April 1838.
2 *
20
LIFE OF LÉON GAMBETTA.
burdens, on the other it seemed so sad a pity to make
of her young eaglet a shopkeeper or small clerk.
At this point came forward a maiden aunt, Jenny
Massabie, whose name will ever be remembered in
kindly association with that of her nephew. She
declared that she believed in the young man, that she
had every confidence in his future, and in his ultimate
success. Her means were not very great-she had
from £80 to £120 a year-but such as they were she
would devote them to the furtherance of his plans.
She would leave Cahors and take apartments in Paris,
and her nephew would live with her, and share what
she had, and thus be assured at least of life's neces-
saries in the beginning of his struggle for fortune and
fame.
So in the year 1861, the aunt and the nephew set
up housekeeping together in apartments in the Rue
Vavin, at the extreme end of the Latin quarter of
Paris. The rooms were humble enough, and the fur-
niture was humble too, consisting as it did of Mdlle.
Massabie's little possessions, which she had brought up
with her from the country. But if the surroundings
were modest, there was a certain grandeur in the
young man's aspirations, and still more, perhaps, in
his aunt's entire affection and faith. She simply
devoted herself to him, taking at once the places of a
mother and a servant-cleaning, cooking, mending,
opening the door to friends and clients, looking after
his worldly affairs, scolding him perchance now and
again, physicking him, loving him and believing in
him entirely. A distinctive figure enough this Gascon
old maid, who occupies, not at all unworthily, her
tiny historical niche. She is small, alert, vivacious,
slightly lame, with black hair and black quick bead-
.
-
EARLY LIFE.
21
like eyes, and an olive complexion, and she has the
keenest intuitive knowledge of those who wish well or
ill to her Léon. One is glad to think that he was not
-I mean here as regards the heart of him-unworthy
of her devotion, and that through life he repaid her
love in kind. One is glad also that she lived long
enough to see her confidence more than justified, and
her nephew everywhere acknowledged as one of the
foremost men in France.
Meanwhile he does, in many respects, pretty much
as other young barristers do. He attends successively
at the chambers of two distinguished advocates, Maître
Crémieux and Maître Lachaud, and picks up what he
can of the practice of the law. He joins a legal
debating society, and perorates there to such purpose
that Jules Favre, the great advocate, bátonnier or
leader of the Order of Advocates, taking note of one of
his speeches, inscribes against his name these words:
Tu Marcellus eris. He "devils" for his friend
Maître Laurier. He gets a case to plead now and
again-minor political cases and press cases occasion-
ally-one of them, curiously enough, against the
Delescluse whom he is hereafter to defend in the
Baudin trial. And whenever he speaks a certain fiery
audacious eloquence stands him in such good stead
that, within a comparatively short space, he is not
altogether unknown at the bar. In 1866 he has
gained sufficient notoriety for a writer in the Monde
judiciaire, the Law World, to sketch his portrait.
Here it is:
G
There is a real pleasure in seeing him come forward, shaking his
long curly locks, rolling round a wild eye, shaking the balustrade
with his impatient hands, and in strong southern staccato hurling
forth his extempore speech. There seems to be in him a kind of
22
LIFE OF LÉON GAMBETTA.
mixture of the frenzied lawyer and the political Rabelais-though
with more of the popular orator than the forensic disputant. But
assuredly he has ability in superabundance, and a large heart and
courage.
Rather "the popular orator than the forensic dis-
putant "-there is but too much reason to believe
that young Gambetta was giving less than half his
affection to the law, and had a mistress more pas-
sionately loved. That he might have obtained a
greater number of cases to plead if he had so willed
it, seems indisputable. He possessed every requisite
for success at the French bar. But with what must,
at the time, have seemed something like perversity
to his more staid elders, he took little thought of
briefs and fees. M. Reinach, who was his intimate
friend, and to whose pious care we owe the voluminous
edition of his speeches and despatches-M. Reinach
accounts for this as follows :—
To be born with the generous gift of eloquence is sufficient to
satisfy the ambition of most young men. Fortunately for Gambetta,
his conscience was more exacting. Feeling that he had it in him to
deserve at some future date the gratitude of the public, he was hungry
for all kinds of knowledge, and felt no hurry to throw himself into
the battle prematurely, and insufficiently armed. This is the reason
why he pleaded so seldom during the eight years that he spent at the
bar before entering the Corps Législatif.
In other words, Gambetta, if this explanation is to
be accepted as exhaustive, was devoting himself to
general study-was, in a large sense, continuing his
education during the years in question.
Possibly, nay probably, true to some extent, and
yet not, I think, the whole truth. The fact is
that the young advocate had turned to politics with an
ardour and devotion that must have terribly discounted
his opportunities as a lawyer. The year 1863 marks
EARLY LIFE.
23
a great crisis in the history of the Second Empire.
In that year the opposition, which had previously con-
sisted of five members only, swells to thirty-five
members, including such giants of debate as Thiers
and Berryer. Gambetta is already in the thick of the
election fight that is to have such disastrous effects on
the future of Imperialism. He agitates with might and
inain on behalf of the candidature of Prevost-Paradol,
whose rapier-like keen pen had so often drawn blood
in its attacks on the Government. Thereafter we find
him day after day attending the meetings of the
Corps Législatif, and even mingling, very irregularly,
in its debates by vociferations from the spectators'
gallery. All the time, too, he argues, declaims,
orates in the semi-publicity of the cafés. As in the
former student days, not so long since gone by, he
had been a very paladin of speech, so now, a student
still, if M. Reinach will have it so, he declaims to
whomsoever will bear. The Café Procope, famous a
century before as the resort of Voltaire, Diderot,
D'Alembert, and the other Encyclopædists, now re-
sounds habitually to the clangour of his eloquence.
The players at backgammon and dominoes, the
drinkers of coffee and absinthe, pause to listen in the
midst of their games and potations, and are edified.
Anon he passes over the Seine to the Café Riche, and
there, among a more miscellaneous set of young
artists, literary men, and journalists-by no means all
of his own way of thinking-he argues and declaims
still.
A Bohemian! Yes, a Bohemian without doubt-
a young fellow who has not yet settled into the regular
highways of life. But a fine young fellow, too—a
young fellow full of the most exuberant intellectual
24
LIFE OF LEON GAMBETTA.
energy, and with a very evident future. There is in
him that quality which the Germans call "genial," a
something spontaneous, individual, overmastering.
Here clearly is no "clothes-horse and patent digester"
"but a
-to use Carlyle's pregnant definition
genuine man." And his companions and compeers,
ven those who do not share his opinions, recognise
his power, and, to some extent, even his superiority.
M. Albert Wolff, of the Figaro, for instance, tells us:
We all loved him for the excellence of his character, and respected
him for his uprightness. The Bohemianism with which he has been
so often reproached never for a single moment affected his honour.
Gambetta was young, and with no more than the authority derived
from our confidence in his future, he yet occupied among his friends
and companions a position of supremacy, just as, later on, he was to
be supreme among Republican politicians. This friendly deference
sprang spontaneously from our recognition of a superiority which we
all felt to exist, although we could have urged nothing in its justifica-
tion save our deep affection, born of the real kindliness that seemed
to emanate from his whole person.
•
And M. Sarcey is even more explicit :
What used to surprise me very much [says he] was the ascendency
exercised over all the public men of his time by this young fellow,
who was always most careless in his get-up, and had done nothing
to make himself known to the general public. I was able to study
here the prestige and influence of a really superior nature. Gam-
betta was,
in one sense no doubt, nothing more than a young man
of irregular habits and ways: well there emanated from him a kind
of mysterious power to which everybody yielded. We have all heard
a good deal about the subtle aroma of womankind-about him there
was, as one may say, an aroma of political genius.
Not very definite perhaps, all this story of Gam-
betta's earlier life; so that it is with considerable
satisfaction that the biographer begins to touch solid
round in June 1868. For on the 6th of that month
appeared the first number of a short-lived weekly
periodical, the Revue politique et littéraire, edited by
EARLY LIFE.
25
M. Challemel-Lacour, to which Gambetta contributed
several articles. These articles are all, as might have
been anticipated, on political subjects, and, though
with infinitely greater moderation of tone, are con-
ceived in the same spirit of hostility to the Imperial
Government as the speech in the Baudin trial. The
first is a clever attempt to demonstrate to M. Pouyer-
Quertier and the French Protectionists, that the trade
of the country is suffering rather from the evil
general policy of the Government than from its Free
Trade proclivities. Another is on the extravagance of
M. Hausmann's administration of the finances of
Paris. Another--to which Gambetta appears, how-
ever, to have lent only his signature-is on the then
abuses in the army. Another is on the Budget
Debate. The last, which appeared on the 1st of
August, is on the Parliamentary Session of 1867-8.
All may fairly be pronounced able, though not pre-
eminently so. The most striking passage, from a
literary point of view, is perhaps a sketch of M.
Pouyer-Quertier as an orator. The most noteworthy
feature, to me at least, is the adroitness with which
the future leader of the Opportunists makes himself
all things to all men, and seeks, without expressly
abandoning Free Trade principles, to win the Protec-
tionist vote.
Notwithstanding, however, the gleam of clear sun-
shine that comes to illumine Gambetta's opinions
from June to August 1868, it must, I repeat, be
acknowledged that the story of his life up to the
Baudin trial is singularly wanting in definiteness. It
is a story in which the dates are very few, and the
facts hazy and blurred; nor without family records
and correspondence-very possibly destroyed—shall
26
LIFE OF LÉON GAMBETTA.
((
we ever be able to reconstruct it in full detail.
Nothing is now really available save the generalized
reminiscences of those who knew the young advocate-
politician at the time when he was mewing his
mighty youth"; and reminiscences, as we all know,
are far from possessing the value of contemporary
records. Even so, however, enough remains to show
us what manner of man Delescluse had chosen to
defend him in the great trial. It has been said that
that narrow fanatic of "the principles of 1793,” who
was afterwards to perish miserably as one of the
leaders of the Commune, had hesitated to employ
Gambetta's advocacy because the latter was known,
or believed, to have gone, at some previous date, to
Claremont, presumably for the purpose of offering his
services to the Orleans Princes. Whether Gambetta's
Republicanism had ever been so lukewarm as to allow
of his visiting Claremont, I do not know*—the point
is one on which his friends are very silent-but, in
any case, as the trial proceeded, Delescluse must have
seen that the choice in some sort thrust upon him was
more than justified, and that punishment of a particu-
larly severe kind was being administered to Impe-
rialism. He himself, as the result of the trial, was
condemned to six months' imprisonment, deprivation
of his civil rights for the same period, and a fine of
two thousand francs. But this to the old Democrat,
who had before, and more than once, suffered impri-
sonment or exile, must have seemed little when com-
pared with the triumph of his cause. He had accepted
Gambetta's advocacy at M. Challemel-Lacour's re-
quest, because it had been urged upon him that this
*
It may have been in 1863, when he was supporting Prevost-
Paradol's candidature.
EARLY LIFE.
27
was a case in which a voice from the younger genera-
tion, bred under the Empire, would speak most
effectually to the youth of the country. The voice
had spoken, and the youth of the country were not
slow to hear. Henceforward Imperialism carried on
its forehead one dishonourable scar the more, and
Gambetta became a power in the land.
28
LIFE OF LEON GAMBETTA.
CHAPTER III.
AN IRRECONCILABLE OPPONENT OF THE EMPIRE.
1868-1870.
Parties in France in 1868-Gambetta takes his place among the
extreme Republicans-Offered a seat at Marseilles-Then in
Paris-Programme of his political opinions-Elected in Paris at
the head of the poll in May 1869-And also at Marseilles
Chooses to sit for Marseilles-Will the Empire attempt to liberalise
itself? —Gambetta falls into momentary unpopularity—Forma-
tion of the Ollivier Ministry-M. Ollivier-His aims-Radical
unsoundness of the Empire-Meeting of the Assembly in
January 1870-A debate in which Gambetta intervenes-He
declares himself an irreconcilable opponent of the Empire-
Death of Victor Noir-His funeral-Gambetta defends M. Roche-
fort in the Assembly-His attitude throughout the Session-
Opposes the Plébiscite — Arguments on incompatibility of Uni-
versal Suffrage and Monarchy-" Banquet of Youth "-Proroga-
tion of Assembly.
So Léon Gambetta awoke on the 15th of November
1868-to use once more Byron's well-worn phrase—
and found himself famous. He was now a young man
of thirty, in the very fulness of his strength. He had
gained the ready ear of the French democracy by his
eloquent attack on the Coup d'État. He was, for the
nonce, a popular idol. His whole previous life had
been one of preparation for a public career, and here
AN OPPONENT OF THE EMPIRE.
29
was the opening for which he had longed. What
should he do with the power placed in his hand?
What part should he play in the great political
battle?
There were, at that time, speaking generally, three
parties in France. The first, which had a large
majority in the Corps Législatif, and probably in the
country, was the party of the old orthodox Imperial-
ists, who rather hated liberty than loved it and re-
garded the Emperor's government, unalloyed with
any reform, as the most suitable for France. The
second, which was rapidly advancing in power under
the leadership of M. Ollivier, was prepared to accept
the Empire, but held that the time had now arrived
when the Government ought to be liberalised, and bid
a final farewell to the ways of despotism. The third
was the party of Opposition pure and simple-not, of
course, an opposition implying the acceptance of
certain fundamental institutions, as we understand
opposition here in England, but a root and branch
opposition to the Emperor and the Empire. This last
party was subdivided again into groups of divers power
and influence-Legitimists, Orleanists, Republicans
moderate and advanced-each group having its sepa-
rate ideals of government, and being only united in
a common hostility to Imperialism.
By the very mode of his entrance into public life,
no less than by his personal convictions, Gambetta
stood committed to the Opposition party, and, within
that party, to the group of the extreme Republicans.
It has been alleged, and probably with truth, that,
shortly after the Baudin affair, "certain people of im-
portance" endeavoured to enlist his services on behalf
of the Government, or at least to mollify the rigour of
30
LIFE OF LEON GAMBETTA.
his enmity. Praise, too, has been awarded to him
because he resisted these blandishments-preferring
the arduous and rocky paths of democracy to the
smooth and flowery ways of Imperial patronage. But
here, I think, commendation is scarcely due. Far be
it from me to imply a doubt of his real disinterested-
ness. When, however, we are asked to regard that
disinterestedness as particularly meritorious, then we
are bound to inquire into the circumstances of the
time. Were they such as to make it probable that a
young man of genuine power would best gratify his
ambition by accepting the favours of the Empire, or
by making himself the mouthpiece of the democracy?
To this question there can, I think, be but one answer.
In the latter end of the year 1868, and the beginning
of 1869, the Empire was like a wounded whale, huge,
but visibly struck and floundering. Its old despotic
policy had had its day, though the legacy of passionate
hatred accumulated by that policy still remained, and
the new policy of comparative liberalism was still
untried, was not yet even frankly accepted by the
Emperor. The alliance offered to the young orator
was thus only an alliance with disintegration and death.
But, on the other hand, the democratic party was
young, vigorous, renewing the confidence in itself so
rudely shaken in 1848 and 1851, and bathed once
more in a kind of morning-flush of hope. The
moment, therefore, was just one in which prestige and
power could be best secured on the somewhat cheap
terms of a virulent opposition. In matters of govern-
ment, no less than in matters military, the furia
francese is only too often shown on the side of attack
rather than defence. This is one of the curses of
the country. And young Gambetta must have known
AN OPPONENT OF THE EMPIRE.
31
full well that his political interests, altogether apart
from his convictions, lay with the democratic Re-
publicans.
Almost immediately, though the election did not
actually take place till the following May, the people
of Marseilles offered him the seat vacant by the death
of Berryer. And shortly afterwards he was invited
to contest the "First Circumscription of Paris" against
M. Carnot, a Republican like himself, but not of a
sufficiently advanced type to satisfy that turbulent
constituency. Soon he was in the thick of the elec-
toral fight, making speech on speech, and issuing
address on address. Of the speeches little remains.
Effective enough for their immediate purpose, they
were probably only of ephemeral value, and either not
reported or have not been deemed worthy of a place in
the permanent collection of his speeches. Nor does
much survive of the incidents of the campaign save
the amusing discomfiture of a commissary of police,
who was ill-advised enough to endeavour to arrest the
orator in one of his diatribes. Whereupon Gambetta
then and there drew up a procès-verbal of the com-
missary's act-set forth in due legal form and
phraseology the heinousness of his attempt to inter-
vene in a free interchange of ideas between a candi-
date and his constituents—and having thus turned the
tables on the unhappy functionary-hoist him, as it
were, with his own petard—left him utterly limp and
speechless during the rest of the meeting.
Though, however, the speeches have perished, the
written addresses in part remain, and have special
interest as showing what was the precise position
adopted by the young statesman on first entering
public life.
“Like yourselves," he says, addressing
32
LIFE OF LÉON GAMBETTA.
the electors of the capital, whose mandate-including
such items as the abolition of standing armies, the
separation of Church and State, the disendowment of
the clergy, the election of all public functionaries by
universal suffrage-he "freely" and "proudly"
accepts-
Like yourselves, I hold that there is no other sovereignty than
that of the people, and that Universal Suffrage, the instrument
of that sovereignty, can have neither value, authority, nor creative
power unless it is radically free. The most urgent of reforms
must therefore be to emancipate Universal Suffrage from all
undue, from all corrupting influences. Like yourselves, I hold that
Universal Suffrage, if unfettered, would be strong enough to destroy
all that your programme wishes to destroy, and to found all the
liberties, all the institutions towards which we are striving together.
Like yourselves, I hold that France, the home of an indestruc-
tible democracy, will be unable to secure liberty, peace, order, jus-
tice, material prosperity, and moral greatness, except through the
triumph of the principles of the French Revolution. Like yourselves,
I hold that a regularly constituted democracy is the political system
which realises most promptly, and most surely, the moral and mate-
rial emancipation of the greatest number, and affords the best guaran-
tees for equality in the laws, in the facts of life, and in social habits
and manners. But like yourselves, also, I deem that the social re-
forms we have in view are absolutely dependent on the form of our
government and the reform in politics; and I regard it as an axiom
in these matters that the form involves and will ensure the realisation
of the substance.
·
·
•
•
•
•
•
Cf.
Social reform through political reform-the words
were perhaps a little ominous. At any rate, Gambetta
seems to have felt that in addressing the commercial
constituency of Marseilles it was necessary to say
something reassuring with regard to public order.
The Empire had long traded, not altogether unjustly
as the Commune was afterwards to show, upon the
terrors of the country. If the Radical Party, under
the Republic of 1848, had had it in them to exhibit
prudence, or even sanity, the Coup d'Etat and its
AN OPPONENT OF THE EMPIRE.
33
consequences would have been for ever impossible. It
was the fear of a reign of anarchy that had induced
the country to acquiesce so long in the reign of Louis
Napoleon. For the purpose of allaying such appre-
hensions, Gambetta spoke thus :
Vainly do they say, you represent anarchy, you represent mob rule
. I hurl back such accusations at those who make them. A demo-
cracy, sincerely honestly organised, is the only enemy of mob rule, the
only effective rampart against the nefarious attacks of demagogues
of every order! Demagogues-they are of two kinds. They appear
as either Caesar or Marat. Whether in the hands of one, or in
the hands of a faction, it is by force alone that demagogues desire
to satisfy their ambitions and their appetites. Both kinds of dema-
gogues are to my mind equally hateful and pernicious. But
Radical Democracy, on the other hand, only aims at the develop-
ment of justice, liberty, and universal brotherhood. It springs
from the sovereignty of the people and its mission is to
strengthen the sovereignty of the individual, and to ensure the
.government of the country by the country. Its right is founded on
reason. Its strength is of the people. Its only claim is a fair field, so
that it may convert the majority to its doctrines, firmly convinced
that the day of its advent is at hand, and that when once it has
been scientifically organised, it will give to human activity a most
marvellous development. It will make us all politically more free;
intellectually more wise; economically more easy in our circum-
stances; morally more upright; socially more equal; and it will
-establish order upon the just equilibrium of all rights and interests.
:
-
The colours here, as will be observed, are laid on
somewhat thick. Even at the time they must have
seemed to many garish and crude; and now, to the
dispassionate observer, who has in memory the ways
of the Commune, and in view the doings of the exist-
ing Republic, they undeniably look tawdry. But to
the average elector of 1868 they appeared as the
very culmination of political art. Gambetta was
returned on the 23rd of May 1869 by the "First Cir-
cumscription" of Paris, at the head of the poll, with
21,734 votes, as against 9,142 recorded for M. Carnot;
3
34
LIFE OF LÉON GAMBETTA.
and at Marseilles, though his success was less striking
and immediate, for he did not at first obtain the
"absolute majority" requisite according to the French
Constitution, yet on a second ballot he secured the
seat, defeating M. de Lesseps and M. Thiers.
A satisfactory result, no doubt, to the young bar-
rister who, six months before, had been almost
unknown. But very much less satisfactory as a
measure of the political capacity of the constituencies
by which he had been elected. For M. Carnot-the
son of the "organiser of victory" in the great wars
of the Revolution, and the father of the present Pre-
sident-was a capable and respected statesman, a man
who had "given his proofs " as a Liberal and a Repub-
lican, and been exiled by Louis Napoleon after the
Coup d'État.* While as to Thiers, he was simply the
foremost statesman and speaker in the country. To
place Gambetta on a par with either of these two men,
the second especially, on the strength of any achieve-
ment of his up to this date was absurd. He had yet
to show that there was in him the stuff of a states-
man at all. He had, so far, done nothing beyond
making one very powerful speech, and a few minor
speeches, and talking, if the truth must be owned, a
good deal of democratic nonsense. If, therefore, the
electors of Paris and Marseilles preferred him to
Carnot and Thiers, it can only have been because they
were captivated by his iridescent, frothy promises,
and even more perhaps because they hoped to find in
him a turbulent representative. How resist a candi-
`date who spoke so confidently of the good time coming
*Gambetta was severely blamed at the time for standing against
Carnot, and defended himself by declaring that he held the will of the
constituency to be sacred.
AN OPPONENT OF THE EMPIRE.
35
for democratic mankind, and declared that the "only
mandate he would accept was the mandate of an irre-
concilable opposition" to the existing Government?
.
As the "First Circumscription " was evidently a safe
seat for some wild spirit of the party-the constituency
gave a further measure of its capacity by returning M.
Rochefort Gambetta elected to sit for Marseilles.
The Corps Législatif met on the 28th of June, and the
young deputy walked to the Palais Bourbon amid
crowds of enthusiastic admirers. But he was now
tired and ill. His throat had suffered a good deal
during the recent electoral campaign, and, while the
Chamber was tediously discussing the recent elections,
he went to Ems to recruit. Meanwhile there was
great and growing dismay in the ranks of the Govern-
ment. The recent elections had more than doubled
the numbers of the Republican opposition, and had
greatly added to the numbers of the "third party,"
headed by M. Ollivier. A spirit of reform, not to say
of revolution, was in the air. Even such old sup-
porters of the Imperial régime as M. de Persigny and
M. de Maupas seemed anxious to make a compromise
with Liberalism. Would the Emperor give way at
all, or would he stick to his old despotic guns? Who
could tell? His constitutional vacillation was in-
eradicable, and his health had begun to fail. He
swayed this way and that, seemed now to be on the
point of yielding, now holding back. Finally, on
the 19th of July, M. Rouher, the "vice-emperor," as
M. Emile Ollivier had called him, presented himself
to the Chambers, and read an ambiguous message
from the Throne promising certain reforms, and
proroguing the Chamber in order that the Senate
might have time to revise the constitution. Against
J
-
3 *
36
LIFE OF LEON GAMBETTA.
this prorogation Jules Favre immediately protested,
and was called to order. Gambetta, writing from Ems
to the Avenir National, protested also, and urged that
the Republican Left should organise itself into a
homogeneous party, ready to act on occasion with the
Constitutional party under Thiers, but pursuing its
own ends in its own way.
Soon, however, the young deputy was to experience
for a passing moment the fickleness of mob-popularity.
"There is," says the poet-
There is betwixt that smile we would aspire to,
That sweet aspect of Princes, and their ruin,
More pangs and fears than wars or women have-
and Prince Mob is, on the whole, even less constant
than princes of the old-fashioned type. The Govern-
ment had prorogued the Chamber to the 29th of
November. The Opposition held that it could not
legally be prorogued beyond the 26th of October.
Either date could, 1 imagine, have been defended by
plausible arguments. But as any stick will do to beat
a dog, so of course the Opposition made much of the
presumed illegality. Deputy Kératry exhorted his
colleagues to meet in the Place de la Concorde on the
earlier date, and penetrate, if necessary by force, into
the Palais Bourbon. Gambetta wrote from Switzer-
land on the 1st of October, warmly approving this
proposal-
Too long [he said] has Universal Suffrage, that lord of lords, been
held in leash by the Executive, which is, after all, only its perishable
creation. It is time to put an end to this. . . . Ours be the task to
defeat these miserable temporisings of a dictatorship which is dying
of atrophy. . . . I shall be there.
Unfortunately, as the days went on, it became abun-
dantly clear that a meeting on the 26th of October
AN OPPONENT OF THE EMPIRE.
37
would lead to a collision with the Government. Things
were going well enough for the Republicans as it was.
To run the chances of armed repression would have
been madness. Even Victor Hugo from his exile
did not counsel it. Accordingly Gambetta, and the
saner spirits of the party, determined that discretion
was much the better part of valour, and that they
would not "be there." At this the less sane spirits
were greatly exasperated, and called for the resigna-
tion of the members who refused to demonstrate on
the Place de la Concorde; and Gambetta, like Mira-
beau before him, was made to recognise the proximity
between the "Capitol and the Tarpeian rock," and
was openly denounced as a "traitor." It may also be
worthy of remark that, notwithstanding the eagerness
with which he had accepted the mandate of the elec-
tors, he now signed a general protest of the Left
condemning all "imperative mandates," and declaring
that each representative was responsible to his own
conscience alone.
The Corps Législatif re-assembled on the 29th of
November 1869, and spent the following month mainly
in the "verification" of past elections. Meanwhile,
after much vacillation, many doubts, many negotia-
tions, the enigmatic Emperor had at last decided to
liberalise the Empire and place himself unreservedly
in the hands of the "Third Party." On the 27th of
December M. Ollivier was able to announce that he
had been requested to form a Ministry, having for its
object the regular establishment of constitutional
government. And on the 3rd of January the names of
the new Ministry, mainly chosen from the Right and
Left Centre, were given to the world.
Of M. Ollivier, on whom devolved the leadership of
38
LIFE OF LÉON GAMBETTA.
the Imperial cause during this evolution, one would
wish to speak, as far as may be, without harshness.
Though he himself does not appear to be even yet
conscious of the terrible nature of his failure, both as
regards his master and his country, yet his fall has
been so great, he occupies so poor a place in the
estimation of men, that it seems almost like an act of
cowardice to cast an additional stone. Whether the
task, which in his vanity he undertook with so light a
heart, was of possible accomplishment, may well be
doubted. Whether, given the then available means,
even a Pitt or a Casimir Perrier, could, on the one
hand, have imposed his will on the Emperor, and, on
the other, have overawed and quelled the revolutionary
party, is questionable. One point, however, is at
least certain, that if such a miracle of statesmanship
could have been performed at all, it could only have
been performed by a man, were he Pitt or Casimir Perrier
or any other, in whom were combined the highest gifts
of character, courage, intellect, and knowledge of his
fellows, and a man, moreover, whose own utter rectitude
of intention was unsullied by the slightest breath and
transparent to all. And it is scarcely with such words.
as these that one would trace the portrait of M.
Ollivier.
Nevertheless-hall I confess it?-there seems to
me nothing ignoble in the object which he set before
himself at this time. France has seen many revolu-
tions during the course of the last century. Whether,
on the whole, she herself, and the world at large, have
gained thereby, rather than lost, is at least a moot
question. Balancing advantage and disadvantage in that
hundred years of history, and considering the present
outlook in French politics, my own very strong convic-
AN OPPONENT OF THE EMPIRE.
39
.
tion is that the Revolution of 1789 was a mistake, the
Revolution of 1830 a mistake, and the Revolution of
1848 a mistake. On each of these occasions a Govern-
ment was overturned which, with all its faults, had in
it the potentiality of improvement to a quite indefinite
extent. And in the process of destruction there was
swept away a certain irreplaceable something-a kind
of instinctive confidence in the experiences of the
past, and in the institutions that have stood the test
of time, and a wholesome distrust of the power of
reasoning alone to solve the complex problems of
human society. Mr. John Morley has been at pains
to show that at the time of the first and greatest
Revolution, historical methods of reform were not
applicable to France. One may at least say that
logical methods have not proved a success. Nor is
the cause far to seek. Logical methods have not
succeeded because they are not in accordance with the
facts of human nature. Man's development is a
historical development. The slow successive steps by
which he has separated himself from the brute have
been taken instinctively, and, for the most part, quite
uuconsciously, and only to a very slight extent in
deference to the dictates of abstract reason. Accord-
ing to the doctrines of the eighteenth century, still
paramount on the other side of the Channel, and
exercising no slight influence on this, abstract reason
should be his only guide. Unfortunately, abstract
reason, notwithstanding its high-sounding title, is not
always sufficiently informed, and mainly leaves out of
count all those better tendencies, instincts, reverences,
social pieties (if I may so express myself), which are
perhaps the best part of our human inheritance.
Eliminate these, cancel man's past, and he stands face
40
LIFE OF LÉON GAMBETTA.
to face with the brute from which he sprang, and the
brute rises and prevails against him. So it had
happened in 1793 and in June 1848, and so it was to
happen again in 1871. Civilisation is far from
subsisting upon the bread of the intellect alone.
Therefore, I repeat, there seems to me to have been
nothing inherently ignoble in the attempt made by
M. Ollivier to maintain and reform the Empire rather
than destroy it. He must have known how little
previous revolutions had done for the country. He
must have known, too, how entirely unnecessary they
were, inasmuch as the objects at which they ostensibly
aimed might have been achieved, by regular means,
more slowly, and consequently with better and more
durable results. If with these considerations in view
he determined, if possible, to prevent another revolu-
tion, and rather to utilise the existing materials than
to sweep them away, and begin the foundations of
the State de novo, the error was at worst not discredit-
able. But it was an error, and a grievous one. What
M. Ollivier and the "Third Party" did not see was
that the materials offered to their hand were worm-
eaten, crumbling, worthless. The Second Empire had
no real root in the country. It had not been born viable,
as the French say, not born possessing the possibilities
of life on the fatal 2nd of December 1851. With a
statesman's true instinct, Gambetta went straight to
this point in his speech at the Baudin trial. Louis
Napoleon's rule was founded on a terrible act of
wrong. The Coup d'État was a usurpation of a very
bad kind, and accompanied by circumstances which
one can only describe as odious. It violated a consti-
tution, imperfect no doubt, but which the usurper
had pledged himself most solemnly to uphold. It did
DES-
-
AN OPPONENT OF THE EMPIRE.
41
so at a time when his own personal interests, pecuniary
as well as political, were most deeply involved, and
when, without a successful cast of the dice, he was a
ruined man. It shed blood freely, not merely the
blood of armed opponents, but the blood of mere
spectators, killed, as there is too much reason to
believe, only for purposes of intimidation. It hounded
its victims ruthlessly into transportation and exile.
It alienated from the Government of the country the
whole body of responsible statesmen. It demoralised
the army, by using the army for party purposes and
as an arbiter in civil affairs. It inaugurated a régime
which could only be maintained by espionage and
tyranny. And it did all this on grounds miserably
insufficient, for though the outlook of France at the
end of 1851 was dark, it was by no means desperate.
With these antecedents, there is small room for
wonder that the Empire failed throughout to enlist the
sympathies and services of the nobler spirits in France.
The men who helped to found it were certainly not
men to whom the country could look with any degree
of enthusiasm. Persigny was a sort of mystic, with a
mystic's faith in the Emperor's star. M. de Maupas
had faith too, a kind of policeman's faith in strong,
government and the short sword that does duty on the
other side of the Channel for the constable's truncheon.
Both were so far respectable, in a relative sense, that
they had convictions of some kind. But Morny, the
sceptical gambler, what convictions had he? And
what convictions had Saint-Arnaud? Could any one
of the four be seriously regarded as a statesman?
While as to the later recruits, the men who after-
wards rallied round the Emperor-little men for the
most part, and not one really great-they were only
42
LIFE OF LEON GAMBETTA.
too generally attracted by the loaves and fishes. For
indeed the Empire had little else to offer them.
Its appeal was to material interests, and the neces-
sity for the repression of free thought, and free
speech, and self-government. Feeding on such
garbage, can one wonder that all nobler hopes and
aspirations languished? As the birth of the Govern-
ment of Louis Napoleon had been ignoble, so it is
not too much to say that its life was corrupt.
There were in it, from the very first, the eneradi-
cable seeds of death.
This is what M. Ollivier failed to understand when
he undertook so readily to pilot the fortunes of a re-
generated Empire. But, for all his confidence, his
optimism must very soon have been somewhat rudely
shaken. The decree appointing the new ministry
appeared in the Journal Officiel of the 4th of Janu-
ary. On the 10th the Chambers met, and M. Ollivier,
already somewhat chilled by the attitude of the
Napoleonist Right and the Republican Left, made an
appeal to all parties to support "a Government which
would bestow on the country progress without violence,
and liberty without revolution." Whereupon Gam-
betta rose to speak. The Right had always been
inclined to regard him so far as a wild man, a kind of
swash-buckler of democracy like the bloodthirsty
heroes of the Reign of Terror. They were the more
surprised on the occasion of this, his maiden speech,
at the extreme moderation with which he began. He
wished to ask-such was in brief the purport of his
remarks—why two soldiers had been transferred, as a
punishment, to a regiment in Algeria for being pre-
sent, while on furlough, at a political meeting.
General Leboeuf, the war-minister-the same who was
AN 43
AN
OPPONENT OF THE EMPIRE.
:
so shortly to display his incapacity as an administrator
during the Franco-German War-General Leboeuf
replied, justly enough as to the substance, but most
offensively as to the manner, that the army had
nothing to do with politics; and he concluded by
assuring the Liberals, somewhat unnecessarily, that
if they attempted any revolutionary movement, the
army in general, and the two incriminated soldiers
in particular, would do their duty in a manner at
once sharp and decisive. This was scarcely the
language of conciliation, and came but ill from a
member of a ministry* that was trying to rally the
Liberal Left to the support of the Government.
Gambetta retorted angrily that language such as
they had just heard could only proceed from men
who "felt that they were a faction in unjust posses-
sion of power." The debate was evidently not going
according to M. Ollivier's views, and he hastened to
intervene :
mutta
We, the ministers of the Emperor, cannot admit that a
Government founded on Universal Suffrage, a Government which has
just loyally inaugurated the fullest constitutional liberty that
exists in any country, is a faction wrongfully in possession of power. No,
we are a Government regularly constituted, legitimate, constitutional,
and using all our efforts to establish liberty. . . We do not accuse the
honourable M. Gambetta, any more than we accuse those who sit by
his side, of wishing for a rebellion. We esteem and respect them too
much to allow of our bringing against them such an accusation: their
very presence here implies a constitutional attitude which would refute
the charge. We are convinced that between them and us there can, in
all loyalty and honour, only be differences of measure, and opportunity,
and detail. But between them and us there can be no question of
revolution and rebellion. If they had in view either revolution or
rebellion, they would not have accepted a seat in this Assembly.
* General Leboeuf was not one of the new ministers. He had kept
his portfolio through the change in the ministry.
44
LIFE OF LEON GAMBETTA.
Here was the position of the liberalised Empire,
clearly and plainly stated. Gambetta's reply came
quick as a sword flash, and rang like a bugle calling
to battle:
•
I affirm boldly that between him who has just spoken and ourselves.
it is not true to say-it would be an act of dissimulation to which I,
for one, should never submit-that there is only a question of mea-
sure: there is a question of principle. If you wish to found liberty
with the Empire, and to do so with our co-operation, abandon that
hope, and for ever. . . . Our desire is that in lieu of the Empire,
a series of institutions should be organised in harmony with Univer-
sal Suffrage and the national sovereignty-that there should be given
to us, without a revolution, and pacifically. . a Republic. And
speaking in the name of Universal Suffrage, which has sent me hither
with a mandate from the people, I say that I in no wise depart from
a strictly constitutional attitude when I demonstrate that there is
absolute incompatibility between the present form of government,
between the system of which you are the defenders, and the rights
and aspirations of Universal Suffrage. But this does not in any
sense mean that because I am dissatisfied with the present, I shall
endeavour to find a remedy by an appeal to physical force. No, no!.
And this position is in no sense illogical, because I believe that in the
light that proceeds from this tribune, in the fuller day of which
that light is the dawn, there will come, little by little, in the con-
science of France, a progressive conviction and certainty, and that the
time will arrive, and is perhaps not far distant, when the majority
which will have taken your place will be inevitably led, without dis-
turbance, without rebellion, without using the sword, without any
appeal to subversive forces, and by the mere logic of events, to
inaugurate a new order of things; for you are no more than a bridge
between the Republic of 1848 and the Republic which is to come, and
over that bridge we are now passing.
·
• •
At which point there are many among us who will
doubtless feel inclined to smile. For "the Republic"
has not yet established its title to be regarded as a
universal divinity, potent for good in all places, apart
from antecedent and circumstance. It is, at best, so-
obviously only a kind of local god, with a limited
sphere of influence and usefulness, that the ecstatic
AN OPPONENT OF THE EMPIRE.
45
hymns of its French worshippers, Victor Hugo in
chief, often produce an effect the reverse of solemn.
Yet here I think a smile would be out of place. Not-
withstanding the obvious exaggeration of Gambetta's
language and tone, he was nearer to the central facts
of French politics than M. Ollivier. It was true, as
events were too soon to demonstrate in characters of
blood, that the Empire was moribund. It was true
also that in a country so devastated by revolution, the
only government ultimately possible, and that doubt-
fully, was the Republic. Gambetta, therefore, is not
liable to blame, or even open to ridicule, for the atti-
tude he now took up, though one might have wished
that he had looked forward with less confidence, and
with a clearer vision of the dangers ahead.
Meanwhile the stars in their courses were fighting
against the Imperial cause. On the 10th of January,
the very day on which Gambetta was bidding defiance
to the liberalised Empire, an incident occurred that
affected public opinion in a most disastrous manner.
Louis Napoleon had a cousin, Pierre Bonaparte by
name, who was the enfant terrible of the family, and
so little to be trusted that he stood even outside the
pretty wide range of his cousin's patronage. Journalism
of the fiercer type seems to have been his pastime; and
as the outcome of a paper war, violent on either side,
he had challenged M. Rochefort to mortal combat, and
was himself about to be challenged by M. Paschal
Grousset. The latter sent two of his friends, Victor
Noir and Ulric de Fonvielle, journalists both, to bear
his cartel to the Prince. They presented themselves
at the house, and within a very few moments were
seen to spring out again with all speed, de Fonvielle
shrieking "Help! murder!" and Victor Noir
46
LIFE OF LEON GAMBETTA.
staggering for a moment, and then falling down to
die, shot through the breast by a pistol ball. What
had happened at the interview? The accounts given
are conflicting. According to de Fonvielle, Pierre
Bonaparte had received himself and his friend in a
most insulting manner, had struck the latter, and then
immediately taken out a revolver and discharged it
straight at him, afterwards turning the weapon on de
Fonvielle, who, being himself armed, had returned the
shot, but ineffectually, and then followed Victor Noir
into the street. According to the Prince's version,
insult and blow had first proceeded from Victor Noir,
and he himself had only fired in self-defence.
"C
On which side did truth lie? Who shall tell?
Pierre Bonaparte was, no doubt, something of a swash-
buckler. But de Fonvielle, as the incidents of the
trial showed only too conclusively, was not a man on
whose sanity of spirit any reliance could be placed.
The interview had probably from the first been con-
ducted, on both sides, in a manner only too much
calculated to lead to a breach of the peace," and if
Pierre Bonaparte carried a revolver, de Fonvielle
carried one too. The public, however, were in no
mood for philosophic reflection. They worked them-
selves into much the same state of excitement as when
Charlotte Corday thrust her knife into Marat, and
Chabot, pale with terror," declared to the Conven-
tion that "they were all to be assassinated." M.
Rochefort, giving a tongue to the popular feeling, wrote
in his paper, the Marseillaise, on the following day,
the 11th of January :-
<<
-
I have had the weakness to believe that a Bonaparte could be any-
thing but an assassin! I have dared to imagine that an open, honest
duel was possible with any member of that family in which murder
AN OPPONENT OF THE EMPIRE.
47
For over
and treachery are matters of tradition and custom. . .
eighteen years France has been in the blood-stained hands of these
ruffian bravoes, who, not content to mow down the Republicans with
grape in the streets, now entrap them into their foul dens so as to be
able to butcher them at home. O people of France! do you not
really think that the measure is full?
•
Whereupon, notwithstanding the orders immediately
given for the trial of Pierre Bonaparte, there are public
meetings held, with much waving of crape and cries.
for vengeance, and a great deal of heated oratory;
and on the 12th, the day of Victor Noir's funeral,
there is an immense demonstration, with much more
crape, and immortelles in profusion, and more fiery
speechifying, and singing of the Marseillaise by
thousands of hoarse throats, and cries of "Vengeance!"
and "Death to the Bonaparte!" and the unyoking of
the horses from the hearse, and dragging of the same.
by the populace, and generally a determination on the
part of the crowd that the funeral shall take place at
Père Lachaise instead of Neuilly-a determination.
which, if carried out, would almost certainly have led
to a sanguinary collision between troops and people.
But with all this I need not here concern myself,
except in so far as it shows that a storm of revolution
was brewing in the beginning of 1870, and in so far
especially as Gambetta is connected with the incidents.
here briefly touched upon.
M. Rochefort's intemperate article appeared on the
11th of January. On the same day the Procureur-
Général applied to the Corps Législatif for permission
to prosecute him on account of it; and clearly, if ever
a political press prosecution is justifiable, it was
justifiable in connection with such an article as this.
So thought the Commission appointed to investigate
the Procureur's application, and on the 13th they
48
LIFE OF LEON GAMBETTA.
reported accordingly. The Chamber wished to discuss
the matter on the following day, but Gambetta, after
angering the majority by dwelling on the "generosity"
of M. Rochefort's "character," obtained an adjourn-
ment till the 17th. By this time M. Ollivier's
Ministry were greatly fluttered, and had determined
to treat the question as one of confidence. The
closure was applied ere the debate had proceeded far,
and Gambetta, who yearned to speak, was baulked of
an opportunity of fulminating against the Empire.
He revenged himself by a bitter attack on the Prime
Minister. The latter had said that he and his col-
leagues "asked God, as a supreme favour, to grant
that they might leave power without shedding one
drop of blood, and in order that that may happen," he
was continuing, when Gambetta finished his sentence
by crying out, "it is only necessary that you should
have a lightning flash of good sense!"
"And you,
M. Gambetta, a lightning flash of patriotism and a
lightning flash of conscience!" replied M. Ollivier.
This thrust evidently drew blood, and on the next day
Gambetta returned to the subject, bitterly taunting his
opponent with apostasy from the Republican cause.
Nor did his intervention in the Rochefort question end
here. That mischievous sciolist of politics was con-
demned by the Courts on the 22nd of January to six
months' imprisonment, commencing on the 7th of
February. On the latter date his friends in the
Chamber raised the question of his privileges as a
representative once more, and Gambetta argued, with
a moderation of tone which ensured him at least
a patient hearing, that in deference to Universal
Suffrage, whose mandate the delinquent held, the
imprisonment should be postponed till the end of the
AN OPPONENT OF THE EMPIRE.
49
session. It must be owned that some of the argu-
ments used by the Opposition in this debate were not
of a practical character.
-
Having so far indicated the attitude which Gam-
betta assumed from the first towards the Empire,
whether despotic or liberalised, it will scarcely be
necessary to describe at length all the debates in which
he took part during the session of 1870. (He spoke
on the 26th of January against the employment of the
army for the repression of a strike at Creuzot; on
the 3rd of February in favour of an extension of the
liberty of the press; on the 29th of March in favour
of a law declaring official candidatures illegal; and on
the 5th of April he delivered a great speech, his first
really great political speech, against the proposal to
submit the new constitution of the Empire to the
country by means of a plébiscite, or general vote by
Yea or Nay.
་
This last speech created a real sensation. What-
ever we may think of some of the arguments
employed, it showed that the speaker was no mere
popular windbag, as some had so far perhaps been
tempted to imagine, no mere brazen-throated instru-
ment good for vociferations in the market-place and
interruptions in the Chamber, but a born political
orator possessing the faculty of so presenting his sub-
ject that even a hostile majority were compelled to
hear and attend. Little as they liked his arguments,
and uncompromising as were his conclusions, he gave
them no excuse, scarcely excited in them the desire,
to interrupt. Like the Ancient Mariner's auditor,
they might beat their breasts, but they had to listen
while the speaker argued that the new constitution
was incompatible with Universal Suffrage, and that the
4
50
LIFE OF LÉON GAMBETTA.
plébiscite itself, as being proposed by an authority
outside Universal Suffrage, could give that constitution
no validity.
..
But if the majority were outraged, the Republicans
were immensely pleased. To us, with our insular
habits of mind, our "imperviousness to ideas," the
whole of such a discussion may seem academical, and
to lie outside" the sphere of practical politics." From
one point of view, how perfectly idle all this logic-
chopping about the compatibility or incompatibility
of Universal Suffrage! It seems as remote from the
facts of human life as a discussion in Laputa. There
would scarcely be any difficulty in proving, by similar
processes of reasoning, that Universal Suffrage was
incompatible with representative government, or any
government at all. But before indulging unduly in
criticism of this kind, it is necessary to mark a very
strong distinction. An argument may be essentially
worthless, and yet, under certain circumstances, possess
enormous power of moving men, and so become
a factor in human affairs of a very effective kind.
Looked at from the stand-point of this last quarter of
the nineteenth century, Rousseau's doctrine of the
Social Contract is little better than the sounding of
brass and the tinkling of a cymbal. And yet to such
strains the Revolutionists of 1793 danced the Car-
magnole over the ruins of France. The page in which
John Stuart Mill describes James Mill's political
philosophy is not calculated to heighten one's admira-
tion for human wisdom. Yet James Mill inspired the
Philosophical Radicals," and the Philosophical
Radicals were a very real power in English politics for
a generation. And so, though Gambetta's arguments
on the incompatibility of Universal Suffrage and the
CC
AN OPPONENT OF THE EMPIRE.
51
Empire were in themselves naught, yet, as engines of
destruction, they had singular force. The growing
body of the disaffected seized upon them. The youth
of the country especially hailed them with delight.
Gone was now the cloud of unpopularity through
which the orator had passed before the beginning of
the session. His name was once more in vivid light.
And the "young men of the schools," all that student
band with whom he had mingled so long and so joy-
ously, offered him a banquet in testimony of their
enthusiasm and admiration.
.
Accordingly on the 19th of April, at the Salle
Ragache, some six hundred persons sat down to dinner,
and Gambetta, replying to the " toast of the evening,
called himself the mouthpiece of the generation whose
representatives were before him-said "fit things" on
the decay of the Napoleonic legend, and on the coming
advent of the Republic-exhorted his hearers to seek
for a change of government by peaceable means and
the use of moral force alone; entreated them to labour
for the enlightenment of Universal Suffrage, concluding
with the word laboremus; spoke, in short, as was but
natural seeing the youth of the orator and his audience,
in tones of hope and a cheery optimism, but in tones
also that had in them an honest ring of manliness
and effort.
Some six days before the delivery of this speech,
the Corps Législatif had been prorogued, and the first
scene in Gambetta's parliamentary life brought to a
close.
""
4 *
*
52
LIFE OF LÉON GAMBETTA.
CHAPTER IV.
COMMENCEMENT OF THE WAR AND FALL OF THE
EMPIRE.
1870.
Incidents preceding the war-Responsibility for the war-The Hohen-
zollern incident-Meeting of the Corps Législatif on the 15th of
July 1870-Gambetta exhorts the House to pause-The ministry
refuses to produce despatches-Inferiority of France in arms
and statecraft-When once the war is declared, Gambetta votes
supplies-Defeat of the French-Chambers meet on 9th of
August-Gambetta foresees ruin-The Emperor marches north-
ward to Sedan-Where he is caught in a trap-News of capitula-
tion of Sedan received in Paris-Meeting of the Assembly-The
4th of September-Gambetta tries to induce the mob to keep
order while the members deliberate-The Chambers invaded-
Proclamation of the Republic at the Hôtel de Ville-New
Ministry-Gambetta Minister of the Interior-Estimate of his
conduct during preceding events.
G
INTO the history of the diplomatic incidents imme-
diately preceding the declaration of war between
France and Germany on the 19th of July 1870, it is
not my purpose to enter at any length, Important as
those incidents may have been, they were in no real
sense the cause of the war. That lay much deeper.
When Prussia, having first attacked Denmark in con-
cert with Austria, and then defeated Austria at
FALL OF THE EMPIRE.
53
Sadowa, made herself practically the mistress of Ger-
many, she effected a most material change in the
existing relations between the States of Europe. A
united Germany, under the sway of a strong military
power like Prussia, was a distinct blow at the influence
of France—a distinct menace, as events have proved
only too conclusively, to France's very existence.
Would this have justified France, even at the expense
of a war, in resisting the unification of Germany?
The question is one to which, I imagine, an affirmative
reply would be given almost everywhere, except per-
haps in England, and, of course, so far as this one
special case is concerned, in Germany. For we in
England are in the habit of taking a somewhat
Platonic view of Continental relations. Happily
protected by the "silver streak," we can afford to
look calmly at most of the anxieties of our neigh-
bours, and even, on occasion, to lecture them in a
manner quite edifying. Why, we are tempted to ask,
should one country repine at the aggrandisement of
another? Do not all nations form a single family,
and is not the advantage of one member the advantage
of all? To which it may be enough to reply that,
where our own interests really are involved, we are as
keenly alive to questions affecting what used to be
called "the balance of power" as the inhabitants of
other lands. An example will show this at once. In
July 1870, just after the declaration of the war, and
while we were busy lecturing France on her enormi-
ties, Prince Bismarck caused to be published a paper
purporting to contain a French scheme for the
annexation of Belgium. The mode in which that
paper came into existence, and its precise value, are
not here the points in question. What I wish rather
54
LIFE OF LÉON GAMBETTA.
to dwell on is the sensation it created here in England
a sensation due in part, as one is more than willing
to believe, to a feeling of indignation at what seemed
like wanton aggression against a most respectable
small State, but due also, and evidently in much
larger measure, to the thought of the danger we had
run of having France as a neighbour on the Belgian
coast. But if Antwerp in French hands would have
been, to use the old saying, "a loaded pistol presented
at the breast of England," a united Germany on
the Rhine was a weapon of a far more deadly
character ready to be discharged into the heart of
France. The question for France was not at all a
question of national vanity, but almost of national
existence.
Looked at philosophically, from the moment that
Prussia began to aim at German unity under Prussian
patronage, a war with France became almost inevit-
able. That Germany should have thought herself
justified in pursuing her national aspirations, at what-
ever cost, is comprehensible enough. But that France
should equally have considered herself justified in
resisting a change so detrimental to her interests,
must also be regarded as comprehensible. And as
Germany was the active instrument in the change,
and was, by her deliberate action, altering the pre-
existing condition of European forces, she must be
pronounced the aggressor. As to the balance of
advantage which the world has reaped from her
success, doubtless it seems incalculable to German
eyes. To other eyes, which see only too well the in-
tolerable pressure of existing armaments, and the
threatening cloud of war that lowers persistently over
Europe, the benefits may seem very much less, and
FALL OF THE EMPIRE.
55
not to call for any very enthusiastic display of pleasure
or gratitude.
That the French Emperor expected, and was led to
expect, some compensation for France after Sadowa,
is clear. That he was thoroughly hoodwinked and
beaten at the game of diplomacy by Count Bismarck,
is even clearer. In 1870, when all hope of reaping a
substantive advantage must long have gone by, he
seems to have determined, but with his usual vacilla-
tion, to obtain an empty diplomatic victory over Ger-
many, or even, in default of that, to hasten the in-
evitable war between the two countries. Very briefly
stated, the Hohenzollern incident took place somewhat
as follows: General Prim, casting about for a suitable
candidate to fill the vacant throne of Spain, had
pitched on Prince Leopold, a cadet of the House of
Hohenzollern. The young man himself-a junior
cavalry officer in a Prussian regiment-was nothing
loth. The King of Prussia had evidently no reason
to object. Spain showed no signs of discontent.
Only the French Emperor was dissatisfied, and not
unreasonably so, for, with an aggrandised Prussia in
Germany, the presence of a Prussian Prince on the
Spanish throne was not an arrangement to which
France could look forward with complacency.
Accordingly, pressure was put on the German King to
disavow Prince Leopold's candidature. The King re-
plied that as King he had nothing to do with
the matter, but that as head of the Hohenzollern
family he was prepared to approve if his relative
drew back, but could go no further. So matters
drifted on, war looking more and more possible, till
on the 12th July M. Ollivier was able to announce
that Prince Hohenzollern had actually withdrawn his
(D
56
LIFE OF LEON GAMBETTA.
candidature, and that King William approved of such
withdrawal. All difficulties now seemed happily at an
end, and the Emperor should obviously have been
satisfied. But on the evening of that same 12th of
July, M. de Gramont, the French Foreign Minister,
instructed M. Beneditti, the Ambassador at the Court
of Berlin, to obtain from King William an assurance
that he would not, at any future time, sanction the
renewal of the Prince's candidature. Such a demand
was obviously quite inadmissible. The aged King
very naturally refused to give the assurance demanded,
and also refused to give the Ambassador any further
audience on the subject. Leaving Ems at this time
he seems to have parted from M. Beneditti with per-
fect courtesy, but with an obvious determination to
discuss the Hohenzollern question, at that time, no
more.
Mr. Bright once declared, in a speech of admirable
eloquence addressed to the House of Commons
during the Crimean War, that he seemed almost
to hear the rustling of the wings of the angel of
death. To whomsoever had ears to hear, that rustling
must have been terribly audible-mingled, it may be,
with the groans of defeat and shame-when, on the
15th of July 1870, M. Ollivier came down to the Corps
Législatif and read a statement tending to show, at
least disingenuously, that the King's refusal was, both in
substance and in form, an insult to France-and then
proceeded to declare the imminence of war
But to
any warnings of coming doom the majority were as
the deaf adder. They applauded the Minister's words.
They shouted "Vive l'Empereur." They were filled
with bellicose ardour. It was in
asked for the production of papers.
vain that Thiers
-

What!
What! papers,
L
FALL OF THE EMPIRE.
57
when France has been insulted? asked the Ministers
and the indignant Bonapartist members. Then ensued
a scene of indescribable tumult. The eloquent old
man, undaunted, unwearied, speaking against a rolling
fire of cries that he was a traitor, that he was dis-
honouring his grey hairs, that he ought to be hurled
from the tribune, exhorted his hearers, with tears of
patriotism in his voice, to pause before committing
the country to war to insist on seeing the actual
despatches that had passed. He might almost as well
have spoken to Bedlam let loose. A Commission
was appointed to examine the enactments proposed by
the Government in view of the coming hostilities.
It was during this sitting that M. Ollivier made the
memorable speech-a speech which will, as it were,
ring round his name for many a long year like a peal
of bitter laughter-to the effect that he and his col-
leagues looked forward to their coming responsibili-
ties "with a light heart." It was to the Commission
that Marshal Leboeuf, the War Minister, made the
equally memorable declaration that the army-poor
deluded army-" were ready to the very last button on
their gaiters." What could be more satisfactory,
especially as M. de Gramont, the Foreign Minister,
hinted mysteriously, but confidently, at alliances?
The Commission reported at once, and by half-past
nine at night the Corps Législatif was again assembled.
When the report had been read, (Gambetta rose to
address the House. He can by no means have been a
persona grata to the majority. By what miracle of
oratorical art did he succeed in obtaining a hearing on
such an occasion, and for such propositions as he had
to expound? He dwelt, as was but natural, on the
gravity of the questions at issue, and on the necessity
.
58
LIFE OF LÉON GAMBETTA.
of considering them calmly. He lamented, rightly
enough, that the policy of resisting the aggrandise-
ment of Prussia had not been pursued four years
before. And then, having gained the ear of the house,
he went back to the points argued earlier in the day
by Thiers, and Jules Favre, and M. Buffet. Clearly
the Government had changed their policy. By what
was that change justified? So far as appeared, so far
as the facts had been authentically presented, so far
especially as the despatches went, there was nothing
that could be rightly construed into an insult to
France and a casus belli. Let the despatches, let the
reports of the French Ambassador be published. If
the French cause was righteous, let France, let the
whole of Europe, be in a position to judge of its
righteousness.
What, you are calling on France to give you her blood
and her treasure; you are making her enter upon a war which will,
perchance, see the question of the preponderance of the French or
German race still unsolved at the end of this century, and yet you
are unwilling that the reasons for embarking on this immense enter-
prise should be shown formally, authentically, so that France may
know, and Europe may know, on which side there has been insult
and unjust aggression, and on which side legitimate resistance to
attack! . . . I beseech the House not to interrupt me . . . and to
hear my words without suspicion. I am seeking in this discussion
to clear up one point only, and that a point which must interest you
as passionately as it interests myself, viz. whether the course which
you are endeavouring to make final and irrevocable will receive the
approval of Europe, and especially of France. And on that sym-
pathy—that sympathy which is to us an indispensable ally-you will
only be able to reckon, when once you have drawn the sword, on one
single condition, and that condition is that your explanations make it
perfectly clear that you have been really and deeply insulted. . . . And
I pray you to hear me when I say that you have not satisfied public
opinion on this point by the quotations and documents you have pro-
duced.
The speech was the speech of a statesman and a
FALL OF THE EMPIRE.
59
patriot, no less than a great political orator. But it
was spoken in vain. The Ministry had little care to
produce documents which they knew only too well
would not bear the stress laid upon them. And so
the country was hurried, on unjust and hollow pre-
texts, into a war not in itself unjust, and forfeited, as
Gambetta prophesied she would do, the moral support
of Europe. Poor France! when one thinks of the
tremendous disadvantages under which she entered
upon the struggle, and M. Olivier's "light heart,"
it is difficult to refrain from applying a very uncom-
plimentary epithet to that politician. Did he think
perchance that he, or his master the Emperor-the
latter a man already broken by disease and marked for
death-was the equal in statesmanship and state-
craft of Prince Bismarck? Did he believe that strate-
gists like Moltke were to be met with every day, and
that there happened to be one in the French army?
Had it ever crossed his mind that a country with a
Government compelled to court popularity at every
step, and incapable of bearing the least strain of defeat,
is scarcely in a satisfactory condition to undergo the
chances of a war? That he had altogether failed to
gauge the overwhelming superiority of the German
forces, and also how long and well they had been pre-
pared for this special campaign-this we know—as
also that he was blissfully unaware how German
statesmanship and the ineptitude of his own Govern-
ment had isolated France from her natural allies.
And now he was alienating all sympathies by declaring
war upon a pretext disingenuously imbecile !
Gambetta was an ardent Republican. But, to do
him justice, he was a more than equally ardent patriot,
and one can pretty well guess what must have been his
60
LIFE OF LEON GAMBETTA.
feelings as event followed event during the next few
weeks. On the 19th of July hostilities were declared.
On the 24th, the Chambers were prorogued. On the
27th, the Emperor left Saint-Cloud to take command
of the army. On the 2nd of August came the skir-
mish of Sarrebruck, where the Prince Imperial
received his "Baptism of fire"-a skirmish absurdly
magnified into a victory. On the 4th occurred the
first real battle of the war, at Wissembourg, and the
French were surprised, outnumbered, and beaten. The
more important defeats of Froeschwiller and Forbach
followed on the 6th, and it became clear to all that the
French army, so far from carrying the war into the
enemy's territory, were baffled and retreating, and
that France itself was invaded. Two days afterwards
the Chambers were convened once more, and Paris
was declared in a state of siege. The Chambers met
on the 9th, and, as may be imagined, in a state of
indescribable excitement. M. Ollivier's ministry did
not outlive the day. Jules Favre, speaking on behalf
of the Left, proposed that the National Guard should
at once be organised and armed, and that a Committee
of fifteen members should be chosen, and "invested
with full powers," practically to govern the country,
till the return of peace. Gambetta, it need scarcely
be said, supported both measures. He spoke in favour
of the first on the 10th August, and in favour of the
second on the 13th, declaring to the majority that
the choice lay" between the salvation of the country
and the salvation of a dynasty." He spoke again on
the following day, complaining that the information
communicated to the Chambers by the Government was
miserably insufficient or misleading. He spoke again
on the 16th, the 17th, the 20th, the 23rd, the 24th,
.
FALL OF THE EMPIRE.
61
the 25th, the 27th, the 29th, and the 31st of August
-not set speeches for the most part, but short inter-
pellatory addresses, by turns passionate, indignant,
persuasive, in which he seemed, if I may borrow a
term from the foot-ball field, to be endeavouring to
"dribble" his ideas through the angry array of his
political opponents.
Do you know, gentlemen, what I think? [he cried, on one of these
occasions]. It is that you are all entirely full of patriotism, but
blinded; and I say so in the utmost sincerity of my heart, so that on
this point at least there may be no room for difference between us.
Allow me to tell you that there are different ways and means by
which the salvation of the country can be secured. Well, I declare
that we have already made concessions enough-[interruptions]—
that we have held our peace sufficiently long-[renewed interruptions]
-that a veil has too long been thrown over the events that are
crowding in upon us and crushing us. I have the deepest conviction
that the country is unconsciously rolling towards the abyss-[cries
and protestations from the Right and Centre]. That is the truth, the
whole truth!
The truth indeed! While Gambetta and his friends
were urging upon the Government the necessity of
arming the country, the necessity of being more frank
in the disclosure of information, the necessity even of
abdicating their power into the hands of a Commission
of the Chambers, the war was pursuing its terrible
course, and the Government itself was crumbling to
pieces. On the 12th of August the Emperor resigned
the chief command to Bazaine. Bazaine, after the doubt-
ful combats of Borny, Gravelotte, and Rezonville, was
beaten at Saint-Privat, and driven back into Metz.
Between the Crown Prince and Paris there was only
the Camp of Châlons, occupied by a half-demoralised
miscellaneous force under Marshal MacMahon, who
had retreated thither after the battle of Reichsoffen.
62
LIFE OF LEON GAMBETTA.
The Emperor, the Prince Imperial, and Prince Napo-
leon had also fled there after Gravelotte. What should
they do, the Emperor and his demoralised forces?
Should they leave Bazaine and his army to their fate
before Metz, and retreat on Paris, the army accepting
as its sole mission to defend the capital, and Louis
Napoleon openly acknowledging to all men that he
was utterly beaten and a miserable failure? To the
Empress, to M. Rouher, to the Imperialists in Paris,
the political effect of such a course seemed little short
of ruin. An immediate revolution was to be feared.
In an evil hour, and after many priceless moments had
been wasted, they induced the Emperor and Marshal
MacMahon to adopt the insane plan of marching
northward, for the purpose of effecting a junction with
Bazaine. The march began on the 23rd. To have had
any chance of success it would have been necessary to
utterly distance the Crown Prince. But how was
rapidity possible with an army demoralised by reverses,
ill provided, ill equipped, and led by chiefs who had
neither skill to discern the movements of the enemy,
nor faith in their own plans-not even stability of
purpose in the wrong course they were pursuing?
The end we know: how on the 2nd of September
all that was left of an army of more than 124,000
men, pent up in Sedan, pell-mell, without means of
escape, attack, or defence, like rats in a trap, had to
lay down its arms. As Louis Napoleon drove out of the
town that morning at nine o'clock, smoking his cigar-
ette, he looked upon the outward and visible signs
of almost the greatest military disaster of modern
times, and can scarcely have avoided the thought
that the shame of it was for all time attached to his
.
name.
FALL OF THE EMPIRE.
63
The terrible news of the capitulation of Sedan did
not at once reach Paris in an authenticated form, and
in all its horror. On the 3rd of September, Count
de Palikao, the Minister of War, only spoke to the
Corps Législatif of General MacMahon's wound, and
the reports of reverses in the North-East, as "rumours
having no official character." Even this, however, was
so little reassuring that Jules Favre declared that the
Government had become a mere phantom, and that
supreme power ought to be at once vested in General
Trochu, the popular general of the hour. But at four
o'clock there came a telegram from the Emperor to
the Empress, and before night Paris knew that one
of its armies had capitulated to the enemy, that the
other was practically a prisoner in Metz, and that there
was literally nothing to stop the march of the Germans
on the capital. A large number of the Deputies went
to urge on President Schneider the desirability of
holding a meeting of the Assembly that night, to
which he assented. As they were coming away from
his official residence, they found Gambetta, at the
request as would appear of some of his colleagues,
haranguing the crowd in front of the Pont de la
Concorde:
Citizens he was crying], let us show to Europe, let us show to the
world, that revolution and patriotism always go hand in hand. Paris,
at the present moment, can effect, not only the salvation of the
country, but the salvation of the French Revolution. [Repeated cries
of Vive Gambetta!] No, gentlemen, do not cry "Vive Gambetta!"
Vive an individual man! At this moment no cry should proceed
from a single French breast but Vive la France!
Gentlemen,
I am about to join my colleagues, and I swear to you that ere this
night has passed, or at most the half of to-morrow, we shall have
resolved upon a course, at once energetic and worthy of the people.
But we must not appear to be deliberating under pressure from
•
64
LIFE OF LÉON GAMBETTA.
without. I beg you to withdraw. Let the approaches to the Corps
Législatif be free and unencumbered.*
One of the Deputies, a member of the Right,
requested the speaker to announce to the crowd that a
night sitting was to be held; and with wild cries of
"Vive Gambetta! Vive le Corps Législatif!" the
crowd dispersed.
The Chamber met at a quarter past one, and
remained sitting for twenty minutes, just long
enough to allow Count de Palikao to confirm offi-
cially the news of the disaster at Sedan, and to
allow Jules Favre to propose a decree declaring
the Emperor deposed and the Government confided
to a Commission selected by the Corps Législatif.
They then adjourned till twelve o'clock on the same
day, the 4th.
That 4th of September dawned in Paris, as may be
supposed, with every presage of coming storm. The
Government, disguise it as they might, were hopelessly
demoralised. The Opposition were determined that
power should pass, but, as far as possible, by orderly
and legitimate means and a clear vote of the Cham-
ber, from the hands that had proved themselves so
woefully inefficient. The people were in a state of
feverish anxiety, grief, and indignation. The Cham-
ber did not really begin to sit till a quarter past one,
Gambetta, "haggard with excitement," being one of
the first of the members of the Left to rush in. By
that time it was known throughout Paris that Lyons,
The passage
* I quote from the volume of Gambetta's speeches.
quoted in M. Taxile Delord's History of the Second Empire is
notably less revolutionary in tone; ends, indeed, by deprecating any
revolution. It is, of course, difficult to be quite sure of what was
exactly said on such an occasion.
FALL OF THE EMPIRE.
65
the second city of the Empire, had proclaimed the
Republic. This did not tend to allay the prevailing
agitation. An excited crowd filled the approaches of
the Palais Bourbon, so far as these were not protected
by soldiers and police. The galleries of the Chamber
itself had, from an early hour, been thronged with
journalists and their friends, and with old revolu-
tionary deputies of former Assemblies. Shortly after
the sitting had begun, Count de Palikao, the War
Minister, rose and proposed that supreme power
should be placed in the hands of a "Council of
Government and National Defence," consisting of five
members chosen by the Corps Législatif, and to be pre-
sided over by himself. It shows how men's minds
had advanced in four-and-twenty hours, that such a
motion—which entirely put the Emperor and Empress-
regent to one side-should have been proposed by a
Minister and creature of the Empire. Thiers put for-
ward a counter proposition, leaving the appointment of
the Commission entirely to the Corps Législatif-with-
out Count de Palikao, it need scarcely be added-and
allowing the future form of Government to stand over
for after-consideration. The Left held to the proposal
made the night before by Jules Favre, which, it may
be observed, made no mention of the word "Republic."
When the three resolutions had been set forth, the
Chamber adjourned to its bureaux for the purpose of
discussing them. While the deliberation was pro-
gressing, somewhat slowly, the journalists and poli-
ticians in the galleries grew impatient, left their places,
roamed over the building, and emerging on to the great
steps in front, waved their handkerchiefs and beckoned
to the crowd to advance, crying " Vive la République !"
The crowd, by this time increased enormously, ad-
5
66
LIFE OF LÉON GAMBETTA.
vanced, nothing loth, neither police nor soldiers
offering any effectual resistance, and invaded the
galleries of the Chamber, and even the seats of the
deputies. When the latter had finished their delibera-
tions, they found the mob already in part possession of
the House. Gambetta, at the request of several of
his colleagues, went up to the Tribune, and, amid
many interruptions, exhorted the people to be quiet,
and to allow the Assembly to deliberate in a
orderly manner,
au
What I ask of you is that you should feel, as I do the
extreme gravity of the situation, and that you should not disturb us
by your cries, or even by your applause.
There are two
things to be done: the first, that the Representatives should come
back and take their places on these seats, and the second, that the
meeting should be held in the usual way, so that, discussion being
entirely free, the decision arrived at should be of a nature to entirely
satisfy the conscience of France.
Remember that the
stranger is upon our soil. It is in the name of our country, and in
the name of political liberty-two things that I, for one, shall never
separate—it is in the name of these great interests, and as a repre-
sentative of the French nation, which is able to make itself respected
at home as well as abroad, that I adjure you to be quiet while your
representatives come back to their seats.
•
pala - "ampaatia, W
Skilfully put, no doubt, and the speaker's personal
popularity is unbounded. So the mob are hushed for
the moment. But, of course, they have not come
there simply to look on and listen. Soon the cries of
"La déchéance !" and "La République!" begin again as
loud as ever.
The tumult and confusion are immense.
Vainly does M. Crêmieux try to get a hearing from
his "dear and good friends." His "dear and good
friends" refuse to listen to a word he says. At this
point Gambetta, who had left the hall for a few moments,
re-enters, and goes up to the Tribune. "Citizens!"
he cries with his superb voice, and the hall is hushed.
FALL OF THE EMPIRE.
67
Again he exhorts the angry crowd to allow the pro-
ceedings to be conducted in an orderly manner.
"No
rhetoric!" bawls one voice; No treason!" bawls
another; "The Republic! the Republic!" bawl many.
CC
In present circumstances [declares the orator], it is necessary that
each one of you should help to maintain order, that each citizen in
each gallery should see that his neighbour does not transgress.
Let some be told off in each gallery to keep order during our
deliberations.
At this the impressionable crowd cheers, and
President Schneider reopens the proceedings. He
begins with a eulogy of Gambetta, as "one of the
best patriots in the country," and then proceeds, as
Gambetta had done, to recommend order. But his
voice has not the same persuasiveness as that of
the popular favourite. Soon Gambetta obtains
silence once more. But at this point, the hall is
finally invaded.
Schneider leaves the presidential
chair, and retires hustled by the crowd. A scene
of indescribable tumult follows. Thiers preaches
patience in vain to those standing near him. All
is misrule and confusion. Again Gambetta, with
great trouble, gets back to the Tribune, and after
several moments obtains a hearing; and this time,
convinced apparently that there is but one practical
issue possible, but one means of averting a revolution,
he makes the following declaration :
Citizens, seeing that the country is in danger, seeing that all neces-
sary time has been given to the National Representatives to pronounce
the throne vacant; seeing that we are and constitute the regular
power proceeding from free Universal Suffrage, we declare that Louis
Napoleon Bonaparte and his dynasty have ceased for ever to reign
over France.
Thunders of applause follow this declaration. But the
crowd begins clamouring again for the proclamation
5 *
68
LIFE OF LEON GAMBETTA.
of the Republic. Whereupon Jules Favre enters the
hall, and he and Gambetta go to the Tribune once
more. "Vive Gambetta, Vive Jules Favre !" howl the
crowd, and the roll of a drum adds to the clamour
and confusion. "Do you, or do you not, want civil
war?" asks the latter. "No, no," answers the
crowd; "no civil war, only war against the Prussians."
"We
must immediately constitute a provisional
Government," replies Jules Favre; adding shortly after,
"I conjure you, let there be no bloodshed." "The
Republic! the Republic!" howls the crowd; and at
last overborne, seeing, as would seem, that with-
out some directing hand mere anarchy must
ensue, Gambetta calls out, "Yes, long live the
Republic! Citizens, let us go and proclaim it at
the Hôtel de Ville." Jules Favre makes the same
declaration.
.
-
Of that tumultuous progress from the Palais
Bourbon to the Hôtel de Ville, it is difficult to obtain
any very clear account. Jules Favre and M. Jules
Ferry go on foot, followed by an immense crowd.
Gambetta goes in a cab, followed or accompanied by
his friend M. Spuller, and reaches the Hôtel de
Ville first. After ringing in vain at the side door, he
presents himself at the main entrance, defended by a
regiment of soldiers.
"Has the Republic been pro-
claimed at the Corps Législatif?" inquires the
officer in command. "No," answers Gambetta; "they
are coming to proclaim it here." The officer thereon
fraternises vigorously, and embraces him; and the
crowd, seeing that their entrance is unopposed, surge
into the building. Gambetta soon finds himself in the
private room of the Prefect of the Seine. The Prefect
is not there; he is making the best of his way to the
FALL OF THE EMPIRE.
69
Belgian frontier, but the Secretary-General is at his post;
and it may be taken as a sign of the universal expec-
tation of the overthrow of the Government that he
receives Gambetta with the words "I was expecting
you."*
p
There is an enormous crowd, of course, and every
sign, as is usual on such occasions, that the revolu-
tionary scum is coming to the top. For fear lest the
extreme men-the men who are afterwards to make
themselves so troublesome during the siege, and to
do the bloody work of the Commune-should insti-
tute a municipal government after their kind, Gam-
betta takes the matter in hand, seats himself in the
Prefectorial chair, and proposes that Étienne
Arago shall be appointed Mayor of Paris, and
de Kératry Prefect of Police. His popularity is
still at fever heat, and the proposal is received with
acclamation. Suddenly M. Rochefort, just released
from the prison of Sainte-Pélagie, and ghastly pale,
enters, borne in triumph by the crowd, and wearing
the red sash of 1793. There is a moment's apprehen-
sion that he may endeavour to contest the mayoralty
with Arago. But, in a fit of unwonted good-sense, he
refrains. Meanwhile other influential deputies have
come to the Hôtel de Ville-Jules Favre, Jules
Simon, Ernest Picard-and are deliberating, as well
as they can for interruptions and noise, in one of
the smaller halls. Gambetta joins them. The pre-
eminently important question of the composition of
the new Government is in debate. How at once to
satisfy the people, secure efficiency, minimise the
effect of angry rivalries, and set to one side the
17
*According to another account this happened afterwards at the
Ministry of the Interior
70
LIFE OF LÉON GAMBETTA.
fanatics of revolution? The members present deter-
mine that the Government shall be formed exclusively
of representatives who have been elected by the city
of Paris, the only exception being General Trochu,
who, in virtue of his great popularity, and of his
ascendency over the army, is appointed President,
with full military powers. The other members are
Émanuel Arago, Crémieux, Jules Favre, Jules Ferry,
Gambetta, Garnier-Pagès, Glais-Bizoin, Pelletan,
Picard, Rochefort, Jules Simon. At exactly a quarter
to five-as Mr. Washburn notes by the great clock of
the Hôtel de Ville-Gambetta appears in the em-
brasure of one of the windows-Jules Favre and
Emanuel Arago being close behind-and standing
there, bare-headed, with his hat in his hand, a dark,
decisive figure, proclaims the Republic, amid
vociferous enthusiasm, to the great seething crowd
below.
No Ministers had yet been appointed, but Gambetta
seems to have settled with himself that he was to be the
new Minister of the Interior, and to have immediately
gone off in a cab to take possession of his Ministry,
and sent off a telegram to the Provinces announcing
his appointment. At half-past ten the same night the
new Government held its first meeting, again at the
Hôtel de Ville, and the composition of the Ministry
was formally considered. Here a competitor for
Gambetta's post appeared in the person of Ernest
Picard. The latter, however, was outvoted-by two
votes according to Jules Favre, by one according to
M. Simon; and thus, on that memorable 4th of
September, Gambetta, who two years before had been
a young advocate comparatively unknown, assumed
functions of which the importance and responsibility,
20474
.
FALL OF THE EMPIRE.
71
in that dread hour of danger and disorganization, can
scarcely be exaggerated.
How did he justify the trust reposed in him? The
question will have to be considered in the following
pages. Meanwhile there may be some advantage in
looking back from this point, and trying to obtain a
more exact idea of the reasons that had influenced his
conduct since the beginning of the war.
At first sight it may unquestionably seem as if his
policy from the middle of July to the 4th September
required some excuse. As long as the war was pend-
ing, he opposed it, and was more than abundantly
justified in so doing. When once it was declared, he
expressed his readiness to vote the necessary supplies.
And this, too, was a position at once intelligent and
patriotic. But supplies are not all that a government
requires for the conduct of a great war. It requires
also a certain amount of consideration, a certain
freedom of spirit, and the authority derived from the
feeling that it speaks with the country's voice, and
that its acts will be judged largely and equitably.
Now this kind of support Gambetta certainly did not
afford to the Government of Louis Napoleon; and
some of his criticisms-as notably with regard to the
withholding of information-seem the more unjusti-
fiable, inasmuch as he did the same thing during his
own dictatorship. Apart from this, however, I think
his justification is to be found in the gross and
palpable ineptitude with which the war was conducted
from the very first. Had there been the slightest evi-
dence that Louis Napoleon, his generals and his
ministers, were really capable of war or diplomacy,
that they in any way possessed the ability to guide
the country out of the terrible pass into which it had
!
72
LIFE OF LEON GAMBETTA.
been led-then we might condemn Gambetta and his
friends for their persistent hostility. But there was
no such evidence. Every day made it clearer and
clearer that the Government was simply imbecile.
No doubt that fatal knowledge reacted on the Govern-
ment itself. If the Emperor had not feared to fall to
even a lower deep in the estimation of his subjects, he
would never probably have thought of going to Sedan.
It was one of the inherent horrors of the situation that
to criticise was to weaken, and to lead to the com-
mission of greater acts of folly. Even in the face of
this risk, however, we may fairly exonerate the Oppo-
sition if they still criticised what was manifestly wrong,
and were even prepared to bring about a change of
Government. No doubt-to use once more Lincoln's
homely but expressive simile-it is a very dangerous
operation to "swop horses when you are going through
the stream," but there may be circumstances in which
the horse you are riding is so sorry a quadruped that
the "swopping" is inevitable.
As to Gambetta's attitude on the 4th of September
1870, I think it may be as well to give his own explana-
tion of it in his own words-the more so as that
explanation is supported by all other published
records. When the war had come to an end, a Com-
mission was appointed, in no friendly spirit, to inquire
into the acts of the Government of the National
Defence. Gambetta appeared before this Com-
mission on the 7th of September 1871, and spoke as
follows:-
Long before the 4th of September I anticipated war. I looked
forward to it with fear, because I greatly misdoubted the condition of
our armaments. I had never been one of those who attack standing
armies, and I was as desirous as it is possible for anyone to be to see
FALL OF THE EMPIRE.
73
France resume its right position in Europe; but I entertained the
gravest apprehensions for the future, because politics had taken the
temper out of the Army, and the Army might thus, in the day of
trial, prove a useless weapon.
I thought that the plébiscite
would lead to war.
And I was convinced that with the
declaration of war a disaster must ensue. I said at the time, "We
are rolling blindly and unconsciously towards the abyss." Conse-
quently, I was far from feeling any pleasure at the thought that the
party to which I have the honour of belonging was likely to inherit
a situation so terribly compromised. I greatly feared a legacy of that
kind. I say this so that you may thoroughly understand the part
I played on the 4th of September.
•
·
·
I sought in the Chamber-and we were on the point of succeeding
-I sought to establish a Government, without strict designation,
which might assume power on the day of defeat-for I prognosticated
defeat a fortnight or three weeks before it actually occurred. The
Chamber, because it had been born weak, because it lacked inde-
pendence and energy, hesitated, groped, suffered itself to be led to
the very edge of ruin. During four-and-twenty hours I made
the very greatest efforts to induce it to proclaim the deposition of the
dynasty (of the Napoleons), and the constitution of a Parliamentary
Government which might take in hand the direction of affairs. This
solution failed, because we had to do with men who were timid and
hesitating. Then, spontaneously, the people of Paris began to move.
Gentlemen, I say spontaneously, because, if you will believe me, revolu-
tions are not made to order. Risings, splutterings of insurrection,
revolts, may be brought about in that way, but nothing likely to lead to
any serious result. I have seen during the Empire several pretended
attempts made to effect a change of Government, but they all failed,
and they failed because there was no general feeling at the back of them.
On the other hand, on the 4th of September, I witnessed in Paris, and
out of Paris, a really spontaneous explosion of feeling.
The
events of the 4th of September did not, therefore, in the least, spring
from any preconcerted plot, from any pre-existing arrangement.
Never, perhaps, was any great revolutionary movement carried out
with such unanimity, and, to put the matter quite plainly, in a
manner so authoritative. Everybody accepted the inevitable. I saw
on that day the principal servants of the Empire; they certainly had
in their hands the wherewithal to attempt resistance; they all
thought of nothing but going away and placing themselves in safety.
The current was irresistible, and every section of the population of
Paris contributed to swell it. The Corps Législatif, on the pretext
that it had sworn an oath of loyalty to the Emperor-who had him-
ܐ ܐܝܗ ܀
74
LIFE OF LEON GAMBETTA.
self, in former times, kept his own oath in such a singular manner-
the Corps Législatif having refused to take in hand the direction of
affairs, and thus lost one of those opportunities which, when lost
during a revolution, are lost for ever--the Corps Législatif was
invaded—and with the invasion of the Chamber, the proclamation of
the Republic became a certainty, and it became no less a certainty
that the Republic would be loaded with a very heavy burden.
75
CHAPTER V.
MINISTER OF THE INTERIOR AND DICTATOR.
1870-1871.
Terrible situation confronting new Ministry-Gambetta wishes Minis-
try to leave Paris-He himself leaves on the 7th of October—
-The delegates at Tours-Position of affairs when Gambetta
reaches that place-Everything to be reorganised-His energy
and good spirits-Fall of Metz-French victory at Coulmiers-
Inactivity of D'Aurelles de Paladine-Gambetta assumes conduct
of operations-His personal courage-French driven back in all
directions-News of Capitulation of Paris-Gambetta indignant—
M. Jules Simon sent to Bordeaux to bring him to reason-He
resigns on the 6th of February 1871-Grandeur of his attitude
during the war.
It was remarked, by an unfriendly observer, that the
popular leaders bore on their faces no look of triumph
as they proceeded from the Corps Législatif to the
Hôtel de Ville; and M. Jules Simon, accepting the
statement, says that there was no feeling of triumph
in their hearts as they thought of the country's ruin,
and the immense difficulty of the task that had
devolved upon them.
Seldom indeed can a body of responsible statesmen
have met under sadder auspices than the members of
the Government of National Defence, who-while the
city was still ringing with enthusiasm over the fall of
76
LIFE OF LÉON GAMBETTA.
the Empire, and the proclamation of the Republic-
assembled for their first council-meeting at half-past
ten on the night of the 4th of September 1870. M.
Jules Simon has given an account of their delibera-
tions, and the lamentable series of subjects that came
under review. The first thing to be done was, natu-
rally, to organise the personnel of the new Government;
—and now it was that Gambetta was confirmed in his
appointment as Minister of the Interior. Then came
a full inquiry into "the situation." This was, to use
M. Simon's expression, "heart-rending." Of the two
armies of France, one had just laid down its arms.
The other, almost equally unserviceable, was impri-
soned in Metz. The only remaining force consisted
of General Vinoy's army corps, numbering from 15,000
to 20,000 men, a force demoralised by defeat, and that
might be cut off by the enemy before it could reach
Paris. No doubt an almost universal levy of the popu-
lation had been ordered. But what can raw untrained
civilians do, without generals, without officers, without
non-commissioned officers? How is drill possible
under such conditions, let alone campaigning? When
Marshal Ney sent to ask for reinforcements as the day
of Waterloo was wearing to a close, it is said that
Napoleon cried impatiently, "Where does he suppose
they are to come from? Does he think I can make
them?" Some such thought must have crossed the
minds of the members of the Government as they
remembered the almost impossibility of "improvising"
infantry, and the long months of training required to
make a decent cavalry soldier or artilleryman.
C
And assuming that the men could be raised and put
into line, how could they be armed, fed, clothed? By
what M. Jules Simon justly calls "an inconceivable
MINISTER OF THE INTERIOR.
77
want of foresight," the great stores of warlike matę-
rial had been concentrated at Metz and Strasburg,
and were consequently not accessible. Guns were
wanting, cannons were wanting, all was wanting.
Even before the war there had been a manifest insuffi-
ciency of supplies. And now to that insufficiency was
to be added the enormous waste of defeat.
-
Such was the military situation; and the enemy,
justly confident in their leadership and numbers, and
flushed by victory, were within a few days' march of
Paris.
Could the new Government at any rate, in view of
dangers so imminent and appalling, count upon the
full support of the country, and especially of Paris?
It was one of the fatalities of the position that they
represented only a party, at a time when France stood
in need of the utmost devotion of all her sons. Still,
as regarded the defeated Imperialists, the utmost that
might be feared was a certain sullenness and indisposi..
tion to accept the orders of Republican rulers. From
that quarter no violent subversive opposition was to
be anticipated. But this was far from being the case
as regarded the extreme section of the Republican
Party itself. Here there existed, as the events of the
day had shown conclusively enough, and after-events
were to show very terribly, a real and pressing danger.
Had not Gambetta himself, during the tumultuous
meeting in the afternoon, incurred much odium by
objecting to accept Félix Pyat, one of the stormy
petrels of Revolution, as a member of the Govern-
ment? Had not Gambetta's old client, Delescluse,
shaken off the dust from his feet on leaving the
council-room, declaring that there was "nothing to be
done with such men "? This party, the party of sub-
78
LIFE OF LEON GAMBETTA.
version and disorder, was to be restrained by no con-
sideration of reason or patriotism. Within sound of
the German guns, it was to attempt the fortunately
abortive revolt of the 31st of October; with the
German armies still encamped round her walls, it was
to deluge Paris with blood, and send the flame of her
buildings flaring to the sky.
.
Such, to put the matter briefly, was the terrible out-
look before the council which sat from half-past ten to
three on the night of the 4th of September: without,
the advancing Germans; within, no adequate means of
resistance, and the mutterings of imminent revolution.
Gambetta has told us, in the speech from which I have
already quoted, that, according to his judgment, the
Government should, almost from the first, have re-
garded Paris simply as a besieged city, and removed
to some provincial town, there to organise the forces
of the country. In his view, which is at least plausible,
from the moment that Paris was cut off from the rest
of France, it ceased to be a desirable seat of Govern-
ment. M. Jules Simon, on the other hand, urges the
disastrous effects of leaving Paris to itself at such a crisis,
and holds still, even after the event, that the course
adopted was the right one. A difficult question truly.
Either of the roads branching forward was fraught
with peril. Weighing the arguments, however, as well
as one can, I confess it seems to me that in this matter
Gambetta was right, and that the danger of revolution
in Paris was less than the danger of a divided Govern-
ment, and of alienating the provinces. The young
statesman himself, as we shall presently see, was to
minimise these latter dangers by his energy and force
of character. They were very real notwithstanding.
Meanwhile, what between military preparations and
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79
internal reorganisation, the new Government, as may
be supposed, had its hands more than full; and day by
day the Germans were drawing nearer, nearer, and
the lines of investment forming closer and closer
round the doomed city. That Gambetta laboured
terribly in the important post which he occupied, is
clear. French administration is a complicated ma-
chine, and with the change of Government a change
of personnel in a great many offices of State-pre-
fects, sub-prefects, and the like-had become impera-
tive. The objects of his solicitude were at this time
endless. But apart from his decrees and proclama-
tions, we get little real touch of him between the 4th
of September and the 7th of October, when he left
Paris. One glimpse of him, indeed, we obtain through
the eyes of M. Rochefort, who assured M. d'Idevile
that he used to come to the meetings of the Govern-
ment with a dirty shirt and dirty hands, and looking
altogether slovenly and disreputable. But as M.
Rochefort coupled this description with a remark to
the effect that Gambetta was (6 a stranger, an enemy
to the French race," I think we may venture to doubt
whether the Minister of the Interior was really so very
careless as to the whiteness of his linen.
Though the Government had refused to leave Paris,
yet, from an early date, it had become obvious that
the provinces could not be left without some recog-
nised authority. On the 12th of September M..
Crémieux was delegated to represent the Central
Government at Tours, and on the 16th of September
M. Glais-Bizoin and Admiral Fourichon were appointed.
to assist him-the latter in the enormously difficult
post of Vice-Minister of War. Nor did they leave
Paris for their new duties one whit too soon. On the
80
LIFE OF LEON GAMBETTA.
19th the Germans arrived in force before the capital,
and on the 21st the investment was completed.
Before a fortnight had passed, the dangers insepar-
able from a dual Government-dangers which Gam-
betta had foreseen-came to be urgent. One of the
first thoughts of the new ministers after the 4th of
September had been to arrange for the holding of
general elections throughout such portions of the
country as were not in the power of the Germans.)
But other more pressing objects of solicitude, and
almost insuperable practical difficulties, had adjourned
the realisation of this purpose to an indefinite future.
By the 1st of October, however, Gambetta was in a
position to inform his colleagues that the Tours de-
legation had taken the matter into their own hands,
and issued a decree appointing a General Election
for the 15th. The news excited the greatest consterna-
tion among the Ministers. In an abstract sort of
way, they no doubt regarded Universal Suffrage as
representing the highest ideal of human wisdom.
But even they, in the first dawn-flush of a re-
covered Republic, might well hesitate, at such a
moment, to toss the destinies of the country into
the ballot-box and trust blindly to the result. That
the Tours delegation had taken a different view
is comprehensible enough. M. Crémieux was a
staunch Republican, a distinguished advocate, and a
respectable politician-but he was no more. M. Glais-
Bizoin was not even so much. His chief title to dis-
tinction lay in his readiness as an obstructive debater.
Vice-Admiral Fourichon abjured all character as a
politician, and regarded his functions as those of an
administrator only. Not one of the three possessed
either such force of character and intellect, or such
MINISTER OF THE INTERIOR.
!@
81-
superiority of position and past services, as would have
enabled him to bend France to his will, and obtain, if
not without grudging, yet at least without resistance,
the enormous sacrifices of blood and treasure insepar-
able from a continuance of the war. The Govern-
ment-a purely Parisian Government, be it remem-
bered was shut up in Paris, and reduced to
communication with the rest of the world by means of
pigeons and balloons. Well might the provinces, by
no means wholly Republican, contest an authority so
tainted in its source, as it would seem to them, and so
remote. In view of the immense difficulties by which
the Tours delegation was surrounded — difficulties
which included the possibility of a dismemberment of
France-there is, I repeat, small room for wonder
that its members sought to strengthen their failing
authority by an appeal to the country at large.
The crisis was imminent. The Government in
Paris were determined not to yield, and were con-
vinced that a General Election, under existing con-
ditions, was probably the first step to a degrading
peace. They decided, therefore, at once to annul the
decree convoking a new legislative body, and to send
a fresh delegate to Tours. Who should that delegate
be? Some of the Ministers at the meeting of the 1st
of October proposed Gambetta-others Jules Favre.
Both refused, Gambetta holding that, as one of the
youngest, it was his duty to remain at what he con-
sidered the post of danger-nearest the enemy. The
question was re-discussed on the 3rd, and decided by a
vote of all present, when the choice fell on Gambetta,
who thereupon accepted the difficult office to which he
was called. The most important points in his instruc-
tions were that, in case of difference of opinion among
G
6
82
LIFE OF LEON GAMBETTA.
his colleagues at Tours, he should have a "prepon-
derant voice," that he should have "full powers for
the recruiting, assembling and armament of all the
national forces," but that he had no mission to treat
with the enemy.
Of the spirit in which the young man accepted his
mission, Jules Favre has spoken thus :
.
He was much moved, and only consented with extreme repugnance
to leave Paris. He was at that moment far from desiring the office
of Dictator. Neither was he under any illusion as to the almost in-
surmountable difficulties that lay before us. But he did not despair
of triumphing over them. He had not in any way sought to obtain
the authority with which he was about to be invested, and I am quite
sure that he did not foresee how that authority would tend to become
more absolute. But he had the noble and holy ambition of saving
his country; and the very strength of his purpose made him believe
that he had it in him to succeed. "I shall come back with an army,'
he said to me, very confidently, "and if the glory of delivering
Paris should be mine, Fate will have satisfied my utmost wish."
99
To leave Paris at that time could be done in one
way only, and that was by balloon. Gambetta, when
once his departure had become a settled thing, displayed
the utmost eagerness to be gone. But the weather on
the 6th of October proved to be hazy and unpropitious,
and it was not till the following day, the 7th, at eleven
o'clock in the morning, that a start could be effected.
A large crowd had assembled to witness the pro-
ceedings, and it was to a great shout of "Vive la
République! Vive Gambetta!" that the balloon con-
taining the young Dictator, and his friend and secre-
tary M. Spuller, rose slowly towards the north-west.
When they got beyond the line of the French forts
towards Saint-Denis, they became a mark for the rifles
and cannon of the enemy, fortunately without result.
Then the balloon, which seems to have behaved badly,
MINISTER OF THE INTERIOR.
83
manifested a tendency to descend in too close
proximity to the Germans, and was shot at again, and
almost hit; and then, soon afterwards, another ineffectual
volley was discharged at it. Meanwhile the travellers,
if we are to credit a lively correspondent of the Daily
News, were moralising on things in general, M.
Spuller "enjoying the sensation of being carried
along as helplessly as if he were a log of wood floating
down a river"; while, as to Gambetta, his
impressions were entirely different. He was almost, to use his own
language, "stunned with the overpowering idea of Nature's force and
man's weakness." He felt, to his great astonishment, that he had no
sense of the abyss. The world seemed to recede from the balloon.
Instead of being dazzled with the vast horizon which was opened to
his gaze, he was stupefied at the total obliteration of the picturesque
in the boundless expanse beneath him. The earth had the appear-
ance of a badly designed carpet, or rather a carpet in which the
different coloured wools had been woven entirely by chance. Light
and vastness were deprived of the value which shade and proportion
give them.
Solacing themselves as best they could with such
reflections while the German bullets went whistling
by, the travellers at last, towards three o'clock,
effected a safe descent into some trees near Mondidier,
and proceeded thence, by carriage, after incurring the
usual suspicion of being Prussian spies, to Amiens-
where they slept. On the following day they passed
through Rouen, which Gambetta did his best to cheer
by a patriotic speech, and finally reached their
destination at Tours by mid-day on Sunday, the 9th of
October.
It was high time, indeed, that Gambetta should
appear upon the scene. Crémieux was an old man of
seventy-four, an able advocate and a Jew, one of the
respectabilities of the Republican party, but no more.
6 *
84
LIFE OF LÉON GAMBETTA.
Glais-Bizoin was seventy, "a little old man very
carelessly and slovenly dressed"—so he is described by
an eye-witness-and chiefly remarkable for his con-
stant interruptions in the late Chamber. Admiral
Fourichon was sixty-one, and had,
and had, moreover,
quarrelled with his two colleagues on the 5th of
October, and resigned his functions. Obviously not
a triumvirate calculated to rouse popular enthusiasm.
Nothing can be clearer than that their senile efforts,
respectable enough, no doubt, so far as intentions.
went, were failing to keep alive the national cause, and
even to prevent the country from falling to pieces.
But with Gambetta's advent an immense change took
place. He breathed as it were with the breath of life
over the dry bones of the country's despair; and, in
the language of Ezekiel, which one may use here, I
think, without irreverence, "the breath came into
them, and they lived, and stood upon their feet, an
exceeding great army."
The outlook on the 9th of October, when the young
statesman reached Tours, was indeed terrible. Several
of the great towns, Lyons in chief, were repudiating the
authority of the central Government. Several of the
Southern departments were forming a confederacy on
their own account. In very many places the hostile poli-
tical factions, Republicans of all shades, Bonapartists,
Royalists, Clericals, could scarcely be restrained from
flying at one another. The enemy, numbering from
700,000 to 800,000 men, all excellent troops and per-
fectly equipped, were firmly established on French
soil, and eating out the life of the land; while, to
oppose them, apart from the imprisoned garrison of
Metz, and the untrained imprisoned garrison of Paris,
there were but 40,000 regular troops, about as many
MINISTER OF THE INTERIOR.
85
mobilised National Guards, and 5,000 or 6,000
cavalry—all in the most doubtful condition.
Taking the army alone-and the other administra-
tive services were in pretty nearly the same state-
everything had to be created anew infantry,
cavalry, artillery, engineers, commissariat, ordnance
and medical departments. Nor had the young
Minister at his disposal a fully trained body of
officials, possessing the necessary knowledge of an
army's requirements. The central government were
so full of the idea that Paris was the key to the whole
position, that they had only sent off a quarter of the
staff of the various Government offices to Tours, and
no Government archives. Thus, to take two instances
out of many, the new administrators were absolutely
without information as to the character and ante-
cedents of the various officers and non-commissioned
officers presenting themselves for employment, and,
in the midst of a great war, they had no maps. Every-
where, on all sides, there was chaos, confusion, and
dismay.
But Gambetta never lost heart. On the 9th of
October, the very day of his arrival at Tours, he issued
two proclamations-one to the "citizens of the depart-
ments," telling how Paris had prepared to meet the
enemy, and exhorting them to set aside all differences,
and think only of the deliverance of the country; and
the other to the "army," containing a stirring appeal
to their patriotism, and especially to their respect for
discipline. And having issued these, as a kind of
trumpet blast summoning France and her sons to
battle, he immediately set to work, issuing decree on
decree for the organisation of the new forces, seeing
to the purchase of the necessary munitions, sending
86
LIFE OF LEON GAMBETTA.
M. Clément Laurier to London to raise a loan, and
so obtain the necessary "sinews of war," arranging
plans of campaign with the generals, going from place
to place here there and everywhere-ordering,
exhorting, cajoling-making himself all things to all
men-and always, even in the face of defeat and
disaster, maintaining a cheerful confidence and un-
daunted courage. Here at last, as the country felt,
was a man, and all hearts went out to him at once.
Ang
""
The novelty of the young Minister's voyage through the air [says
one* who occupied the post of secretary to a provincial Prefect at this
time], the strangeness of the unexpected fall of a "Providential
man just when it was being felt that MM. Crémieux and Glais-Bizoin
were infinitely below the task that had been assigned to them, caused
wild enthusiasm everywhere. For the first time the indifferent pro-
vincials started out of their torpor, and the young recruits walked
about the streets singing "Gambetta" to the popular air of the
Lampions. M. Gambetta's presence was immediately felt every-
where, at Guéret as at other places, and from that moment our duties
became more military than civil. The presence of a man who seemed
utterly indifferent to the means he employed to force the country to
defend itself intimidated for a while the Réactionnaires. The energetic
decree for the mobilisation of all single men from twenty-one to forty
showed that he meant to work with a will.
Here was no fumbling any more, and the country
from end to end quivered to the impulse of the young
Dictator's energy.
But to go back to the story of the campaign. On
the 10th of October, the very day after Gambetta's
arrival at Tours, the French forces, laboriously col-
lected together at Orleans, under de La Motterouge,
were defeated by Van der Tann and driven southwards,
Tours itself not being regarded as safe from attack.
* See Six Months of Prefecture under Gambetta, by C. B., in
Frazer's Magazine for November 1872. The initials are fairly trans-
parent.
MINISTER OF THE INTERIOR.
87
Rightly or wrongly-for there has been a good deal of
difference on this point - Gambetta immediately
superseded de La Motterouge, and appointed
d'Aurelles de Paladine to take his place. The latter
established himself in the entrenched camp of Salibris,
south of Orleans, and spent the next few days in
drilling and organising his forces. On the 24th a
council of war was held, at which assisted M. de
Freycinet, a young engineer, now heard of for the first
time, and just appointed by Gambetta as a kind of
sub War Minister. A forward movement on Paris
was determined upon. Before it could be executed
news came of the capitulation of Metz; and whether
for this reason, or because he feared to take the field
with his raw untrained levies, d'Aurelles hung back.
The fall of Metz at this particular juncture was a
terrible blow to the French cause. It at once set
200,000 Germans free to march across the country,
cover the force besieging Paris, and operate against
the troops which Gambetta was collecting for the
relief of the place. We have all heard of the
"Austerlitz look" that used to come into Pitt's
face. There would have been no room for wonder
if a "Metz look" had come into Gambetta's face
after this time, so terribly must that discreditable
capitulation have fallen like a bombshell into the
midst of his plans, shattering and scattering them.
But he never bated jot of heart or hope. He at
once issued a strong proclamation to the country,
branding, in terms which history has not refused to
endorse, the treachery of Bazaine, and exhorting all
Frenchmen to meet the new disaster with fortitude and
courage. Evidently, if Paris was to be effectually
relieved, it would be necessary to use despatch, so as
88
LIFE OF LEON GAMBETTA.
to forestall the Germans marching from Metz
under Prince Frederick Charles. On the 7th of
November, d'Aurelles advanced northwards, and on the
9th attacked Van der Tann at Coulmiers, when, O joy
of joys! the Germans were defeated. A ray of victory
-the first since the beginning of the war-broke on
the French arms. Orleans was evacuated. Van der
Tann retreated northwards. The country seemed to
breathe once more.
D'Aurelles, after his victory, did nothing, to the
extreme surprise of the Germans, who naturally
expected to be pursued. Gambetta, immediately on
receiving the news of the battle, hastened to the head-
quarters of the army with M. de Freycinet, and was
urgent that the General should march on Paris. What
though his troops were raw and untrained-which
was the reason urged for his inactivity-yet they
were flushed with their success, and convinced by the
best of all arguments that the enemy were not
invincible. Every day the situation of Paris must get
worse. Prince Frederick Charles's forces had not yet
had time to come from Metz. Surely now, if ever, was
the time to strike a decisive blow and see whether the
German lines could not be pierced. All excellent
arguments, and since ratified as such by professional
military critics.* But d'Aurelles was immovable. So
far from going forward, he wished to go back-to
return to his quarters at Salibris.† And thus a golden
opportunity, which a little fortunate boldness, or even
say rashness, might have turned to excellent advan-
.
* See Guerre Franco-Allemande, Résumé et Commentaires de l'ouvrage
du grand État-Major Prussien, par Félix Bonnat, Paris 1878.
† D'Aurelles de Paladine contradicts M. de Freycinet on this
point. It is at least clear that he refused to advance.
MINISTER OF THE INTERIOR.
89
tage, was lost. Gambetta had to be satisfied,
grievously against his will, with a middle course, and
the army entrenched itself at Orleans.
-
While they were remaining there, comparatively in-
active notwithstanding the most pressing remon-
strances, Gambetta went to Le Mans to help General
Jaurès to organise the defences of the West, as he had
been to Besançon, a month before, to organise the
defences of the East. Then, as D'Aurelles still refused
to do anything, General de Pallières was ordered for-
ward, and the active conduct of operations passed for
a short space into the hands of Gambetta and his sub-
ordinate, M. de Freycinet. For this Gambetta has
been greatly blamed. But, in the country's sore ex-
tremity, it is difficult to see what other course was
open to him. He could not well dismiss d'Aurelles,
who had just won the first and only victory on the
French side since the beginning of the war.
And yet
Paris was advancing day by day to starvation point;
and though the General's mistrust of the quality of
his troops was no doubt justified, yet he clearly did
not appreciate that even the chance of defeat was
better than doing nothing.* Then occurred, on the
28th of November, the battle of Beaune-la-Rolande,
in which the French attacked the Germans without
success; and on the 30th of November, Gambetta,
having received a belated dispatch announcing a grand
sortie from Paris, gave definite orders to d'Aurelles
to advance.
The result was disastrous. D'Aurelles seems to
have displayed no generalship in the conduct of the
* M. Bonnat seems to hold-see vol. ii., p. 165 of his book-that
Gambetta's plan of advance was better than that adopted by the
General.
90
LIFE OF LEON GAMBETTA.
operations, and the superior discipline and training of
the Germans told at all points heavily. After some four
days of confused fighting round Orleans, the French,
greatly disorganised, evacuated the place on the night
of the 4th of December, under a threat of bombard-
ment, and retreated southwards.
Among the many rancorous accusations which party
spirit has accumulated against Gambetta, that of per-
sonal cowardice has not been spared. He has been
represented as keeping well out of harm's way in the
Prefecture of Tours, while the country was marching
to battle and death. Such a charge would, in any
case, be obviously absurd. The effective head of a
government, during a great war, is clearly doing his
duty to better purpose in the council chamber than
on the field of battle. But, apart from this, it is in no
sense true that Gambetta shrank personally from
danger. On the 4th of December, at a little past
two in the afternoon, he started from Tours for
Orleans, for the purpose of seeing what help could be
afforded to the defeated d'Aurelles. Orleans he never
reached. It was too late. But we have the evidence
of an eye-witness, who is by no means a partizan, to
the effect that the journey was not one of security and
pleasure.
As chance would have it [says the Marquis de Castellane] I was on
guard at the station of Beaugency on the 4th of December 1870. At
nightfall I saw the locomotive come in that brought the young
Dictator. It had all the appearance of a stag half disembowelled by
the hounds and flying affrighted. It was literally riddled by the
German bullets. Gambetta had remained at his post to the last
minute, for the purpose of organizing the rescue of the remnant of the
army of Orleans.
Though that army had been defeated, yet the Ger-
MINISTER OF THE INTERIOR.
91
mans were greatly mistaken if they thought they had
nothing to do but advance and take possession. On
the 8th, 9th, and 10th of December they met with an
obstinate resistance from General Chanzy, on whom
had devolved the command of the forces to the west
of Orleans; and though the French were finally
unable to maintain their position, and retreated on Le
Mans, yet they did so in fair order and without dis-
honour. To the east of Orleans the French forces
also still held the field under Bourbaki. Neverthe-
less, it was clear that, with the Germans in such close
proximity, Tours was no longer a fit place for the seat
of government, and on the 8th it was transferred to
Bordeaux. Gambetta, however, did not immediately
proceed southwards, for, on the 9th, we find him at the
head-quarters of Chanzy's army, and on the 10th he
is at Blois, preventing the inhabitants from repairing
the bridge over the Loire under a threat of bombard-
ment from the enemy in case of refusal. Thence he
proceeds to Bourbaki's head-quarters at Bourges.
And, on his way between the two head-quarters,
we catch a glimpse of him again.
G
M. Gambetta passed at Guéret shortly after on his way to Bourges
[says the "C. B." from whom I have already quoted]. The special
train stopped, and we conversed for a few moments by the dim light
of the carriage lamp. M. Gambetta was then in the most critical
period of his dictatorship; the want of any substantial help from
those around him, save from M. Clément Laurier, and his private
secretary, M. Spuller, left the whole burden of the situation on his
shoulders; he ran hither and thither on all sides of France, from
Bordeaux to Lille, from Lille to Lyons, and displayed wonderful
activity. Contrary to my expectation, I found him hearty and well.
"We must somehow drive out these Prussians . . . and I answer for
it that we shall drive them out," he exclaimed, in a loud cheery voice.
Despite of reverses-and we were right in the midst of the worst-
the young statesman was overflowing with confidence, which con-
trasted painfully with the cold apathy I was used to.
'7
92
LIFE OF LÉON GAMBETTA.
Is it not a bright picture? What superb vitality
and fortitude! If the glimpse we had of him on his
battered engine showed that he possessed physical
courage, the glimpse we get here shows that he
possessed that rarer kind of courage which stands
unmoved under disappointment and defeat. Surely
if ever the heart of a country can be said to have
beaten in the breast of one of its sons, then the
heart of France beat in the breast of Gambetta
during these terrible weeks. No doubt his con-
fidence rested, in many respects, on an insufficient
foundation. No doubt, in the exuberance of his en-
thusiasm, with his brain all full of the traditions of
1792 and of the mighty achievements of the volun-
teers of the first Republic, he overrated the power of
untrained levies in modern warfare, and often mis-
calculated what he had a right to expect from them.
But the time was assuredly not one for nice calcula-
tions of less and more. It was a time when daring
alone had any chance of success, when the best states-
man was he who did not know he was beaten.
And he had need of all his fortitude, for worse days
yet were in store. His object in going to Bourges
was to organise a plan of campaign with Bourbaki,
and the plan on which they finally settled was an
advance to the eastward, so as to endeavour to cut off
the invading force from Germany. It was a good
plan enough in itself, but, like so many other excel-
lent plans made during the war, it required, in order
to be successful, quickness of movement, and regu-
larity in the forwarding of supplies-especially as the
season was most rigorous-and these good things, with
an army so raw and insufficiently organised, were un-
attainable. The advance, commenced on the 23rd of
MINISTER OF THE INTERIOR.
93
.
December, was continued, with varying success, till
the French, beaten at Héricourt after three days' hard
fighting, on the 15th, 16th, and 17th of January, were
forced back and back, a huddled, starved, half frozen,
disintegrated, demoralised mass, over the Swiss fron-
tier, where they finally laid down their arms. Bour-
baki did not see the bitter end of that disastrous
retreat a retreat which, for utter human misery and
suffering, has been compared to the melting of Napo-
leon's Grand Army into the interminable snows of
Russia. He attempted suicide on the
on the 20th of
January.
Meanwhile, the French had not been inactive in
other directions. To the north General Faidherbe had
advanced on Amiens, had been attacked on the 23rd
of December at Pont Noyelles by General Manteuffel,
had attacked the Germans in turn at Bapaume on the
3rd of January, and with fairly equal success, and had
then been beaten on the 19th of January before Saint
Quentin in attempting to march on Paris. To the
west, as we have seen, General Chanzy still held the
field at Le Mans, where he was trying to reorganise
his troops, and even meditating another forward
movement, while disputing, day after day, the advance
of the Germans. On the 10th of January the latter
reached his positions; and then, during the next
few days, there was confused fighting round Le Mans,
with the usual, and in one sense, perhaps, inevitable
result, that the French forces, consisting practically of
untrained civilians, were hopelessly beaten, and fled, for
the most part a demoralised rabble, through the winter
.
snows.
Thus, in whatever direction Gambetta looked,
whether east, north, or west, there was defeat and
94
LIFE OF LEON GAMBETTA.
disaster; and now a yet more terrible blow, as he con-
sidered it, was about to fall. On the 27th of January
news reached him, indirectly, and apparently through
the English papers, that the Government in Paris were
treating for a capitulation, and even for a peace. He im-
mediately fulminated against that Government an elo-
quent despatch, bitterly animadverting on the ineffi-
ciency of the efforts made to break through the German
lines, urging the imperative necessity of renewed and
stronger efforts, and protesting in advance against any
capitulation that should do more than bind Paris itself.
Everything that you would do, outside of what re-
lates purely to the interests of Paris, without our consent
and ratification, would be null and of none effect.'
As to the future, he urged Jules Favre-towards whom,
personally, his tone was one of almost pathetic ten-
derness-to join the Bordeaux delegation; he ex-
pressed himself in favour of a general election, so far
as it might be feasible, but with a rigorous exclusion
of the servants of the Empire; and he declared his
unalterable conviction that the war ought to be con-
tinued, even after Paris had fallen, and that the re-
sources of the country were by no means exhausted.
Two days afterwards his worst apprehensions were
.confirmed. On the morning of the 29th came a
laconic telegram from Jules Favre, announcing that
an armistice of twenty-one days had been concluded
with Prince Bismarck, that a general election was to
be held on the 8th of February, a National Assembly
to meet on the 15th, for the purpose of deciding the
question of peace or war, and that a member of the
Government was starting for Bordeaux. Here, at
yet another crucial point, was a terrible exemplifica-
tion of the fatal mistake committed by the Govern-
,56
C
""
MINISTER OF THE INTERIOR.
95
ment when it shut itself in the capital. Gambetta
waited, in feverish anxiety, through that day, and the
morning of the next, for further news. None came.
At half-past two he telegraphed to Jules Favre, com-
plaining of the ignorance in which he was being kept.
The telegram was intercepted, and answered on the
31st by Prince Bismarck. Meanwhile, on the 30th
and 31st of January, he was assuring the prefects
throughout France that his policy of resistance re-
mained unaltered; and on the latter day he issued
a stirring proclamation to the French people, speaking
of "the culpable levity" with which the armistice
had been concluded, and exhorting them all, from
the highest to the lowest, to uphold the honour
of the country with their votes and their arms. At
the same time he was issuing a decree declaring that
anyone who had served the Empire in certain capaci-
ties was ineligible as a representative at the coming
Assembly.
These measures, either known or foreseen, excited,
as may be supposed, the very gravest apprehensions in
the breasts of the members of the Paris Government.
They had lost, for the most part, all hope in the con-
tinuance of the war, and had no intention of abdica-
ting in favour of the fiery young Dictator; while
the decree declaring that the Imperialists were
ineligible as national representatives was, as Prince
Bismarck immediately took occasion to remind Gam-
betta rather sharply, contrary to the terms of the
Convention, which stipulated that the Assembly must
be "freely elected." M. Jules Simon was forthwith
appointed, with full powers, to bear to Bordeaux the
intimation of the wishes of the Government, and started
from Paris on the morning of the 31st. He has himself
96
LIFE OF LEON GAMBETTA.
.
described the difficulties of his mission-how, on reach-
ing Bordeaux on the afternoon of the 2nd of February,
he went straight to the Prefecture, and interviewed
the Delegates in the room of M. Crémieux; how they
assailed him with the most bitter reproaches, and even
insults; but how he refused to enter into any general
discussion, and stuck to his one point that the decree
against the Imperialists must be annulled. All four,
Gambetta, Crémieux, Glais-Bizoin, even Fourichon,
refused. What was to be done next? At this point
the Mayor and Municipal Councillors entered. They
declared that they would obey the Delegates, not the
Government in Paris. M. Simon seemed powerless.
"The town," he says, "was like a camp; Gambetta's
rule was absolute." Naturally the new-comer was
averse to an appeal to the army, and moreover it was
doubtful bow far the army would follow him. After
consulting with Thiers, who happened to be at Bor-
deaux, he sent off a sure messenger to Paris to
explain the situation, and bring up a further contin-
gent of Ministers to outvote the Delegates. Mean-
while, on the 2nd, Prince Bismarck telegraphed to
Gambetta, protesting against the latter's decree as an act
of "arbitrary oppression," and as being contrary to the
Convention. This was, of course, a trump card for
Gambetta, who posted a copy of the telegram on
all the walls, with an address to the "Citizens," calling
attention to the Prussian Minister's "insolent claim "
to interfere in the constitution of a French Assembly.
M. Simon's position now became one of extreme
difficulty. He went straight-this was on the 3rd-to
the Delegates, and read them the order of the Govern-
ment, giving him full powers in case of any difference
of opinion, an order which he had determined only to
MINISTER OF THE INTERIOR.
97
use under the pressure of extreme necessity; and thẹn
got a friendly journal to publish a decree annulling the
obnoxious decree of the Delegates. The Delegates
immediately suppressed M. Simon's decree, and Gam-
betta and Crémieux were for having M. Simon him-
self arrested. Finally, on the 6th, at nine o'clock in
the morning, three more members of the Government
-Garnier-Pagès, Emmanuel Arago, and Pelletan-
arrived in Bordeaux for the purpose of supporting M.
Simon; and, except at the risk of civil war and the
utter paralysis of all Government, there was clearly
nothing before the Delegates but submission. Gam-
betta, bitterly as he felt the ruin of all his hopes, was
wise enough, and patriotic enough, not to affront that
terrible contingency. On the same day, the 6th of
February, he resigned his post as Minister of the
Interior and of War.*
***********
Thus, somewhat sadly as I think, came to an end
Gambetta's dictatorship of four months. Unques-
tionably he was wrong in the ultimate point of debate
between himself and the Paris Government. Apart
altogether from the terms of the convention with Prince
Bismarck, there was no reason in February, 1871, for
any apprehension lest the country should return Impe-
rialist representatives. As the event showed conclusively,
Imperialism was, for the time at least, an object of
national loathing. The faults it had committed were
too recent, and the penalty of them too overwhelming.
Gambetta in all this discussion was frightening him-
self at a shadow. Nor, in the far greater question that
30
* M. Simon says Gambetta did not assist at the meeting of the old
and new Delegates held on the 6th. But it is difficult to reconcile
this with the terms of the letter in which the latter announced his
resignation.
7
98
LIFE OF LÉON GAMBETTA.
lay behind his insistence on the exclusion of the Im-
perialists, can it be said that he was right either. With
the fall of Paris, all possibility that the French would
retrieve their fortunes by arms had departed. Even
before that event they had shown themselves unable
to cope with the invading army. To the east Bour-
baki's forces were a mere rabble, the refluent spent
spray of an army; to the west and north Chanzy and
Faidherbe were in scarcely better case; Garibaldi's
small force was alone really available for any imme-
diate purpose. And now that Paris had fallen, the
besieging forces would be utilised to reinforce the
Germans already overrunning the country, and the
demoralised French troops would be beaten all the
more surely in detail. It was a hopeless position.
That Gambetta did not see it so detracts, however,
in no wise from the value of the services he had ren-
dered to his country up to this date.
There were
many at the time—and one regrets to remember how
generally that abject position was taken up by our own
press-there were those at the time who considered
that France ought to have surrendered uncondition-
ally after the disaster at Sedan. Her armies had
been beaten, the fortune of war had proved adverse.
Let her give up her provinces, suffer her sons to be
incorporated into a nationality which they hated, and
accept without further ado her shame and humilia-
tion. That judgment has long been reversed. It is
now all but universally acknowledged that in deter-
mining to continue the war, at whatever odds, France
acted in the spirit of her splendid past, and, through
reverses and disaster, kept her pride of place among
the nations unforfeited. A great people does not live
by bread alone. It lives, among other things, by its
-
MINISTER OF THE INTERIOR.
99
fortitude under trial, its stern reluctance to accept
defeat, its intense and passionate feeling of unity.\And
because Gambetta never faltered in this conviction
through one of his country's darkest hours, therefore
his name will remain, as I think, a name of honour
to all time in his country's annals, and be as a light
in the dark hours that may come hereafter.
Nor, be it remembered, was he a mere eloquent
voice summoning France to battle. The amount of hard
administrative work which he performed during the
four months of his dictatorship was simply marvellous.
No doubt his efforts were unsuccessful. The armies
he raised so toilfully proved powerless to hold the field
against the Germans. One by one his plans for the
relief of Paris proved abortive and failed. But in
judging of these failures it is right to bear in mind
with what materials he had to work, and against what
difficulties. Everything, as I have already said, had
to be created anew in those improvised armies of his,
and created, with wholly insufficient time, in the face of
the enemy, and amid the demoralising influences of
defeat. The very nature of the strategical problem he
had to solve the relief of Paris-compelled him con-
stantly to take the offensive prematurely with troops
that scarcely knew their drill; nor, without detracting
in any way from the merit of Chanzy and Faidherbe,
or even of d'Aurelles de Paladine, can it be said that
he was seconded by a commander of genius, or even of
commanding ability. Of course he made mistakes,
and too habitually expected the impossible. But his
plans were not all ill-laid; they were plans that might,
on more than one occasion, have proved successful save
for some untoward circumstance, such, for instance, as
the fall of Metz. On all these points we may freely
There are
*
7 *
100
LIFE OF LEON GAMBETTA.
accept the German verdict. Baron Colmar von der
Goltz,* together with much criticism of detail, has
nothing but admiration for the "giant's work which
Gambetta accomplished in less time than any previous
organiser of armies"; for the "great skill” and
economy of his "financial administration "; for the
"remarkable penetration" with which he "perceived
the great lines of truth" in the military operations,
and seized upon "the vulnerable points" in the posi-
tion "of his adversaries." And Baron von der Goltz
concludes, "If ever, which God forbid, our country
should undergo such a defeat as the French suffered at
Sedan, I trust most fervently that there may arise
among us a man like Gambetta to kindle in every
heart a desire of resistance to the last bitter end."
A politique de fou furieux, the "policy of a raging
madman "-thus Thiers is said to have described
Gambetta's policy at the time. But the calmer judg-
ment of men has not, so far, ratified that verdict,
nor, I venture to think, will history adopt it as her
"last word." Rather will history say that his policy
was the highest policy, because it was a policy of
national self-respect, and that if France, even after six
terrible months of disaster, could still lift up her head
among the nations and echo the cry attributed to
her defeated king, "Tout est perdu fors l'honneur,'
that not ignoble result was mainly due to Gambetta.
* Gambetta und Seine Armeen.
*
101
CHAPTER VI.
FROM THE END OF THE WAR TO THE FALL OF
THIERS.
1870-1873.
Elections-Gambetta elected by nine constituencies-Treaty of Peace
voted-Gambetta resigns and goes to St. Sebastian-Returns to
public life-Position of parties-Thiers-Pacte de Bordeaux-
Speech of Gambetta-His attitude in the Chambers-Starts the
République Française―The "Bagman of the Republic"-He
excites the ire of the majority-Changarnier-Gambetta shows
great qualities of statesmanship-Majority determine to over-
throw Thiers-The Barodet election-Mistake made by Gam-
betta Thiers overthrown Marshal MacMahon elected
President.
S
THE elections took place throughout France on the
8th of February, and on the 12th the first meeting of
the Assembly was held at Bordeaux. Of the total
number of 768 deputies, some 30 were Imperialists,
some 30 more had no very definite political creed, some
250 were declared Republicans, and the remainder
-that is to say, the majority-were Monarchists of
various shades of Orleanism or Legitimacy. And this
result may be easily explained. The Empire, notwith-
standing the apprehensions of Gambetta, was, for the
nonce, an object of loathing The Republic was in
102
LIFE OF LÉON GAMBETTA.
many ways identified with the policy of continuing
a war, and the country felt rightly that that policy
had had its day. But in voting for monarchical
candidates the electors knew they were voting for
peace; and, moreover, those candidates were, for the
most part, men of position and influence in their own
districts. Gambetta himself was elected by no less
than nine departments, which is a significant fact. At
Paris he was third on the list, coming after Louis
Blanc and Victor Hugo, with 202,399 votes. From
among these constituencies he chose to sit for the
department of the Bas Rhin, where Strasburg was
situate-Strasburg that had played its part so honour-
ably throughout the war, and was so soon to pass into
alien hands,
It is no part of my duty to tell the story of the
Assembly at Bordeaux. We all know how, on the
13th of February, the Government of National De-
fence, speaking through the mouth of Jules Favre,
resigned its authority to the Assembly; how, on the
16th, the Assembly elected M. Grévy as its president;
how, on the 17th, Thiers was chosen, almost unani-
mously, as Chief of the Executive Government, the
ultimate polity of France being left for after con-
sideration; how, on the 19th, he and Jules Favre
started from Bordeaux to negotiate the conditions of
peace with Prince Bismarck. We know, too, what
those conditions were: the crushing money indemnity,
and the provinces which Germany insisted-whether
wisely or not time has yet to show-on tearing out of
France's side. No wonder that the Assembly sat
silent and in consternation as they listened to the
reading of the proposed treaty, on the 28th February.
It was discussed on the following day, and agreed to,
END OF WAR TO FALL OF THIERS. 103
under dire constraint, by a majority of 546 to 107. As
soon as the result had been declared, one of the repre-
sentatives of the ceded provinces, speaking on behalf
of his colleagues, read a manifesto protesting against
the subjection of Alsace and Lorraine to a foreign and
hated yoke, and expressing a confident hope that those
provinces would one day be reunited to France. Then
he and his colleagues, Gambetta included, left the hall.
They were French representatives no longer.
That very same night, by a striking coincidence, the
mayor of Strasburg, who was also one of the deputies
of Alsace, died at Bordeaux. Gambetta spoke a few
eloquent burning words at the station before the body
was taken homewards, saying of the Alsatians that
they had done their duty during the war, and done it,
they at least, to the end "; and on the following day—
the 4th of March, I take it—he shook, as it were, the
dust of Bordeaux from his feet, and retired to St.
Sebastian beyond the Spanish frontier.
66
Here he remained till the 26th of the following
June, in the enjoyment, as it would seem, of a season
of complete idleness; and surely, if ever public man
had earned a title to rest it was Gambetta, after the
poignant anxieties, the incessant whirl and hurry, the
sleepless labours of the last six months. When one
thinks of the picture that has been painted for us of
the Prefecture of Bordeaux during his dictator-
ship-the rooms, the stairs, the corridors, all over-
gorged with busy humanity, the clerks pursuing their
toil in the midst of an incessant tumult, Gambetta
himself called upon continually to harangue the crowd
from the windows, to address deputations on the stairs,
and having no private room, but only the back of a
screen if he wanted to pen an important decree
104
LIFE OF LEON GAMBETTA.
or despatch, only the space behind a door if he
wished to hold a private interview, however important—
when one thinks of this, and of the enormous amount
of work accomplished under such immensely fatiguing
conditions, there is small room for wonder that he
should have felt the necessity for a season of peace.
The policy with which he had completely identified
himself was rejected by the country. Though success-
ful in the highest sense, as I have endeavoured to
show, he had so far failed that the German armies
remained undefeated. To those who judged super-
ficially-and they were many-he seemed to have
spent the blood of France altogether in vain, and not
a few clamoured that that blood was upon his head.
As Carnot had been called "the organiser of victory,"
so he was now insultingly called "the organiser of
defeat." Clearly he was justified in thinking that for
the time his mission had been accomplished, and his
work done. A true statesman's instinct taught him
to retire temporarily from the arena. He might again
strive to good effect in his country's cause--but not
now.
So he remained at St. Sebastian till the 26th of the
following June, doubtless enjoying the breezes that
blew freshly from the Bay of Biscay, but also, we may
be sure, with eyes turned in anxiety and sadness upon
the events that were passing in France. For during
the weeks of his sojourn on Spanish soil the insurrec-
tion of the Commune had flared up in Paris, and,
after passing its hideous course from the 28th of
March to the 28th of May, had been stamped out
ruthlessly, though not perhaps more ruthlessly than it
deserved. And daily it was becoming clearer that the
majority of the Assembly intended, sooner or later,
END OF WAR TO FALL OF THIERS. 105
to abolish the Republican form of government. This,
to a man of Gambetta's opinions, would simply have
been the abomination of desolation, and we may fairly
conclude that it was the desire to prevent, as far as in
him lay, so disastrous a result, which induced him to
abandon his retreat. Elections to fill vacancies in the
Assembly were to be held. The Department of the
Seine offered him a seat. He accepted the candi-
dature, and on the 26th of June returned to public
life, and on his way northwards addressed a large
public meeting at Bordeaux.
In order, however, to understand the part he played
during the next few years, it may be desirable here to
explain, in greater detail, what was the position of the
political world in France when he again entered upon
the scene. The Assembly of Bordeaux had been
elected, in the hottest haste, and chiefly in view of the
pending and vital question of peace or war.
It was
an Assembly that bore, in many respects, a resem-
blance to the first Parliament of Charles II., and the
Chamber of the Introuvables under the restored Louis
XVIII. The majority of the members were country
gentlemen-Ruraux as they came to be called in
derision-men who lived more or less on their acres,
who had no love for Imperialism in itself, and hated
the disasters it had caused-men who, partly from old
memories of 1793 and 1848, and partly from recent
experiences during the war, entertained a profound
distrust of Republicanism, and of Paris as a Repub-
lican city feelings which the outbreak of the
Commune naturally intensified a thousandfold. To
such men Royalism came naturally, and having been
called, very unexpectedly as they must have felt, to a
position of paramount influence, they were pretty
106
LIFE OF LEON GAMBETTA.
sure, sooner or later, to endeavour to restore the
government of their predilections. At first, indeed,
they had been overawed by the gravity of the situation.
When they came to Bordeaux, there were more press-
ing matters calling for settlement than even the ulti-
mate form of the government. Moreover, they had
not yet had time to organise their forces for concerted
action. So they had committed the country at once,
and almost blindly, but with a patriotism which ought
to be recognised, into the hands of Thiers.
என்-து
For Thiers was, without any question at all, the
very foremost statesman in France. His past services,
his immense experience, his superb gifts as an orator
and debater, his admirably lucid and vigorous intellect,
his capacity for work, his patriotism, the foresight
with which he had protested against the foreign policy
of the Empire and endeavoured to avert the war, the
efforts he had made while the war was in progress to
enlist the sympathies of Europe in the French cause-
all marked him out as the only man to whom the
broken fortunes of France could reasonably be com-
mitted. France, in the dearth of men created by the
Imperial rule, possessed no other statesman of the
first rank-no other statesman to be placed for a
moment in line with Prince Bismarck. It was by a
true and natural instinct that the Assembly, as one
man, turned to him in the dark hour before the
glimmer of that mournful peace. And, moreover, all
his antecedents gave him a singular advantage at this
particular moment. What the country obviously
needed was union. To have shown a divided front to
the enemy would have been ruin; and no other public
man stood so nearly at the point of junction between
differing parties as Thiers. His personal predilections
END OF WAR TO FALL OF THIERS. 107
were known to have been always in favour of consti-
tutional monarchy. He had been Louis Philippe's
Minister, and though mainly in opposition during
Louis Philippe's reign, had only been in opposition to
his Ministers, and never to the monarchy itself. Then,
when the Revolution of 1848 had precipitated France
into a Republic, he had been the invariable supporter
of law and order, and many a time and oft, with his
magnificent gift of lucid speech, had thrown into
disarray the ranks of the Socialists and other fanatics.
So far, therefore, he was a persona grata to the Con-
servative Royalists who formed the "rural" party. On
the other hand, his brilliant services as an opponent
of Louis Napoleon's Government, and the skill and
patriotism with which he had prevented the "rump"
of the Corps Législatif from protesting against the
Revolution of the 4th of September, and thus hopelessly
dividing the country-these, and his very real if
moderate liberalism, gave him great and deserved
influence with the reasonable Republicans.*
Thiers accordingly was almost unanimously elected
President; and the obvious policy marked out for him
by the circumstances of the time was a policy of con-
ciliation. To have endeavoured at once to give the
country a definite form of Government would have
been madness.
Is there anyone here [he had asked of the Assembly on the 19th of
February, two days after his election as President]-Is there anyone
here who would dare, in cold philosophic mood, to discuss the articles
of a constitution while our prisoners are dying of want in distant
lands, and our famishing fellow-countrymen are forced to deliver up
to a foreign soldiery the last crust of their bread? No, no, gentle-
To pacify, to reorganise, to re-establish our credit, to revive
men.
* He had been elected by no less than twenty-six constituencies,
and upwards of two million votes had been recorded in his favour.
108
LIFE OF LÉON GAMBETTA.
our trade—that is the only policy possible and even conceivable at
the present moment. To that policy every sensible, honest,
enlightened person may worthily and effectually contribute, whatever
may be his abstract views on the respective merits of a Monarchy or
a Republic. .. But when that work of reparation is accomplished
[so the orator continued], then the time for weighing theories of
government will have come.
·
Thus early did Thiers proclaim to the Assembly
what was afterwards to be called the Pacte de Bor-
deaux-a kind of " truce of God " between the contend-
ing parties-and, as an earnest of excellent things, he
selected his Ministers indiscriminately from among the
ablest politicians of all shades of opinion, giving three
of the most important "portfolios" to tried Repub-
licans like Jules Favre, Ernest Picard, and M. Jules
Simon, and the remainder to
remainder to Legitimists and
Orleanists.
But such a compact as that of Bordeaux could
clearly only be maintained during a season of immense
public anxiety. With the conclusion of peace, the
defeat of the Commune, and the gradual pacification
of the country, ordinary political aspirations, hopes,
desires, jealousies reasserted themselves.
Great as
was Thiers' ascendency, "old parliamentary hand” as
he might be, he could not prevent the Monarchist
majority from perceiving and acting upon-the
obvious truth that the de facto Government was a
Republic, and that the longer the Republic lived and
did well, the less chance they had of replacing it by
the Government of their dreams. Thiers knew this,
of course, as well as they did, and accepted it as
inevitable, though quite honestly determined, for his
own part, not to prejudge the future more than could
be helped. But naturally the majority were less
patient. They felt increasingly that they had become
END OF WAR TO FALL OF THIERS. 109
a majority in what may be called a "scratch" manner,
and that it behoved them to make hay during their
short hour of sunshine. Scarcely could the most san-
guine have believed that another general election
would place them in power once more.
And mean-
while there were so many questions, religious, social,
political, on which they felt strongly, and felt dif-
ferently from the Republicans, and with regard to
which they naturally considered that their views ought
to prevail. Therefore, while forced to maintain Thiers:
in power, they were exceedingly jealous of his
relations with the Republicans,* and daily harassed
him with their doubts and ill-concealed distrust.
Such was the position of affairs when Gambetta
returned to France on the 26th of June 1871; and
into the very centre of that position he at once threw
himself. Nothing can be clearer, as a political pro-
gramme, than his speech at Bordeaux. It is a kind of
trumpet blast, confidently summoning the Republican
forces to battle and victory.
When we study the present situation in France [he said], we arrive:
at this conclusion, that if the Republican party has the will it has
the power; and that if its knowledge is equal to its power it will
succeed in regenerating the country, and in founding a government
at once free and secure against reaction and against internal
weakness.
Then, accepting freely Thiers' formula that "power"
must ultimately belong "to the wisest, and the most
worthy," he cried:
To the wisest! To the most worthy! By all means.
These are:
conditions which we are specially bound to accept. Nor is such a
* At the end of May they had insisted on the dismissal of one of
his Republican Ministers, Picard, and in the beginning of August.
Jules Favre resigned.
110
LIFE OF LÉON GAMBETTA.
formula in any sense a novelty for us Republicans. It is one of our
dogmas that the service of the State should be entrusted only to
merit and virtue. It was to due respect for merit and uprightness that
we vainly endeavoured to recall the Empire; it was, indeed, because
political rectitude is opposed to all compromise with a power founded
on crime and maintained by corruption that our opposition was then
irreconcileable and revolutionary. Now, however [he went on to
say], now that a Republic exists de facto, the duties of the party
have clearly changed. Its heroic, chivalrous age has passed with
the realisation of a part of its hopes. Henceforward it must be
circumspect, patient, measured, politic. It must devote itself to
the work of national education, using the word education in the
largest sense. It must turn to the ignorant and disinherited, and
make of universal suffrage, which is the embodiment of power in
numbers, the embodiment of power enlightened by reason. It must
crown the Revolution. . . . Ah! that peasant, devoted to the tilling
of the soil, who bears so bravely the burden of the day, and does so
with no other comfort than the hope of leaving to his children the
paternal acre larger by one little rood, and concentrates in that one
hope all his passions, his joys, and his fears! no sound comes to
him from the great world beyond, from the human society in the
midst of which he dwells, save rumours and empty breath; he
falls an easy prey to the deceiver and the quack; he strikes,
in his ignorance, at the breast of the Revolution, that has done
so much for him; he gives loyally his taxes and his blood for
the entertainment of a social order which he fears even more
than he respects. But when he has done this, he considers that
he has done all that can be required of him. Speak to him of
principles, and he does not understand you, and naturally replies
by talking to you of interests. And what else can you justly
expect? Therefore it is to the peasants that you must ceaselessly
address yourselves; it is the peasants that you must elevate and
instruct. The epithets Rurality, the Rural Chamber, which contend-
ing parties have cast at one another as insults, must be changed
into terms of honour. Ah! it were indeed to be desired that there
were a Rural Chamber in the true and deep sense of the word.
Unfortunately that point has not yet been reached. We shall not be
able to make that step in our forward progress so long as French
democracy has failed to demonstrate, and to demonstrate
beyond all power of question, that if we wish to restore to our coun-
try its greatness, its power and its genius, the best interest of the
higher classes is to elevate, to emancipate that world of workers
which still holds in reserve, like revivifying sap, an inexhaustible
treasure of activity and aptitude. We must first learn what society
•
END OF WAR TO FALL OF THIERS. 111
owes to the peasant, and then teach the peasant what he owes to society.
If for the great work of national regeneration ten or twenty
years are required, then those ten or twenty years must be taken.
But we must begin at once. Every year a new generation must be
springing up, strong, intelligent, and devoted, with an equal devotion,
to its country and to knowledge, and fulfilled with the feeling that
we can only serve our country efficiently by serving it at once with
our hands and our reason. . . And I declare that peace and order
will only be possible when every class of society has been brought to
participate in the benefits of civilisation and knowledge, and to con-
sider the government as a legitimate emanation of its own sovereignty,
and not as a master at once jealous and grasping. Until that happy
consummation, and so long as we persist in following our present dis-
astrous ways, you will have the ignorant at one time supporting a
Coup d'État, and, at another, making themselves the auxiliaries of
revolution; and we shall remain exposed to the impious fury of
blinded multitudes laying destructive hands even on the traditional
objects of their respect, because unable to satisfy their impossible
appetites, and in vengeful fury accumulating round themselves ruin.
Consequently the politician, in the accomplishment of his task,
must make it his first duty to uproot that evil of evils from which
all others spring: ignorance-ignorance, without which it would be
clear to all men that the form of government most conformable tc
the nature, the dignity, and the happiness of man, is the Republic.
... In short, I wish our opposition to be what one may call a
government opposition. I wish to have no other end in view but to
put the country into the right course, or compel others to do so.
For I know a yet stronger passion than that of exercising power in
one's own person, and that is to watch its loyal exercise by others,
and to see others accomplish all essential reforms under the simple
constraint of truth, equity, and public spirit. . . . If the Republic is
pre-eminently the government of right, cannot all parties find shelter
under its wing? Is it not the only form of government under which
access to power is open to those who have best approved themselves
to public opinion by their talents and their virtues? And such being
the case, may we not turn to those who have professed anti-Republican
opinions, and say to them, "Ah! you wish at last to establish a
Republic, and govern it after your own fashion. Very well, we only ask
one thing of you, and that is that you shall begin by really recog-
nising the Republic. When once you have done that, we are per-
fectly prepared to place rule and government in your hands.
But, as a first condition, it is necessary that the Republican party
should be unalterably firm in the maintenance of its principles, and
we here declare that we will show the utmost indulgence so far as
•
•
•
•
·
112
LIFE OF LÉON GAMBETTA.
persons are concerned, and open the doors of the Republic wide, so
that whosoever will may enter therein. But as regards our prin-
ciples, we will remain implacable."
I have quoted from this speech freely, because it
marks so well what was Gambetta's attitude on re-
entering public life. He was still, as will be seen,
full of an exuberant belief in the power of “the
Republic" to work wonders for the regeneration of
the country. He had an equally ardent belief in
education. He entertained no doubt that Universal
Suffrage, when duly enlightened, would sweep away
every abuse, and make all things new. He was still,
in short, in a kind of morning glow of golden hopes
-hopes which time, the impassive judge of things
and men, has so far scarcely ratified. Nevertheless,
with whatever exaggeration, he was, in my view,
right in his belief that the Republican form of
government was the one best fitted for France. And
in his willingness—which was quite genuine to
forego the sweets of office and power, both for
himself and his friends, if only his ideas could have
practical effect, there was a high disinterestedness
rare everywhere, and in France singularly rare.
Such utterances are those of a real patriot, and when
judging Gambetta's character they should not be for-
gotten.
He was elected on the 2nd of July by three Depart-
ments, and came back to the Assembly, then sitting
at Versailles, as one of the representatives of Paris-
taking his place, as before, at the Extreme Left,
among the Radical members. Those who had not
seen him since the old Paris days, before the war,
noticed that the "Terrible Year" had left its traces
upon him—that he had lost somewhat of his youthful
Mad
END OF WAR TO FALL OF THIERS. 113
look, and was stouter than of yore, and that there were
streaks of white in the blackness of his hair.
From the first it was clear that he would have some
difficulty in obtaining a hearing from the Assembly.
The elections of the 2nd of July had gone heavily in
favour of the Republicans, and the Royalist majority
must have seen pretty clearly that power was slipping
out of their hands, and were not in the best of tem-
pers. The speeches which he made on the 22nd of
July and 8th of August were repeatedly interrupted
by such cries as There are no dictators here—we are
not at Bordeaux"; and on the 30th of August, amid
a scene of great tumult, he hurled at his adversaries,
who were taunting him on the subject of the revolu-
tion of the 4th of September, this stinging retort :—
(C
What did we do on the 4th of September? On the 4th of September
we overthrew the Empire, after you had pronounced its deposition;
on the 4th of September we saved you from shame; on the 4th of
September we rescued you from anarchy and terror, and we rendered
to France a due and fitting service.
But this speech of the 30th of August is memo-
rable on other grounds than because it afforded to
Gambetta an opportunity of turning on his enemies
with these quick rapier thrusts. The question in
debate arose out of the proposal of a certain M.
Rivet, who, having in view the unsettled state of
the country, wished Thiers to be declared titular Pre-
sident of the Republic for three years with constitu-
tional powers more strictly defined, the proposal being
prefaced by a declaration of the right of the Assembly
to vote a Constitution. To the declaration of any
such right Gambetta was, however, strongly adverse.
Nor was he mollified by the sop of an official recog-
nition of the Republic. Looking at the circum-
W 2018
8
114
LIFE OF LEON GAMBETTA.
stances in which the Assembly had been elected,
looking much more at the opinions of its members, he
held strenuously to the view that it had received
from its constituents no authority to settle the ulti-
mate form of the Constitution, and that when once
the question of peace or war had been decided, and
the last of the Germans removed from French soil,
its mission would be at an end. Naturally the
majority took a very different view; and there is
no room for doubt M. Jules Simon admits as
much that if the Assembly had been a Repub-
lican Assembly, the Republicans would have made
no difficulty whatever in admitting its "constituent "
powers. Nay, Gambetta himself, as we shall pre-
sently see, accepted a Constitution in 1875 from
this very same Assembly, and did so without scruple.
Meanwhile, however, and so long as the spirit of
the majority remained militant and unbroken, it
was his obvious cue to resist any motion implying
that the Assembly possessed more than a temporary
mandate. To preach the Republic, and prevent any
other form of government from being established, re-
mained his mission during the next four years.
On the 7th of September, shortly after the debate
on M. Rivet's motion, Gambetta appeared before the
"Parliamentary Commission" recently appointed to
inquire into the "Acts of the Government of National
Defence." Such an inquiry had been proposed,
almost as soon as the Assembly first met at Bordeaux,
by the extreme Radicals, Louis Blanc, Victor Hugo,
Quinet, and other dissatisfied representatives of Paris,
and it was now taken up again by the majority, and in
no friendly spirit. Saint-Marc Girardin, an Or-
leanist, presided nominally, and Saint-Marc Girardin,

END OF WAR TO FALL OF THIERS. 115
besides being an able journalist, an admirable critic,
and a classic writer in the best sense, was a man of
fair and judicial mind. But he was in failing health,
and the task of conducting the inquiry devolved
mainly on M. Daru, an Imperialist. Gambetta natu-
rally had no mind to be cross-examined as to his
deeds by any servant of the Empire, nor would it
have been fitting that he should be subjected to the
ordeal; and, at his request, Saint-Marc Girardin
occupied the chair on the occasion, and presided with
dignity and measure. As to Gambetta's evidence, I
have already quoted as much as is necessary for my
biographical purpose; and it may be enough to add
that neither then, nor on future occasions, when the
contracts entered into by the Government of National
Defence were under inquiry, was anything brought
forward or elicited which left the slightest semblance
of a stain on his personal honour. Even the fiercest
light of party rancour proved powerless here.
The Assembly adjourned on the 17th of Septem-
ber 1871, and did not meet again till the 4th of
December. Meanwhile Gambetta had passed through
a severe illness; had started, on the 3rd of November,
with the co-operation of his friends and more imme-
diate supporters, a newspaper, bearing the appropriate
title of the République Française; and had begun at
Saint-Quentin, on the 16th of November, a series of
popular political addresses destined, during the next
few months, to excite his opponents to the very
highest pitch of exasperation. These addresses were
delivered pretty well everywhere, and on varying pre-
texts. At Saint-Quentin the occasion was a patriotic
banquet given in commemoration of the manner in
which the town had resisted the attack of the Ger-
.
8 *
116
LIFE OF LEON GAMBETTA.
mans. At Angers and Le Havre (7th and 18th April
1872) there was no special occasion, beyond a desire to
fan the zeal of the provincial Republicans. At Paris
(9th May) an address of delegates from Alsace had to
be answered. At Versailles (on the 24th of June), the
birthday of General Hoche, one of the saints of Re-
publicanism, had to be commemorated. At La Ferté-
sous-Jouarre—but why particularise? Suffice it to
say that between September 1871 and May 1873
Gambetta was pretty well everywhere, south, east,
west, and north, preaching, exhorting, convincing.
Le commis-voyageur de la République—the “bagman
of the Republic "-his enemies called him in de-
rision, and he accepted the taunt proudly. Yes, he
was the bagman of the Republic, holding it to be his
mission to disseminate its wares throughout the land.
He felt no inclination to be ashamed of those wares.
They were, in his view, of the most excellent quality,
and good altogether for the healing of the nation.
Could there be any more useful work, with a re-
actionary Assembly in power, than to go about
preaching and proclaiming the turpitude of the Em-
pire; the benefits conferred on mankind, rural as well
as urban, by the French Revolution; the necessity of
crowning the work of the Revolution by placing
power more unreservedly in the hands of the lower
classes; the urgent need of a national regeneration
through education and work; the essentially orderly
character of the Republican party; the desirability of
subordinating the Church more entirely to the State;
the evils of clericalism; the duty of dissolving the
Assembly; the radiant future in store for France when
once the Republic" reigned in its majesty supreme?
These, with a good deal of impassioned patriotism,
.
(6
END OF WAR TO FALL OF THIERS. 117
and some grudging at the Germans, formed the
materials out of which his speeches were built. Not
in themselves very varied materials, perhaps, and
some of them of a decidedly untrustworthy and ob-
solete character, but put together with a master
architect's consummate skill so as to take the popular
eye and popular imagination. We in England are, it
may be, a little blasé to such exhibitions; yet even
with us an oratorical campaign has been known to
influence the policy of the country. In France they
were not blasé at all. No one that I can remember
had previously "stumped the country" in the same
way; and the effect was proportionately great.
Of course, the majority were outraged and indig-
nant. In his speech at Angers on the 7th of April
1872, Gambetta had spoken of their "intrigues," and
on the 18th, at Havre, he had passionately advocated
a dissolution. A week afterwards, on the 25th,
M. Raoul Duval inquired of the Government whether
it was with their approval that the mayors of the
towns in question had been present while such dele-
terious addresses were being delivered. And on the
18th of November a yet more embarrassing attack
was made on the Government. Gambetta had been
in the south-east of France during the preceding
autumn, making a kind of royal progress, and every-
where fêted and acclaimed; and in a great oration at
Grenoble, on the 26th of September, after hailing the
advent to power of “ a new social stratum," he had
passionately declaimed against the Versailles Assem-
bly, crying that there was nothing to be hoped
for in that direction, and that the country must turn
for deliverance to the organised power of Universal
Suffrage. Whereupon, a few days after the meeting
118
LIFE OF LÉON GAMBETTA.
of the Assembly in November, a leading member of
the Right, General Changarnier, made a strong appeal
to the Government. Changarnier was a fine distinc-
tive Parliamentary figure, a veteran of upwards of
eighty, who had fought with the utmost bravery in
Africa, had done good service in maintaining order in
1848—in short, a thorough type of the best kind of
French officer-and the majority listened to him com-
placently as he accused Gambetta of having insulted
the Assembly, outraged Religion, and endeavoured to
foment evil political passions.
I am unfortunate enough [said the orator, who belonged to an older
parliamentary school] not to admire M. Gambetta's noisy eloquence.
[And he went on to say] I pray, I beseech the President of the
Republic, whom I have loved so much, whom I love still, to ally
himself with the majority of the Assembly in combating the increasing
boldness of Radicalism
to separate the Government frankly,
openly, from a colleague* who is disposed to overturn everything for
the purpose of resuming a disastrous dictatorship, the return whereof
would imply the eternal ruin of France.
The proposal was an embarrassing one for the
Government, because Thiers, in the face of the hos-
tility of the Right, was compelled to lean more and
more on the Left, and had strong reasons for hesitating
to disavow any section of the party. But he was, ast
I have said, "an old parliamentary hand," and for
this time, at least, his enemies found no occasion
against him. Nor should I have related the incident,
except that it shows how thoroughly Gambetta had
succeeded in exciting the ire of the Monarchists. They
hated him for his popular addresses; they hated and
feared him for the qualities he was displaying in the
Assembly itself. His "noisy eloquence" might not
* "Factious demagogue" was the expression first used, but with-
drawn at the request of the President.
END OF WAR TO FALL OF THIERS. 119
be to Changarnier's taste, but there must have been
few, even among his opponents, who, watching his
career at this time, did not see what an important
Parliamentary leader he was becoming. If there had
hitherto been a temptation to regard him as no more
than a "Rupert of Debate," good for slashing and sword-
play-a sort of politician with a touch of the maniac
about him—that temptation had now clearly had its day.
He was showing that he knew how to wait, and had
learnt the orator's difficult lesson of the value of
silence. He spoke comparatively very seldom, and
when he did it was as often as not on some question of
what may be called an administrative and practical
character. Thus, on the 1st of February 1872, he
made a speech on the commercial treaties with Eng-
land, and on the 1st of June he discussed at length
the system of recruiting for the army. His attitude
generally was no longer that of the outside critic; it
was that of the man who has felt the weight and
cares of Government, and knows he may have to bear
them again. At the same time, outward and visible
signs were not wanting of a desire to cultivate the
respectabilities of life. In the old days before the
fall of the Empire, and even somewhat later, he had
been carelessly Bohemian in his dress and appearance ;
and M. Rochefort, as we have seen, had accused him
of dirt and an affected slovenliness. Now, though he
always remained very far on the less tidy side of
dandyism, there was a marked change for the better.
He seems to have felt that something was due to
Republicanism as the party of order. How should
order show itself about the world in a frayed and un-
brushed coat?
At the same time his manner of life should have
M
120
LIFE OF LEON GAMBETTA.
given the lie to the legends in circulation of wealth
amassed by public plunder during the war. As he
had lived before in the days of his almost brieflessness,
even so, or with comparatively little change, he lived now.
He had taken apartments on his return to Paris at No.
12 Rue Montaigne, apartments consisting of a study,
where his secretary sat and worked, a dining-room, a
drawing-room, two bed-rooms, and a kitchen, all of the
most modest dimensions. Here Aunt Massabie pre-
sided as of old, cooking for him the southern dishes
he loved so well. Here his friends would gather
round him, partaking of the often homely fare, and
listening to his exuberant brilliant talk. Here the
deputation from Alsace-Lorraine come to give him a
statuette in bronze, commemorative of the sorrows and
undying hate of the severed provinces.
Meanwhile, he was busy with his newspaper, the
République Française, now fast becoming a power in
the land. Among the members of the staff were M.
de Freycinet, who had so ably seconded him as war-
administrator during the recent campaign, and has
since occupied the post of Prime Minister; M.
Spuller, who had accompanied him in his balloon
flight from Paris; M. Challemel-Lacour, who had
shared his modest retreat at Bordeaux after the
cessation of hostilities; M.
M. Paul Bert, whose
career was afterwards to come to so sad an end
at Tonquin. But though Gambetta trusted his co-
adjutors, he was no Roi fainéant, no King Log, on the
editorial throne. He impressed his own personality
stongly on the paper, and controlled its contents with
an iron hand. And as he himself was now exhibit-
ing, in his public capacity, certain unexpected qualities
of measure and self-restraint, so the République Fran-
END OF WAR TO FALL OF THIERS. 121
çaise assumed at once the position of a very "serious"
periodical, avoiding for the most part those personali-
ties which are the bane of French journalism, and
discussing great questions in their larger aspect. From
a literary point of view also, the paper was altogether
sober and creditable.
So passed the year 1872 and the earlier months of
1873; and, meanwhile, the breach between Thiers and
the majority of the Assembly was growing daily
wider and wider. But the latter, anxious as they
were to overturn the Government, had the grace and
patriotism to hesitate and hold back so long as the
negotiations with Germany remained uncompleted.
Thanks, however, to the old statesman's skill as a
diplomatist and financier, no very long time elapsed
before that scruple was removed. On the 17th March
1873, M. de Rémusat, the Foreign Minister, finally
announced to the Assembly that arrangements had
been made for the payment, on the 5th of the follow-
ing September, of the last instalment of the huge war
indemnity, and for the final evacuation of French ter-
ritory by the hated invader. Whereupon the Assembly
-they could no other, for the general feeling of relief
was unbounded-immediately passed a vote of thanks
to Thiers, coupling it, however, as the Opposition said,
with a sort of general vote of thanks to themselves.
'Now," said M. Jules Simon to Thiers on the follow-
ing day, at the meeting of the Cabinet Council, "Now
you can say your Nunc dimittis.”
66
But the end was not quite yet. Though the Right
had clearly determined, sooner or later, to depose
Thiers, they seemed still to be hesitating and half-
hearted. They could not at first muster courage, as
it would appear, even to accept the resignation of the
122
LIFE OF LEON GAMBETTA.
Republican President of the Assembly, M. Grévy,
when he tendered it, on the 2nd of April, after a noisy
sitting* during which his authority had been rudely
questioned. They were not prepared for power, and
would probably have gone on temporising for some time
longer if an event had not occurred to intensify their
fears and spur their flagging zeal. And, curiously
enough, the event which finally had that result was
one which Gambetta had contributed, if not quite done
his best, to bring about. On the 27th of April an
election was to be held in Paris. Looked at dispas-
sionately, the constituency of Paris is not in any way
remarkable for the possession of the political sense.
It is a constituency that has a persistent love of oppo-
sition for its own sake-irrespective of the govern-
ment that may be in power-and it habitually
mistakes declamation, more or less eloquent, for prac-
tical statesmanship. Nevertheless, its actions are
always watched with a particularly keen interest; and
an importance which, to the outsider, appears quite
disproportionate, is attached to its decisions. So it is
now. So it was then. Of the comparative merits of
the two candidates, there could not be a single
moment's question. One was M. de Rémusat, the
Foreign Minister, who had just been helping Thiers
in his negotiations with the Germans, and a man of
whom any Parliament might have been proud. The
other was a certain M. Barodet, ex-mayor of Lyons,
and a Radical nonentity. Thiers, with his usual self-
will, and in spite of warnings, had persisted in send-
ing M. de Rémusat to the poll. He relied upon his
friend's merit, and the great increase of popularity
which the Government had so recently acquired.
* On the previous day.
END OF WAR TO FALL OF THIERS. 123
Gambetta took the other side. He announced him-
self as the supporter of M. Barodet, and made a great
speech at Belleville, in which, though without any
profession of enthusiasm for that individual, he sup-
ported his candidature. M. Barodet, it need scarcely
be said, was elected, and by a majority of 40,000
votes.
That Gambetta made a mistake on this occasion,
even his admirers are mostly constrained to admit.
What was the use of preaching the sanity and mode-
ration of "the Republic" in the face of such an elec-
tion? Thiers, as must have been patent to all, was
struggling through good report and evil report, and
against the greatest obstacles, to govern the country in
a Republican sense, and lead it to an ultimately Re-
publican goal. Was this a time at which to weaken
and embarrass him by showing that he had no hold
on the great popular metropolitan constituency?
Clearly, quite apart from any feeling of gratitude for
public services at once recent and immense, it was the
duty of all Republicans, at this particular crisis, to
rally round him and his candidates. Nor is it
Nor is it easy to
understand why Gambetta should not have done so,
unless-which one hesitates to offer as an explanation
-he was afraid of jeopardising his popularity with the
Radicals of Belleville.
Be that as it may, a mistake had been committed,
and the consequences followed thereon with swift
feet. When the Assembly met again, after the
recess, on the 19th of May, the first thing the ma-
jority did was to give notice of a motion, signed by
320 members, urging on the Government the necessity
of pursuing a "resolutely conservative policy." On
the 23rd the motion came on for discussion, and the
.
124
LIFE OF LÉON GAMBETTA.
Duc de Broglie rose to support it. His attitude
might have been more frank. Instead of openly
attacking the Government because it was helping to
found a Republic, while he and his friends preferred
a Monarchy, he dwelt on the internal dissensions in
the Cabinet, on its complaisance for the Radicals, and
its want of power to support sane conservative doc-
trines. Dufaure, the fine old Parliamentarian, replied
point by point to M. de Broglie's speech, pressing it
hard in the meshes of his serried dialectics. Thiers,
owing to the absurd formalities with which his ap-
pearance at the tribune, had been surrounded, was
unable to speak on the same day. But on the follow-
ing morning, the morning of the 24th, he made his
defence to the Assembly. Disdaining the smaller
points raised by his antagonists, he went straight to
the heart of the question. At Bordeaux, eighteen
months before, any settlement of the ultimate form
of government would have been impossible. Now it
was imperative; and in the face of the dissensions of
the Monarchists, if for no other reason, a Republic
was the only practical solution.
We have [said Thiers, in conclusion], reorganised and de-
livered France; that was our first duty, and it is accomplished.
Now we must have some definite government. We propose to you to
found it, and to found it at once; and we add that that government
must be a Republic, and can be nothing else but a Republic. Will
you found a Republic? We are here to do it with you. Do you wish
rather to prolong, to the detriment and peril of France, the present
period of indecision and uncertainty? Then overthrow us.
You are
acting on that issue and that alone.
Thus spoke a great statesman, and thus he spoke,
alas! in vain. The Conservatives, or those who called
themselves such, failed to see that true Conservatism
in France consisted then, as now, not in endeavouring
END OF WAR TO FALL OF THIERS. 125
to re-establish ephemeral forms of monarchy, but in
consolidating the Republican form, and guarding it
especially from disintegration at the hands of internal
enemies. In an afternoon meeting on the same day-
Thiers had ungraciously been compelled to speak at
9 o'clock in the morning-the Government were out-
voted by a majority of 360 to 344; and in a later
evening meeting a letter was read from Thiers
announcing his resignation, and the majority proceeded
forthwith to elect Marshal MacMahon as President.
The Monarchical reaction triumphed, if not all along.
the line, at least in the Assembly; and the first chapter
in the history of the Versailles Parliament came to a
close.
126
LIFE OF LEON GAMBETTA.
CHAPTER VII.
GAMBETTA FOUNDS THE REPUBLIC.
1873-1875.
Danger of disturbances-Gambetta deprecates appeal to physical
force-A scene in the Chamber-The three Monarchical parties—
Attempts to found a monarchy-The Comte de Chambord refuses
to give up the white flag--End of the De Broglie Ministry—
Resuscitation of Imperialist party-Gambetta denounces their
intrigues-Efforts of Thiers and Gambetta in favour of a Re-
public—“ Opportunism "—Its success-Republic founded de jure
on the 30th of January 1875-A hitch-It is overcome- -The
foundation of the Republic-The country mainly indebted for
this result to Gambetta.
AMONG those who were at all behind the scenes in
politics, there had for some time been little doubt
that the fall of Thiers was imminent. But to the
general public the events of the 24th of May came as
a surprise, a shock, almost a thunderclap. Scarcely
more than a few days had passed since the country
was ringing with the deposed statesman's praise; and
however much it might suit such adversaries as the
venomous pressman, Louis Veuillot, to decry his
services, and call him insultingly "a sinister old man,'
the great majority of Frenchmen knew and acknow-
ledged that it was to him mainly that France owed her
""
GAMBETTA FOUNDS THE REPUBLIC. 127
comparative recuperation after the terrible disasters of
the war and the Commune. He had conducted the
negociations with the enemy to a successful issue.
He had quelled the hideous insurrection in Paris.
His was the name that had restored public confidence.
and credit. The country felt naturally ashamed and
indignant at being compelled, nolens, volens, to add
so ugly a chapter to the ugly records of national
ingratitude.
There was some danger lest such feelings should
find violent expression, especially as the reactionary
opinions of the majority in the Assembly were by no
means to the taste of the majority in the country.
But any popular rising or disorder would obviously
have played effectually into the hands of the new
Government. The majority were, after all, strictly
within their rights in overthrowing a Ministry which
no longer possessed their confidence. It would have
been a trump card indeed if they could have pointed
to their opponents as ready at a moment's notice to ap-
peal to physical force for the solution of constitutional
questions. Did not they, the Monarchists, claim to be
essentially the party of order, and habitually brand the
Republicans as the fautors of misrule? Was it not
their mission to save the land from anarchy, and would
they not have said immediately, "here is armed anarchy
lifting up its head?" These considerations had pressing
weight with the Republican deputies, and on the very
day of Thiers' overthrow, the 24th of May, one hundred
and twenty-six of them signed an address to the French
people, saying that never had the calm of confidence
and conscious power been more necessary to the
salvation of France and the Republic.
Gambetta signed the address as a matter of course.
128
LIFE OF LÉON GAMBETTA.
V
B
→
To the use of physical force he was consistently
opposed throughout his career, holding that the prin-
ciples of democratic Republicanism were in them-
selves so excellent as to be sure of ultimate triumph
by means of argument alone. And to the weapons
of argument he now again betook himself, and with
redoubled zeal. His policy during the preceding
months, from July 1871 to May 1873, had been
directed towards three main objects. He had endea-
voured to popularise Republican opinions throughout
the constituencies, to prevent the monarchical Assembly
from establishing a permanent Constitution, and to
obtain a dissolution of the Assembly and an appeal to
the country, With the defeat of Thiers-practically
a defeat of moderate Republicanism-and the election
of Marshal MacMahon as President, and with the
appointment of the Duc de Broglie as Prime Minister,
those objects naturally assumed an intensified impor-
tance. Now indeed the Republic was in real and
imminent jeopardy. Now was the time for all good
Republicans to stand shoulder to shoulder in its
defence. The new de Broglie-Beulé Ministry called
itself a Ministère de Combat, a "ministry of battle,"
and regarded itself as leading the "moral forces" of
society to victory over the democratic hordes. And if
the Ministry wanted battle, battle they should have.
Gambetta, who had not hitherto taken more than a com-
paratively subordinate part in the debates of the
Assembly, now stepped forward into the forefront of
the attack.
+
•
**qi }
.

A brilliant skirmish was his first affair. The
Ministry signalised its advent to power, as French minis-
tries are so unfortunately apt to do, by making great
changes in the personnel of the permanent administra-
GAMBETTA FOUNDS THE REPUBLIC. 129
tion; and it also at once began to worry the Liberal
press. On the 8th of June a Radical paper, the
Corsaire, was suppressed, and on the 10th the ques-
tion of its suppression was brought before the House.
The discussion had gone on for some short time, M.
Lepère had attacked the Government, and M. Beulé
had replied with rare infelicity,* when Gambetta
arose. It was not his intention, he said, to go into
the particular question raised by the two previous
speakers. The point which he rather wished to eluci-
date was the attitude of the new Ministry towards the
press. Was it true-but the whole scene is so dra-
matic, it illustrates so well Gambetta's readiness and
resource under the fire of interruptions, that I cannot
do better than quote it almost entire.
GAMBETTA.—I was saying that, besides the measures taken openly
with regard to the Press, there are measures of an occult character,
there is a clandestine design
(Denials to the right). No
denials, pray, gentlemen; you will see reason to regret your precipi-
tancy! (Ironical laughter to the right. Several voices: "We know
all about it.") If you know all about it, pray allow me to put the
whole public into your confidence also. [M. DE CUMONT: That is
exactly what we want.] Then you will be satisfied directly; pray
exercise a little patience. I repeat that, apart from the open and
avowed measures which we have just been considering, I wish to
question the Minister of the Interior relative to what I will venture
to call the occult measures and designs of the Cabinet with regard to
the Press. Is it true that on Wednesday, the 4th of June, a circular
was addressed, from the Ministry of the Interior, to all the Prefects
throughout France-a circular which I will ask the Assembly to
allow me to read? (A voice to the right: "How did you get hold of
it?" To the left: "Don't interrupt.") You will be able to check me
as I read, gentlemen, inasmuch as you say you are already acquainted
with the terms of the circular. All the means of comparing my copy
of the circular with the original will thus be at your disposal, and
* He described the Assembly as having been elected "in an unfor-
tunate hour”—a sentiment which the Left cheered vociferously. So
far they were entirely with him.
9
130
LIFE OF LEON GAMBETTA.
you will be free to enlighten us fully on the question of authenticity'
I only ask the Government one question. Let them deny or admit
the authenticity of the circular, and we shall determine our future
course of action with regard to it accordingly. (Interruptions; mur-
murs to the right.) Here, then, is the circular: "Send me at once a
report on the Press in your department. The time has come for
doing something to recover the authority and influence lost through.
an affectation of indifference and neutrality." (Cheers to the right;
murmurs to the left.) [M. HENRI VINAY: Why, so far, there is
nothing to object to. "Oh! oh!" to the left.] [M. MALENS:
Some allies are very dangerous.]
are very dangerous.] I perfectly understand these
cheers, gentlemen, and am not in the least surprised that some of our
colleagues should approve of a circular which has for its object to
organise the official press in view of the election of official candidates.
(Voices to the right: "And how about your own candidatures ? ")
[M. DE GASLONDE: The Government only wanted to get statistics.]
Nothing can be more natural and more in accordance with the facts of
human nature, and it is such circulars as these which may perhaps
enable us to define with precision and full knowledge what we are to
understand by "moral order." (Applause to the left; prolonged inter-
ruptions to the right.) Gentlemen, if you did not interrupt me, I
should be able to read the circular straight through from end to end.
But I am obliged to stop to answer your remarks. "Tell me which are
the Conservative papers, or those which might be induced to become
such. .." ("Oh! oh!" and laughter to the left.) [M. VINAY:
Concessions are expected.] Conversions are anticipated among the
editors —it is all quite natural. "Tell me which are the Conservative
papers, or those that might be induced to become such; what is their
financial position-("Ah! ah!" to the left)—and the price they
would probably attach to the help and goodwill of the Government."
(Noisy exclamations to the left; prolonged agitation.) [M. CHALLEMEL-
LACOUR: Always, of course, in the interests of moral order.]
"Tell
me the names of the editorial staff, their opinions so far as known,
and their antecedents. If you can obtain an interview with them,
ascertain if they would accept communications from the Government,
and in what form." (Renewed laughter to the left. A member to the
right: "That's a little better." Several voices: "Go on "!) Oh, I
quite understand that you should not wish to lose a single word.
"We are about to organise a bulletin of telegraphic and original news,
which will be sent to you regularly, and measured out by you
according to the degree of confidence
(Noise to the right.)
[M. LE DUC DE BROGLIE: Very well?] How "very well"? Can
there be room for two opinions on a document of this kind? (Ex-
clamations to the right. Several members: "You always did the
""
•
GAMBETTA FOUNDS THE REPUBLIC. 131
"We are
same thing.") [M. VINAY: Why, it was what you did yourself every
day!] (Noise. Voices to the left: "Don't answer; read! read!")
Gentlemen, a moment ago you were all impatience to hear me read,
and now that I am really reading as slowly as I can, you display
another kind of impatience which really seems to me quite laudable.
You are very disagreeably impressed by what I am reading, and you
are quite right to be so. (Marks of dissent to the right.) You feel
inclined to protest, your sense of delicacy is offended. (To the right :
"No, no!") You are outraged, and rightly so. (Applause to the
left. Marks of dissent to the right.) You were recently accused of
being under the protection of the Empire, and now you are imitating
the Empire in a servile manner-nay, you are even going beyond the
Empire. (Renewed applause to the left.) I resume:
about to organise a bulletin of telegraphic news,"—that is, news
which you will create, not merely re-echo. [M. BOITEAU: That's
exactly what you did yourself.] No, sir, that's not the case. I
never did it. Quote a single fact. (Cries and interruptions; mur-
murs to the left. A voice to the left: "Don't answer.") "A bulletin
of telegraphic and original news, which will be sent to you regularly,
and measured out by you according to the degree of confidence which
you may feel in the various papers. To do this effectually, you will
do well to organise in your office a press department, to which those
employés shall not be admitted who are "-here there is a doubtful
word-it may be natives of the place (indigènes), or indigent (indi-
gents); you may take your choice. (Laughter to the left.) "Give me
your opinion on these points. I rely upon your tact.
There can
be no more delicate question "I am sure you quite felt that
yourselves, gentlemen, a moment ago-" nor one that requires more
prudence and skill. Cultivate the acquaintance of the representa-
tives of the Press, and make yourself very accessible to them at
all times." (A few voices to the right: "Well?") I shall not
add a single word to such a circular. If authentic, it enables us
to judge what kind of "moral order" is being introduced into
the government of the country. (Bravo! and prolonged applause to
the left.)
Does not one see it all? Never can the theatre of
Versailles, built for such different performances in the
days of the old Monarchy, have witnessed a scene more
essentially dramatic. There are the seven hundred
deputies wondering, as the orator begins, what he is
driving at, the small knot of thick-and-thin supporters
9 *
132
LIFE OF LEON GAMBETTA.
of the Ministry determined to clamour him down, the
respectable majority of the Right genuinely ashamed
of the part they are called upon to play, the Left
jubilant, exultant, wild with the passion of battle.
There is Gambetta himself, "riding on the whirl-
wind," if not exactly "directing the storm," Gam-
betta at the tribune, dishevelled, with his hair over
his forehead, gesticulating, indignant, sabring his
opponents with each sentence of the unhappy cir-
cular, glad at heart that their interruptions and
intermittent clamour compel him thus to afflict
them with it sentence by sentence, and to repeat and
redouble the more damaging passages, instead of
simply reading it from end to end-answering the
storm below with quick flashes of sarcasm
and
scorn. It is told of Rachel, the unparalleled
actress, that she was once taken to hear Guizot
speak, and that after listening to him for awhile,
she declared that she would have liked to act
with him in tragedy. I can imagine some great
actor-M. Coquelin, let us suppose-coming away
from this memorable sitting of the Assembly with
the feeling that to play in very serious comedy with
Gambetta would be a pleasure. "Moral order" did
not soon recover from the effects of that unhappy
press circular.
-
And "moral order" hated Gambetta the more. On
the 12th of July a member of the Right, M. Kerdrel,
again raised the question of the Grenoble speech with
its irritating reference to the "new social stratum,"
and on the 14th and 26th of July, the House being
about to adjourn, a law was discussed, and ultimately
passed, having almost as its avowed object to put a
gag on the great popular tribune, and circumscribe
GAMBETTA FOUNDS THE REPUBLIC. 133
his "liberty of prophesying" within very narrow
limits.*
Nor, from their point of view, were the majority al-
together wrong in striving to stifle Gambetta's voice,
for they had work in prospect which he was not likely
to further. A monarchy, a restoration, that is what
they were contemplating. No doubt the task was
difficult-all tasks are difficult when those on whom
they devolve are at variance among themselves. And
here the parties, united in a common hatred of the
Republic, differed altogether as to the form of mo-
narchy which they wished to found on its ruins.
Three Richmonds were in the field, each with his
separate band of adherents. First came the Comte
de Chambord, who represented the elder branch of the
Bourbons, and was King by right divine, as his sup-
porters held. Next came the Comte de Paris, grand-
son of Louis Philippe, and son of that Duke of Orleans
whose accidental death had been so sad a blow to
France he represented monarchy in its constitutional
form. Then came the Prince Imperial, a fine young
fellow, who, by the death of his father, the ex-
Emperor, had just become the recognised chief and
hope of the Imperialists. All three candidates could,
obviously, not reign together. Which would have to
give way? The Prince Imperial was, for the nonce,
"out of the running," his adherents in the Assembly
too few, the disasters which Louis Napoleon had
brought on France too recent. But as between the
Comte de Chambord and the Comte de Paris, was
not some accommodation possible? The former had
•
* The Government had the power of stopping the sale of any news-
paper in the streets. Two newspapers suffered this penalty for
publishing a speech made by Gambetta on the 28th of September.
134
LIFE OF LÉON GAMBETTA.
no children, and on his death the divine right would
pass of itself to the latter. Seeing the obvious desi-
rability, from a party point of view, of effecting a
fusion of the two branches of the Bourbons, the
Comte de Paris was induced to give way. On the 5th
of August he went on a formal visit to Frohsdorff, and
openly acknowledged the Comte de Chambord as
legitimate King. Now, indeed, matters seemed going
well. Three influential members of the Right were
deputed to negotiate with the Comte de Chambord
concerning the terms on which he would agree to
reign over France, and the guarantees he would give
in favour of civil and religious liberty-for even these
Legitimist gentlemen seem to have felt that a pure
government of Ancien Régime scarcely came within
the region of practical politics.
"Paris was well worth a mass," such had been the
declaration of the Comte's great ancestor, Henry IV.,
when he abandoned the Huguenot cause to become
a somewhat perfunctory member of the Roman Church.
The Enfant du Miracle, the "child of miraculous
birth," as enthusiastic Loyalists had long years before
dubbed the Count, would never have echoed that sen-
timent. No one probably has ever been found to call
him a statesman, still less a politician. In intellect
he was not above mediocrity. The hour of which I
ain speaking was the one hour of his real influence in
the world's affairs. His niche in the great edifice of
general history is neither important nor commanding.
But small as it is, he occupies it worthily, for he was
an entirely honourable and upright gentleman, making
up in character what he may have lacked in mental
gifts. Not for Paris, not for France itself, would he
palter with his convictions. To the advances of those
GAMBETTA FOUNDS THE REPUBLIC. 135
who wished him to recognise the new order that had
taken the place of the old, and to promise various
constitutionalisms, he replied by a letter dated the
27th of October 1873, that it was not for him, whose
right was of God, to bargain and make terms, not for
him, above all, to give up the white flag of the
ancient monarchy and adopt a flag like the tricolor,
honourably stained no doubt on many a battle-field
with French blood, but still the flag of the Revo-
lution.
.
What was to be done with a kingly aspirant at once
so honest and so impossible? Here was the way to
a restoration quite obviously blocked: the Prince Im-
perial, as before stated, not available, the Comte de
Paris placed by his own act in the position of an
heir-expectant, with no claims as long as the Comte
de Chambord lived, the Comte de Chambord himself
a candidate absolutely unacceptable to all but the
straitest and most fossilised of Legitimists. The
situation was, as the majority felt, without possible
issue, at least for the nonce. To remain, as far as
might be, in statu quo, retaining the reins of power
and waiting on events-this, in default of a better,
was their best policy. So, on the 5th of November,
when the Assembly met again, a Presidential message
was read, proposing that the President's tenure of
office should be made definite for a given period; and
on the 19th a law was passed making it definite for
seven years.
Practically, though they scarcely seem to have
known it, the Republicans were succeeding to the
utmost of their hopes. Gambetta's aim all through
had been twofold: to keep the more ardent spirits of
his own party quiet, and, while fomenting Republican
136
LIFE OF LÉON GAMBETTA.
2
"(
feeling in the country generally, to give the monarch-
ical majority room and verge enough to show how
completely their internal divisions rendered them
incapable of founding a government. On both points
he was carrying the day. Even democratic Paris had
possessed its soul in patience during the negotiations
for the restoration of " Henry V.," and the too honest
Henry V." had, by his letter of the 27th of October,
effectually brought out the division among his fol-
lowers. The old Legitimists especially were in the
worst of tempers. The political sense was by no
means their strong point, and they could with great
difficulty be brought to perceive that a restoration
then and there was not possible. The Duc de Broglie
belonged to the other, or constitutional section of the
party, and for the next few months his ministry had a
very troubled existence, menaced as it was by the
whole of the Left and ill-supported by the extreme
Right and the small knot of the Imperialists. Finally,
a coalition of these heterogeneous elements put an
end to its existence on the 16th of May 1874.
So far Gambetta's aims had had their full accom-
plishment. A restoration of the Bourbons was, for
the time at least, proved to be impossible, and the
anti-Republicans were demonstrating their complete
inability to found a stable government. But there was
a great and imminent danger lest the general uncer-
tainty should be turned to account by the Imperialists.
That party has always been good at fishing in troubled
waters, and has mainly had a pretty knack of troubling
the waters for the benefit of the sport. Here was one
of their opportunities. They began to lift up their
heads. On the 24th of May a Bonapartist was elected.
in the Department of the Nièvre, which had returned
GAMBETTA FOUNDS THE REPUBLIC. 137
a Radical six months before. On the occasion of a
visit of the Emperor of Russia to the Prince Imperial,
a French general stood beside the latter in full uni-
form. There were good reasons to believe that a per-
manent Imperialist Committee was busily intriguing
throughout France, and, as the Republicans believed,
with the connivance, if not the covert approval, of the
new ministry, which contained several Imperialists. In
the face of this resuscitation Gambetta seems to have
felt that to re-slay the hated dead was the first duty
of the hour. And he addressed himself to the task
with considerable zest. At Auxerre, on the 1st of
June, in an after-dinner speech, he described the
statesmen of the Empire as "the corrupters and
scoundrels who had taken France by surprise, and
fattened upon her during twenty years"; he spoke
of the Emperor himself as an "execrable and thrice
accursed deceiver," as an Emperor of phantasm and
chimera :-
Gentlemen [he exclaimed, after referring to France's yet recent
disasters], gentlemen, if I recall these cruel and odious memories,
odious because they bring back to us the sinister figure of the man
who for the space of eighteen years stifled our liberties, and brought
about the material ruin of France; cruel because, under that man's
fatal dominion, France has lost not only a part of her territory and of
her old renown, but those millions of savings which the workers in
town and country had hoarded as marriage portions of their daughters,
and for the education of their children-if, I say, I recall these
memories, it is because people are speaking of a resurrection of the
Bonapartist party; because such a resurrection has become matter of
familiar conversation; because the supporters of that evil régime,
built up by twenty years of favouritism and corruption, have cast off
all fear, and reckoning on the native generosity of France, on that
readiness to forget which makes her at once so thoughtless and so
charming, are again prowling about our land; it is because, profiting
by the negligence of some and the complicity of others, that evil pack
is to be seen roaming through our thoroughfares, and to be heard
giving tongue amongst us once more.
138
LIFE OF LÉON GAMBETTA.
Let us curb their rashness, and that quickly; and to do this it is
only necessary to show what they are, whence they come, and
whither they would lead us.
So throughout the whole speech did the thunder of
Gambetta's voice roll unreluctant over the fallen
dynasty; and on the 9th of June, during a debate in
the Assembly, he flashed upon the Imperialists with
an almost fiercer scorn. The occasion arose in this
wise a circular had been found in a railway carriage
purporting to emanate from an Imperialist committee,
and suggesting certain occult means for obtaining the
votes of retired officers. A Republican deputy had
questioned the Ministers with regard to this circular,
and received fairly satisfactory replies. Whereupon
Rouher, the old vice-Emperor, rose and repudiated all
knowledge of the document, and even of the com-
mittee, hinting that the former was an invention of
the Republican enemy, and promising that, whenever
its real source had been discovered, he would be pre-
pared to go into the matter fully. Gambetta followed,
and in the course of his remarks, which tended to
show that there was a certain complicity between
two of the Ministers at least and the Imperialists,
he referred, but in perfectly moderate and parlia-
mentary terms, to Rouher's promise. This brought
Rouher to the tribune again. With an obvious wish
to cause a diversion in the debate, and place Gam-
betta in a position of antagonism to the majority, he
said:
M. Gambetta has reminded me that I had announced my intention
of discussing this question at the tribune whenever the pending
inquiry has been concluded. I shall fulfil that promise, and do so
with more readiness than he has shown to meet the numerous attacks
made against him in the reports of the divers Commissions of Inquiry
appointed by the Assembly.
GAMBETTA FOUNDS THE REPUBLIC. 139
Here was a direct, and, it must really be said, very
gratuitous provocation. Gambetta was not the man
to blench before such a challenge.
•
Gentlemen [he replied], I have but one word to say. . . In this
Assembly I have never refused to enter into any debate or contre-
versy with the honourable members whom you have appointed to act
as Committees of Inquiry, and every time that a report has been
produced at this tribune I have been ready to answer it; but I will
add that there are those here whose right and title to question what
was done by the revolution of the 4th of September I do not recognise,
and those are the wretches who ruined France.
.
Whereupon there ensued a scene of indescribable
confusion, and the President declared that if Gam-
betta did not withdraw the expression, he would be
called to order. Gambetta, nothing daunted, replied:
"Gentlemen, it is most certain that the expression I
have just used contains more than an insult: it is a
brand of infamy, and I maintain it!" Whereupon
there was more confusion, more ringing of the Presi
dent's bell, and Gambetta was called to order, and
"named to the House."* Nor did the matter end
there. The next day, the 10th of June, a band of
rowdy Imperialists assembled at the Paris station, and
insulted the orator and his friends on their return
from Versailles. On the 11th there was a similar
demonstration. On the 12th it was renewed once
more, and a heated Imperialist made a personal attack
on Gambetta, and struck him in the face. Finally,
the station had to be occupied by detachments of
cavalry and infantry.
The Imperialists were not well advised either in
suffering public attention to be drawn to their in-
* Rather, perhaps, subjected to the French equivalent for that
operation.
140
LIFE OF LÉON GAMBETTA.
trigues, or in allowing the ruffian section of the party
to break the public peace. Had they but known it,
by their intrigues and rowdyism, nay by the mere
signs of a renewed vitality, they were playing into
their opponents' hands. Thiers and Gambetta, being
astute parliamentary strategists, at once saw and
seized their opportunity. The former began to
manœuvre with a view to detach the more moderate
section of the Monarchists, belonging to the Right
Centre, from the Imperialists and the Extreme Right.
The arguments which he used are pretty obvious,
and ran much as follows: You see that, for various
reasons, a Monarchy, whether absolute or constitu-
tional, is for an indefinite period impossible. The
country is manifestly weary of the present state of
uncertainty. You cannot establish a Monarchy. You
will not allow us to establish a Republic. The alter-
native, therefore, is the Empire, which you professed
to hate as much as any of us while it was in power,
and ought certainly not to love for the fruit of
disaster and ruin which it has since borne. There
are but two possible issues before you, a Republic or
the Empire-Hyperion to a satyr, as my friend
Gambetta would say-choose.
"}
The Constitutionalists of the Right Centre were not
as fully convinced as Gambetta that "the Republic
bore any resemblance to Hyperion. But they had
many an old grudge against the Empire, and in their
well-founded dislike for that form of government
began to lend a not unwilling ear to the voice of the
charmer. When it came, as we shall presently see, to
the final tug of war, Thiers was found not to have
argued and remonstrated in vain.
And Gambetta-he too had his strategical movement
GAMBETTA FOUNDS THE REPUBLIC. 141
to conduct in the advance against the common foe, and
the operation was of some delicacy. For, on the one
hand, he had to allay the fears of the more liberal
section of the majority, and make them understand
that in return for the permanent establishment of a
Republic, his friends might be induced to admit the
constituent' powers of the Assembly, and accept a
Constitution possessing such Conservative character-
istics as detracted, in a Republican point of view, from
its perfect ideal beauty; and, on the other hand, he
had a yet more difficult and ungrateful task-to
induce his Radical friends to accept his leadership
into the paths of moderation and compromise.
Compromise! Moderation! Here was Opportunism
born into the world; and with its birth a great ques-
tion of political morality at once faces us. According
to the strictest sect of the Republicans, thereafter to
be called the Intransigeants, Gambetta at this time
paltered with principle and acted dishonestly. Nor,
much as one may regret to find oneself in agreement
with these politicians "of a creed outworn," can it be
said, I think, that they were here altogether wrong. No
doubt it is true, as Gambetta's adherents urged then,
and urge now, and as Burke urged so eloquently a
century ago, that abstract principles play but a sorry
part in politics. No doubt it is true also that in the
great ceaseless swaying of human interests and
opinions, compromise, give-and-take, adaptability to
circumstance, are essential to the world's government.
But then, in order to be able to appeal to these truths
in justification of his conduct, a statesman must have
recognised them from the beginning, and not merely
have had resort to them for some temporary advantage.
Taking the case immediately before us, Gambetta.
""
142
LIFE OF LÉON GAMBETTA.
had for months past been making the country
resound to his eloquent demonstrations that the
Assembly had received no authority from the elec-
torate to establish a permanent Government; that
it had been elected for quite a different purpose; that
it had ceased to represent the country; that it pos-
sessed no moral right whatever to take the future
under its direction. The scene changes. The Assem-
bly, for various reasons, cannot found a Monarchy
and there seems a possibility that it may be induced
to found a Republic. Forthwith it acquires that
moral right which it had hitherto lacked so conspicu-
ously. Despite of its origin, despite of its non-
representative character, it becomes the legitimate
arbiter of the ultimate destinies of France. But all
this is clearly juggling with argument, and juggling
in a not very honest way. If we talk of expediency
let us talk of expediency, and if we talk of abstract
right let us talk of abstract right, even though we
may, in the latter case, be for the most part talking
nonsense; but let us not mix our terms. Had Gam-
betta, during those preceding months, contented him-
self with opposing the claims of the majority on the
ground that if full power were placed in their hands
they would probably use it badly, then no one could
have objected to his subsequent course. That, how-
ever, was not at all the ground he took up. He laid
down, with all the appearance of passionate conviction,
certain principles as to the powers of the Assembly,
and almost immediately afterwards the essential
circumstances remaining the same-set those principles
to one side. The whole thing, one cannot but admit,
leaves an ill taste in the mouth.
That his policy was successful at the time is no
V
-
GAMBETTA FOUNDS THE REPUBLIC. 143
.
doubt true. As we shall presently see, he carried the
foundation of the Republic. Nevertheless, looking
dispassionately at the history of France during the
years that have elapsed since then, there seems room
to doubt whether that policy was successful in the
highest and best sense. I do not mean here to echo
the cry, uttered both then and since by the Extreme
Left, to the effect that Gambetta, by allying himself
with the Right Centre, cheated the legitimate hopes
of Radicalism, compromised the work of "the Revo-
lution," and so became responsible for unnumbered
ills. What I rather mean is this: that by a change of
principle so obviously founded on party interest, he
lowered the tone of political morality in France. Not
with impunity can convictions be degraded to the
position of mere counters staked in the great game of
politics. And the worst of it is that the trickery of
the players brings discredit upon the game itself. If
parliamentary government seems to have fallen into
such poor esteem on the other side of the Channel,
one cause at least is not far to seek. What loyalty
can be felt towards a polity in which principle goes
for so little, and finessing and intrigue for so much?
Gambetta, it is to be feared, was at this time building
up his Republic hastily, with rubble instead of stone,
and with untempered mortar,
2
L
But setting the question of political morality to
one side, we can but admire the skill which he dis-
played. In his speech at Auxerre, on the 1st of
June 1874, there are already evidences, to whomso-
ever cares to read between the lines, that he
had begun to "trim." He was clearly moderating
the harsher tones of his voice, attenuating what had
been offensive in his language with respect to the
144
LIFE OF LÉON GAMBETTA.
a
"" new social strata," seeking for kindly terms in which
to refer to the bourgeoisie, the great middle class.
Again, on the 24th of June, at Versailles, his
speech consisted mainly of a panegyric on Thiers, and
a declaration of the willingness with which the Re-
publicans would accept recruits from among the old
opponents of the Republic. And on the 31st of July,
the Assembly being about to adjourn, he explained to
the majority once more, in terms occasionally almost
pathetic, how powerless they were to found
Monarchy, and how naturally they themselves would
find due place and influence in a Republic. Then, when
once the Assembly had dispersed, he kept silence.
It was no time, as he felt, for impassioned public
harangues. The country did not need stirring. Any-
thing that he could say would only afford pretexts for
attacks on himself, and on the policy he and Thiers
were pursuing. Best to leave the majority, without
further assistance on his part, to ponder the perils of
a long delay in settling the ultimate form of the
Government.
And they pondered to some purpose. When the
Assembly met again on the 30th of November 1874, it
was with a determination to do something; and by the
21st of January 1875, the new Constitution was in
debate. Meanwhile there had been, as may be sup-
posed, negotiations manifold and intricate between the
various parties with regard to what they would and
would not accept. Thiers had been indefatigable in
his efforts to detach votes from the Right Centre.
Gambetta had been no less busy in inducing his
Radical friends to accept the distasteful features in
the proposed Constitution—the creation of a Senate or
Second Chamber, and the election of the President for
GAMBETTA FOUNDS THE REPUBLIC. 145
seven years. The result of these efforts was seen on
the 30th January, when the decisive battle was fought.
On that day the Assembly accepted, by a majority of
one-353 votes to 352-the proposition of M. Wallon,
which was to the following effect: "The President of
the Repulic is elected by the Senate and Chamber of
Deputies sitting together as a National Assembly.
He is appointed for seven years. He can be re-
elected." Here was the Republic definitely accepted,
though by the narrowest of possible majorities, as the
Government of the country; and as nothing succeeds
like success, all went more merrily still in the debates on
the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd of February. But on the 11th a
hitch occurred. The question under discussion was the
composition of the Senate, and the Left made the
great mistake of following a Radical deputy who put
forward the proposition, foolish in itself, and suicidal
in the existing circumstances, that the Second Chamber
should be elected by the same body of electors as the
Chamber of Deputies. The Extreme Right and the
Imperialist group, which did not want for astute parlia-
mentary tacticians, saw their opportunity. They either
abstained from voting at all, or voted for the proposition;
and it was carried. The victory was one which the Left
could well have spared. One more such and, like
Pyrrhus, they would have been undone. On the next
day, the 12th, the Right Centre declared that they
would oppose the third reading of the bill on the com-
position of the Senate, aud the Prime Minister, M.
de Cissey, read a message from Marshal MacMahon
adumbrating that he would not ratify it. The third
reading was accordingly refused by 368 votes to
345.
Here was a dilemma. Everything that had been
10
146
LIFE OF LÉON GAMBETTA.
*
done seemed about to be undone. The Royalists and
Imperialists were jubilant; the Republicans were in
the highest state of exasperation. Forgetting how
much they were themselves responsible for the result,
they asked whether this was to be the outcome of
the sacrifice of their oldest and most cherished con-
victions. M. Brisson made himself the mouth-piece
of their anger, and at once proposed that the Assembly
should be dissolved. Gambetta rose to speak on the
}
question whether that proposition should be considered
urgent. He was in superb "form." It was one of his
great oratorical moments. An eye-and-ear witness has
described how he leapt, powerful, massive, like a bull
for strength, to the tribune, and how his great voice.
trembled with indignation as he rolled forth his
stormy periods, every now and again, when the
interruptions accumulated, crashing through them as
with the clap that follows the lightning-flash. A
speech, like all great speeches, clearly to be heard,
not read; and yet even now, with only the lifeless
printed page before us, it is still possible-so full of
fiery life are the speaker's words-to evoke the whole
scene, the orator at the tribune, the hostile members
finally almost awed into silence, the Republicans
breaking into applause; and to hear once again the
swift-winged words with which he brought home to
his auditors the sacrifices he and his friends had
made, and the indignation with which the country
would learn how miserably it was being betrayed.
"Hereafter," he told the majority in conclusion,
"it will perhaps be said that you let slip the one
opportunity of founding a Republic at once strong,
lawful and law-abiding, and moderate.'
.
* M. Camille Pelletan in Le Théâtre de Versailles.
GAMBETTA FOUNDS THE REPUBLIC. 147
The speech, we are told, made a profound impres-
sion on the Assembly. Conciliatory proposals were at
once suggested. The constitution of the Senate
again became the subject of negociations between the
various groups. Finally the Right Centre, or such
portion of it as were prepared to adopt the Republican
cause, agreed with the Left Centre to accept a Senate
partly nominated by the Assembly, and partly elected,
but not by direct suffrage, in each district. From the
Left and Extreme Left great opposition was antici-
pated; but, in a meeting held on the 21st of February,
Gambetta, with his persuasive tongue, succeeded in
nearly overcoming it. Only a very few of the purists
of the party-M. Grévy among the number-held
out; and finally, notwithstanding a last Bonapartist
effort to sow dissension in the ranks of the coalition,
the constitution of the Senate was settled on the
24th of February, by 448 votes to 210. On the fol-
lowing day the law regulating the functions and posi-
tion of the Executive was also passed; and the
Republic, after four years of debate and doubt,
became the recognised legal form of Government in
France.
This result-this great result-was due probably
in a greater measure to Gambetta than to any other
single man. He it was, who by his impassioned ha-
rangues, had kept alive and fanned the flame of Repub-
licanism thoughout the country. He it was who,
taking dexterous advantage of the proved impotence
of the monarchical parties, had induced his own politi-
cal friends, by a sudden change of front, to rush in
and obtain the victory. No doubt there had been some
playing with principle in the transaction. Public men
do not veer round the political compass with impunity.
10 *
148
LIFE OF LEON GAMBETTA.
It can redound to no statesman's credit to say one
day that an Assembly has no "constituent " powers, and
that the establishment of a Senate is contrary to
the rights of the people, and then to advocate the
acceptance of a Constitution from that same
Assembly, and a Constitution in which a Senate forms
an important element. But at least the thing was done
skilfully, and, one may add, patriotically. Gambetta
entertained no manner of doubt that in the policy he
pursued at this time he was serving the best interests
of France. And how ably he defended that policy!
His speech at Belleville on the 23rd of April is a
model of popular eloquence-by turns impassioned,
striking, ironical, almost playful, and perspicuously
clear. It completely carried his audience away.
Radicals as they were, they found themselves con-
verted for the nonce to the doctrines of the yet un-
named Opportunism, and went away convinced that
the Senate must be a particularly Democratic insti-
tution.
G
"
149
CHAPTER VIII.
GAMBETTA FINALLY DEFEATS THE ANTI-REPUBLICAN
COALITION.
1875-1877.
Gambetta's view of the task of the Republicans-Election of members
for the Senate-Anti-Republicans defeated-Speech at Bordeaux
on
"Rocks ahead"-Elections go against the Ministry-M.
Buffet resigns-Dufaure Prime Minister-Gambetta endeavours
to abolish the divisions among the Republicans-Gambetta
appointed President of the Committee on the Budget-He is
urgent to obtain changes among the permanent officials-
Clericalism-Dufaure resigns on the 1st of December 1876-
His successor, M. Jules Simon, dismissed on the 16th of May
1877-The de Broglie-Fourtou Cabinet-Duel between that
Cabinet and Gambetta-Dissolution of the Chamber-Efforts of
the Ministry to secure a majority-Counter-efforts of Gambetta-
Success of the Opposition-Resignation of the Ministry-The
Chamber refuse to recognise their successors-Dufaure forms a
Ministry-Republicans successful at last.
THOUGH the Republic had been definitely established
on the 25th of February 1875, it must not be supposed
that the Republicans were yet masters of the situation.
The majority of the Assembly, when they chose to
act in concert, were still a reactionary majority. The
Ministry which came into being simultaneously with
the new Constitution was far from being, in Radical,
* The Ministry presided over by M. de Cissey, which held sway
from the fall of M. de Broglie till the establishment of the Republic,
had only been a Ministry of Affairs."
(6
150
LIFE OF LEON GAMBETTA.
or even Republican eyes, an ideal Ministry. Gambetta
and his friends had still to keep their ardour in leash.
And for this Gambetta was quite prepared. In his
speech of the 29th of March 1875, over the grave of
Quinet, after referring to the differences between
himself and Republicans of the older school, like
Ledru Rollin and Quinet himself, he said :—
My dear fellow citizens, it is not for mere purposes of enjoyment,
after the fashion of despots, that democracy has assumed sovereignty
in this country. With power have come the great duties and the
difficulties of power. Being a majority, we must now govern, and
show ourselves worthy of rule. And for this reason we must work,
we must submit to discipline, we must cultivate a spirit of patience,
of conciliation, of compromise. We must know how to ally
prudence with strength. This is the task which necessarily devolves
on those who would govern men for men ; are compounded of divers
passions and interests, and the government, according to the principles
of the French Revolution, is no more than the first servant of the
people.
And again at Belleville, on the 23rd of April,
he preached the same doctrine of prudence and
moderation to the fiery democracy of the Parisian
faubourgs.
So though, M. Buffet, Minister President and
Minister of the Interior, might maintain in power
a whole army of obnoxious anti-Republican officials,
though he might make use of the powers conferred on
him by the "state of siege" to harry the Republican
press and interfere with Republican meetings—yet,
notwithstanding every provocation, Gambetta kept
silence for the most part even from good words.
By dint of great efforts and sacrifices, a Republic had
been established. Within a few months a Senate
would have to be chosen. A General Election, how-
ever delayed, must take place sooner or later. Mean-
DEFEATS ANTI-REPUBLICAN COALITION. 151
while patience, prudence, the avoidance of any agitation
calculated to frighten the various reactionary groups
back into cohesion-such continued to be his policy.
Once only he seemed to depart from it, and that was
on the 15th of July 1875, when M. Buffet had
defended, or seemed to defend, the intrigues of the
Imperialists. Then Gambetta rose in his wrath, and
denounced both Imperialists and Minister with the old
vehemence and in the old terms. But, except on this
occasion, he kept mainly silent till the 4th of August
when the Assembly adjourned; and he seems to have
said no word during the recess.
The Assembly met again on the 4th of November,
and were at once confronted with two or three very
important questions. Among these was that burning
question of Scrutin d'Arrondissement and Scrutin de
Liste which has alternately smouldered and flamed so
often in French politics. Gambetta spoke on it
twice-once on the 11th, and again on the 26th of
November-advocating the Scrutin de Liste most
strenuously, on grounds which I shall have to discuss
more fully. Suffice it to say here that for the nonce
Scrutin d'Arrondissement prevailed.
But in the absence of an immediate prospect of a
dissolution, there was a yet more burning question than
this, the question, namely, of the choice of members for
the Senate. That body was, according to the new
Constitution, to consist of 300 members, of whom 75
were to be elected by the Assembly, and the remaining
225 by the departments and colonies. How would
the Assembly exercise its powers? The pessimistic
Radicals were in despair. Was it conceivable that the
Reactionists, being in a majority, would not use their
strength to rigidly exclude the Republicans and return
152
LIFE OF LEON GAMBETTA.
75 senators pledged to their way of thinking? Gam-
betta took a quite different view of the situation. He
held that the majority would fall to pieces now, just
as they had fallen to pieces when the settlement of the
Constitution was in debate, and that, if the Left
remained under discipline, victory was in their hands.
The event proved that he had judged rightly. To
the general surprise, when the first ballot was taken,
on the 9th of December, only two men were found to
have secured the "absolute majority" requisite to
give validity to their election; and of these two, one
figured on the lists both of the Left and Right, and the
other on the list of the Left only. Moreover the two
chiefs of the Right Centre, M. Buffet and M. de Broglie,
were relatively nowhere. Clearly though the Left had
voted "straight" for the list drawn up by a committee
consisting of Gambetta, M. Jules Ferry, M. Jules
Simon and three others, the Right had voted any-
how, and given free rein to their divisions and
jealousies. This was so apparent that disorganisation
at once set in among their ranks. On the same
evening M. de la Rochelle, the President of the Extreme
Right, or ultra-Legitimist section, came to the delegates
of the Left, and offered them fifteen votes on condition
that they, in turn, would secure the nomination of the
fifteen members so voting. The proposal was not one
perhaps implying the highest political morality, for the
parties to the coalition were bitterly opposed; but the Left
accepted it gladly. The next day, amid the jibes and
execrations of the majority, who were as bears robbed
of their whelps, eleven Legitimists-four having refused
to accept the unworthy compact-voted with the Left;
* I.e., not only a larger number of votes than the other candidates,
but a number equal to more than half the number of voters.
DEFEATS ANTI-REPUBLICAN COALITION. 153
and the leaders of the Left, having thus secured the
necessary "absolute majority," did henceforth pretty
well what they liked with the elections-especially as
they took stringent measures, of a doubtful legality, to
secure that their followers voted "straight."
And now, at last, the dissolution of the Assembly
was at hand, and an electoral period, in the widest
sense, had begun. On the 15th of January "Sena-
torial delegates " were to be elected in the various com-
munes, who, in turn, were to elect Senators on the 30th
of January; and on the 20th of February there was to
be a general election for the new Chamber.
At such a time Gambetta, as may be supposed, was
not idle. He took a very active part in the Senatorial
elections, contributing in Paris to the election of
Victor Hugo, and of his own erewhile assistant during
the war, M. de Freycinet, and he also visited Mar-
seilles and Aix. Then, the Senatorial elections being
over, he threw himself heart and soul into the battle
of the elections for the Chamber. Nec pluribus
impar, according to Louis XIV.'s arrogant motto, he
undertook, in his own person, to contest no less than
five seats, at Paris, Marseilles, Lille, Bordeaux, and
Avignon. On the 2nd of February he spoke in Paris
in favour of his faithful henchman, M. Spuller. On
the 6th he spoke at Lille. On the 9th at Avignon.
On the 13th at Bordeaux; on the 15th at Paris twice;
and on the 17th at Cavaillon in the south, where the
meeting was stormily interrupted, and stones were
thrown at the orator as he left the hall in an open
carriage. The staple materials in all these speeches,
though varied with great art, were pretty well what
one might have expected. There was something about
the Empire, of course, and more about "Clericalism,'
.
154
LIFE OF LEON GAMBETTA.
which seems to have been the orator's special bug-
bear at this particular time. There were the usual
demonstrations that the Republic was the sole govern-
ment possible in France. There were denunciations
of the permanent officials as being cankered with the
reactionary spirit. Then, as against the Intransi-
geants who were opposing him at Marseilles in the
person of M. Naquet, there were encomiums on the
"policy of results" which had been leading the Re-
publican party to victory. And mingled with all this
were eloquent words of warning words showing that
Gambetta was not a mere windy orator, but that he
had a statesman's foresight of the practical difficulties
his party would have to face on the morrow of
victory.
3
What I have to say, gentlemen [so he spoke at Bordeaux],
is that that majority which is about to be created will have
resolutely to face its future responsibilities. It will have to
persevere in the policy of prudence, of circumspection, of firmness,
which we have inaugurated. For I know of one thing fraught with
greater danger to a party than either street insurrection, or Govern-
ment threats, or the snares of those in power; and that one thing is
the intoxication of success-the kind of madness that seizes on the
victors in the hour of victory, and prevents them from taking into
account obstacles, difficulties, prejudices-matters which, in the
region of politics, have as much weight as truth itself-and lead
them, all wild with the heady fumes of triumph, to hurry on the
solution of every question. To do this now would be to compromise
what we have done for the country at the cost of so much labour.
The essential point at the present moment is that the election
of the 20th of February, to which the country and the world are
attentive, should have a meaning and significance at once definite,
striking, unmistakable, and universal; so that it may be known that
the country desires a Chamber truly and firmly republican, resolutely
democratic, and passionately liberal; but, above all, a Chamber of
practical politicians.
Don't allow yourselves to be cheated with words; don't think
that politics are a game, and that they consist purely and simply in
speechifying, and in the intrigues of the lobbies and committee-rooms
DEFEATS ANTI-REPUBLICAN COALITION. 155
of the Chamber. No, these do not constitute politics. As thus under-
stood, politics are only good for what I may call the play-actors of
Parliament. But, let me tell you, there is not in the world any
science or art-and politics possess the double character—which
demands more unremitting labour, more knowledge acquired by
observation, more persistent and continuous effort.
Is there any-
thing with which politics are not concerned? Is there anything into
which politics do not enter? Is there any achieved progress,
any reform in any branch of human activity, which may not necessitate
■ change in the methods, views, combinations, purposes, plans, and
practical sphere of politics? Politics! Do you know when at last
our politics will be good and efficient? I answer, when we shall have
recognised that, in order to make them so, we have need of the fullest
knowledge; and consequently that good and efficient politics can only
be the result of immense toil and an immense devotion.
Brave words, good words-words which it were
well if Gambetta himself had taken more effectually
to heart at various times in his career, both before
and after this; words which it were well for French
Republicans to ponder now that their triumph seems
occasionally in danger of passing once more into
defeat.
The elections for the Senate throughout the country
proved only relatively propitious to the Republican
cause; and notwithstanding the preliminary advan-
tage obtained by the Republicans in the Assembly, as
already described, the majority of the Senators was
reactionary" in character. But in the elections for
the Chamber, the success of the Republicans was
striking and complete. Gambetta himself was elected
by four out of the five constituencies to which he had
offered himself as a candidate. M. Buffet, the Prime
Minister, failed, on the other hand, to secure his
election anywhere, and on the 23rd of February dis-
solved his Ministry and resigned.
At this stage it would have been in accordance with
constitutional usage if Marshal MacMahon, the Pre-
(6
156
LIFE OF LEON GAMBETTA.
sident of the Republic, had frankly entrusted the for-
mation of the new Ministry to one of the foremost
representatives of the Republican Left-either to
Thiers, if Thiers would have accepted the office, or,
failing Thiers, to Gambetta. But the Marshal, an
entirely honest soldier, though in no sense a states-
man, was genuinely convinced that the majority of
the Left meant anarchy, and held it to be his own
special mission to preserve the country from falling
under their dominion. To travel any great distance
in the direction of democracy, he was by no means
prepared. So he entrusted the formation of the new
Ministry, and that grudgingly, to Dufaure, and the
Ministry thus formed belonged essentially to the Left
Centre of the former Assembly.
Gambetta, meanwhile, had been using his best
efforts to obtain a fusion of the whole Republican
party, and to do away with the old division into sepa-
rate and independent groups. The project was that of a
statesman. Bitterly may one regret for France that
it did not succeed. How much of Parliamentary
weakness and discredit might not have been averted if
there had been, both in the Senate and Chamber, a
strong homogeneous party working on clear and dis-
tinct lines, not wasting its energies in internecine
strife and profitless intrigue! Gambetta and his
more immediate friends felt the coming danger acutely,
and made, at this time, a strenuous attempt to meet it.
Nor did it seem at the time, and for a short space, as
if they would fail. The new members lent a willing
ear to their arguments. On the 7th of March up-
wards of three hundred Republican senators and de-
puties met, and concord reigned. On the 12th they
met again, and listened to a speech in which Gam-
DEFEATS ANTI-REPUBLICAN COALITION. 157
betta preached patience in view of the disappointment
caused by the constitution of the new Cabinet; and
then, at his instance, they passed a general resolution,
impressing on the Ministers the necessity of making
short work with all reactionary permanent officials.
This unanimity at once bore fruit. The Ministers,
whether feeling that they had a strong compact majo-
rity behind them, or impelled forward against their
own wish, immediately promised strong measures.
And then, when the fusion of the groups seemed
working so satisfactorily, disunion once more set in.
By the 24th of March, the Left and Left Centre had
formed themselves into separate bodies once more.
The extreme Left alone, acting on Gambetta's advice,
refused to follow their example. But the mischief
was done, and henceforward irreparable.
It is not my purpose to accompany Gambetta
through all the debates in which he took part during
the next few months. On the 4th of April he was
appointed President of the Commission on the Budget,
for the year 1877, and it need be no matter of sur-
prise that he acquitted himself of the laborious duties
of the office in a manner more than creditable. Six
years before, in 1870, when occupying the position of
Minister of the Interior after the fall of the Empire,
he had impressed Mr. Washburn, the American
Minister, by the "quickness of his perceptions, his
executive ability, and his promptness of decision";
and these qualities stood him in good stead as a
financial exponent and debater. But to make the
details of French finance interesting to the English
reader is, I fear, beyond my powers. I shall not
attempt it. Neither shall I dwell upon Gambetta's
speeches on army matters; on the law relating to the
}
158
LIFE OF LEON GAMBETTA.
nomination of mayors (11th and 12th of July 1876);
on the partial amnesty to be proclaimed with respect to
the men who had taken part in the insurrection of the
Commune (3rd and 4th November); and on the right
of the Senate to amend money bills (28th December).
I shall not even summarise the able popular
harangues with which once again, on the 27th of
October 1876, he induced the sturdy Radicals of
Belleville to accept the comparatively moderate doc-
trines of Opportunism.
But there are two points in his policy at this time
that call, I think, for fuller comment. The first is
his insistence upon the necessity of getting rid of the
permanent officials-prefects, sub-prefects, and others
-who had been appointed under preceding Govern-
ments. And here, perhaps, it may be necessary to
explain, in his justification, or partial justification,
that these "functionaries" occupy in France a very
peculiar position, a position to which there is no
analogy in English public life. On this side of the
Channel, for instance, it matters not at all, when a
general election takes place, what party may happen
to be in power. Apart from the doubtful case of two
or three dockyard constituencies, the influence which
the Government, as such, can bring to bear upon the
body of voters is infinitesimal. It has no official
representatives in the counties, municipalities, or
parishes. It has no patronage worth speaking about.
It cannot by direct action make the life of the ordi-
nary citizen happy or miserable. Speaking generally,
one may say that the English elector, though he may
be occasionally swayed by class interest, yet has no
immediate personal interest in the result of an elec-
tion, He expects nothing for himself from the
.
S
DEFEATS ANTI-REPUBLICAN COALITION. 159
Government. But in France things are managed very
differently. There a centralised" Administration" has
its agents, great as well as small, in every depart-
ment—almost in every parish. That Administration
appoints M. le Préfet, who is relatively a well-paid
official, and M. le Sous-Préfet, and so on; and
these gentlemen possess, each in his degree, a good
deal of power, and a good deal of patronage; and the
patronage is the more valuable as a political engine
because in France the desire to become a placeman is
very general, and the hope of getting something out
of the Government very great. Moreover, it is a well-
recognised tradition of French public life that all these
"functionaries" shall use their influence in favour of
the "Ins," and to the greater confusion of the
"Outs."
.
Therefore, we are not entitled to regard Gambetta
as having been animated by a mere desire of ven-
geance when he clamoured so unceasingly for a
change in the personnel of the permanent officials.
He wished to take out of his opponents' hands a
weapon which they had used against him unspar-
ingly, and he wished, when they were once disarmed,
to turn the weapon against themselves. That such a
weapon existed at all-a weapon which lent itself so
readily to a foul blow-was unquestionably a misfor-
tune for France; just as, to drop my metaphor,
it is unquestionable, too, that many of Gambetta's
followers lusted to turn out the hostile officials from a
a simple desire to occupy their places, and that
shameless greed has done infinite harm to the Re-
public. But, when all is said, it can scarcely be urged
that there was anything radically unfair in his
contention that men deeply committed to anti-
160
LIFE OF LÉON GAMBETTA.
Republican principles were not the right instruments
with which to work Republican institutions. Where
he failed was in not seeing how he was pandering to
the rapacity of his party.
(C
The other point which calls for remark in Gam-
betta's policy at this time is his attitude towards
religion. That he was an "anti-clerical" goes almost
without saying. Most foreign Liberals are so. They
hate "clericalism" with an undying hate. They see
its baleful influence everywhere; they habitually think
of society as a victim to its poisonous exhalations;
they regard it as a kind of "universal darkness"
ready at any moment to cover all." The "pale
name of priest," if I may venture to use Thackeray's
happy expression, seems always to stand between them
and the sun. Did not M. Clémenceau assure
us, quite solemnly and with an air of profound con-
viction, that General Boulanger's electoral successes
in Paris-so notoriously a priest-ridden city—were
due to clerical influence! Nor probably would
the absurdity of this proposition have struck Gam-
betta. He shared all such anti-clerical feelings to
the full, and was ready at any moment to give them a
voice. Thus, on the 24th of March 1876, he im-
pugned the validity of the election of the Comte de
Mun, on the ground that the local clergy had exer-
cised their influence to secure the return of that elo-
quent champion. On the 24th of November he hailed
with delight a declaration of Prince Napoleon that it
was owing to clerical influences that France had for-
feited the support of Italy during the war of 1870.*
* He reinforced Prince Napoleon's words, and spoke of the “cleri-
cal fanaticism which animated the Spaniard who had been made
Empress of the French."
DEFEATS ANTI-REPUBLICAN COALITION. 161
On the 27th of October he spoke to the wild spirits
of Belleville of the "one enemy," "overwhelming,
ubiquitous, all-embracing," who was "enveloping
them on all sides." On the 4th of May 1877, the
question in debate being the congenial one of “Ultra-
montane intrigues," he took up the same parable at
greater length, and fiercely denounced the "spirit of
invasion and corruption" of the Jesuit "faction,"
asked "whether things had not come to that pass that
the State was now an appanage of the Church,"
lamented over "the unchaining of the violent
and revolutionary passions" of Catholicism, pro-
claimed that it was a rare thing when patriotism and
Catholicism found a home in the same bosom, and
finally hurled at his opponents this fulgurant pero-
ration: "And I am only translating into words the
deepest feelings of the French people when I say of
Clericalism what my friend Peyrat once said of it,
'Clericalism! There is the enemy!""
Clericalism, the enemy-the arch enemy against
which France has to arm and keep on guard continu-
ally! Alas! it may well seem as if France had other
enemies in this last quarter of the nineteenth century.
No doubt it is true that the Roman Church has made
mistakes in her dealings with French Democracy. To
those who wish her well for her services to mankind,
and love her, in spite of what is unlovable, for the
treasures of goodness, and character, and genius
that humanity during such long ages has poured into
her lap-to such it must often appear strange and
sad that she has so persistently allied herself on the
Continent with decaying governments and dynasties
too clearly passing away. Why has she acted thus?
What has been the secret of her policy? Has she
11
162
LIFE OF LÉON GAMBETTA.
prospered more under Bourbon rule than she prospers
with the "free field and no favour" of the United
States, or than she prospers here in England? If
Lamennais, sixty years ago, advocated a change of
front with undue violence, there have been more
acceptable voices raised since in the same cause.
Why has she not listened to them? Has she been
animated by a spirit of routine; or, more worthily,
of hesitation to break with the past; or, more worthily
still, of doubt whether she could rightly ally herself
with forces that might be making for social disinteg-
ration? All interesting questions. But, however we
may answer them, this at least is certain, that nothing
she has done or left undone, no fault that she has
committed, can constitute her the one arch enemy in
a country where pessimism and despair have such
accredited advocates, and the goddess Lubricity such
a multitude of worshippers-and where, above all,
man's original, inherent, ineradicable bestiality is so
powerfully affirmed, and his essential manhood so often
denied. And if anyone feels inclined to doubt whether
this is a matter on which an English critic can profit-
ably form an opinion, why then it will be enough, in
reply, to refer to the evidence of Gambetta's friend
and follower, the veteran Republican, M. Challemel-
Lacour. For M. Challemel-Lacour, speaking in the
Senate on the 19th of December 1888, of the ills now
afflicting France, condemned by implication the anti-
clerical policy of his erewhile leader, and deplored
the dissensions it had caused, and the angry hostility
it had roused against the Republican form of govern-
.
ment.
But in 1876 and 1877 Gambetta felt no such mis-
givings; though even then, if he had looked forward
-
DEFEATS ANTI-REPUBLICAN COALITION. 163
:
""
.
with unprejudiced eye, there was much that "might'
have "given him pause.' M. Buffet had resigned at
the end of February 1876. He had been succeeded
on the 10th of March by Dufaure, who, after some
months of weary battling with a reactionary President,
a half-hostile Senate, and an unidisciplined Chamber,
resigned, on the 1st of December, on the question of the
amnesty to the Communists. On the 13th Dufaure
was succeeded in turn, but with no change in the
general composition of the Ministry, by M. Jules
Simon, and for a time matters seemed going fairly
well. The new Prime Minister was adroit, skilful
in the use of his tongue, a man of moderation and
conciliatory views. He might have seemed, indeed,
the very "man of the situation," and able, if the task
were in any wise possible, to allay the growing fears
of the Marshal, reassure the Conservatives and Clericals,
and, at the same time, keep the Liberal majority in
good humour and under due restraint. But the task
was not possible. The Liberals forced his hand. On
the 4th of May 1877, after the debate in which
Clericalism had been denounced as "the enemy,"
they compelled him, under pain of a parliamentary
defeat, to accept an "order of the day," declaring
that the "Ultramontane manifestations" endangered
"the internal and external security of the country,"
and were "anti-patriotic," and "a flagrant violation
of the laws of the State." Whereupon those who,
watching the course of affairs at all narrowly, were
anticipating a rupture between the Marshal and his
ministers, must have felt with Modred that "the time
was hard at hand."
.
M. Jules Simon, however-" good easy man "".
seems to have had no misgivings, and went on for the
11 *
164
LIFE OF LÉON GAMBETTA.
next few days humouring the Liberal majority. What
was his surprise when, on the morning of the 16th of
May, he received a letter from Marshal MacMahon
intimating that he (Jules Simon) had clearly lost his
authority with the Chamber, and adding, "it is inevi-
table that there should be some explanation between
us; because, if I am not responsible, as you are, to Parlia-
ment, yet I have a responsibility towards France, and
a responsibility which I must take very specially into
account at the present moment." Such an attitude
on the part of the President was, of course, unconsti-
tutional. M. Jules Simon had not been defeated in
the Chamber. He still commanded a majority; and
it was, in fact, because he represented the opinions of
the majority only too well that he had incurred the
Marshal's disfavour. Nevertheless, in the face of
censure so administered, there was no course open
but resignation. M. Jules Simon had an interview
with the President, in which the latter explained that
he himself had been placed in power by the Conserva-
tives, that he had gone to the extreme limit of possible
concessions, and that he could not keep a Ministry
which was being "towed along by M. Gambetta."
The news spread like wild-fire, and created general
consternation. At three o'clock a large meeting of the
Left was held; and Gambetta urged, as he had urged a
year before that the various groups should unite against
the common enemy. At ten, the same night, a general
meeting took place at the Grand Hotel. Gambetta
opened the proceedings. He declared, truly enough,
that the Marshal in his letter claimed to be the
possessor of a personal authority, independent of
Parliament; and he proposed a resolution to the
effect that the majority of the Assembly would
DEFEATS ANTI-REPUBLICAN COALITION. 165
only give their confidence to a ministry really "free in
its actions, and resolved to govern according to Re-
publican principles." The resolution was passed
unanimously and without discussion.
crowd cheered the orator as he left the Hotel.
An immense
On the
And so, once more, he stood in the forefront of the
battle as the leader of an attacking force. He had
certainly lost no time on the 16th of May.
17th he was again in the breach. When the Chamber
met, the members were naturally eager to hear some
official explanation of the reasons that had compelled
the Ministry to resign. But there was only one
minister present, and he refused to go into details.
Whereupon Gambetta rose, not, of course, to appeal
to the Ministry-there was really no Ministry to which
an appeal could be addressed-but to appeal to the
Marshal himself. He spoke with studied moderation.
For the Marshal personally he had only words of
respect. But the Marshal was ill-advised.
What we should say to the President of the Republic [he declared] is
this: "You have been deceived, you have been advised to pursue an
evil policy, and we, we . conjure you to return to the paths of con-
stitutional truth, for in those paths alone can you and we ourselves walk
securely." For, in truth, what do we ask? That the Constitution
should be a reality, that the government of the country by the country
-that government for which the French nation has been struggling for
well nigh ninety years-should be loyally and really carried into effect.
And we say to the President of the Republic, "No, there is no truth
in that sentence which has been suggested to you by well-known
advisers-that sentence in which you pretend that you have a respon-
sibility lying outside your legal responsibility, a responsibility above the
responsibility of Parliament, above the responsibility of your minis-
ters, above the responsibility apportioned, determined, and limited
by the Constitution. Those advisers are urging you to pursue a fatal
course when they induce you to extend your responsibility beyond
the protecting limits assigned to it by the Constitution of the 25th of
February 1875; they are your real enemies; they are leading you to
166
LIFE OF LEON GAMBETTA.
your ruin."
*
Ah! gentlemen, I wish to utter no word that shall ever
seem, in any degree, however slight, to cast a reflection on the high
personality of the President of the Republic. But this at least I may
be allowed to say, that if he has earned glory on the battle-field
if he has won honour in the country's defence by brilliant services
rendered at the cost of his blood and at the risk of his life, yet most
certainly his career, full as it is of heroic feats has not been
devoted to the loving study of political combinations and the equili-
brium of Parliaments, and that consequently he is, in a greater degree
perhaps than any other chief ruler, exposed to the machinations of
those who, taking advantage of his simple rectitude, induce him to
endorse doctrines and theories of which they know much better than
he the terrible effects and the immense difficulties. . . Gentlemen,
it is time to put an end to this situation, and it is for you to put an
end to it by assuming an attitude at once firm and moderate. Ask,
with the Constitution in your hands, and the Country at your back,
ask whether we are to be governed by the Republican party, in all
its shades, or whether, on the contrary, those men are to be brought
back who have already been three or four times rejected by the
popular voice, and whether, with their help, a dissolution is to be
imposed upon us, and a new consultation of the wishes of France.
For my own part, my choice is made, and the choice of France is
made also. If a dissolution is decided on, we shall go back with con-
fidence and no uncertainty to the country, which knows us well,
which appreciates our services, which is thoroughly aware that it is.
not we who are disturbing the public peace at home and jeopardising
it abroad.
•
66
God -
The Chamber, in reply to these exhortations, re-
affirmed, by a majority of 347 to 149, the resolution
adopted the night before at the general meeting of
the Left. The Marshal, on his side, replied in a
different fashion. The same evening he appointed a
new Ministry, in which M. de Broglie held the place
of President of the Council, and M. de Fourtou the
portfolio" of "the Interior." Here was a new
Ministry of Battle" with a vengeance.
("
There was
On the next day,
evidently to be war to the knife.
the 18th, M. de Fourtou read a
message from the
President declaring that he had loyally made the
DEFEATS ANTI-REPUBLICAN COALITION. 167
experiment of governing with a Ministry chosen
from the Left, but in vain; and that if he was to go
on in the same direction, he would have to
appeal to the fraction of the Republican party which believes that
the Republic cannot be consolidated without
.. a radical change
in all our great institutions, administrative, judicial, financial, and
military. [And he added, giving a side blow at Opportunism] Their
programme is very well known. Those who profess it, are quite
agreed as to the points which it contains. They only differ among
themselves as to the means to be employed and the opportuneness of
the time for its realisation. Whereas I [continued the Marshal] con-
sider it opportune neither for to-day nor yet for to-morrow.
•
Then, notwithstanding the protests of the Left in
general, and Gambetta in particular, the Chamber was
declared to be adjourned for a month. Immediately
on leaving the Versailles theatre the members of the
Left betook themselves to the Hôtel des Réservoirs,
and, after listening to another speech from the inde-
fatigable Gambetta, issued a manifesto to the country
in view of the dissolution which they foresaw to be
imminent.
The Ministry at once, if we are to adopt the lan-
guage of M. Reinach, embarked on "a policy of cor-
ruption and violence." In other words, they did what
French political parties are all too fond of doing.
They dismissed the officials appointed within the last
few months, reappointed their own partisans, harried
the hostile Press, and left no stone of intimidation and
cajolery unturned for the purpose of influencing the
electoral body. The Republicans, on the other hand,
as may be supposed, were not idle. Reunited once
more, they made common cause in the common peril.
All the more weighty of their journals, the Journal
des Débats, the Temps, vied with the lighter skir-
mishers of the Press in the fierceness of their attacks
168
LIFE OF LEON GAMBETTA.
2=2
on the Ministers. Thiers threw himself into the fight
with the ardour of a boy, carrying back his memory
the while-so it is said-to the days, long since gone.
by, when he had opposed M. de Polignac in 1830, and
helped to drive Charles X. from the throne. But
Gambetta was the soul of the campaign. The offices
of his paper, the République Française, were as the
head-quarters of the host, and in his own person he
stinted neither pen-stroke nor tongue-stroke. On the
9th of June he was at Amiens, and on the 10th at
Abbeville, preaching once more union, and resistance
by legal means, and the odiousness of Clericalism
and Imperialism. And on the 16th of June, when the
Chamber met again, it seemed almost as if the whole
debate resolved itself into a duel between him and
the Ministry. M. de Fourtou attacked him sturdily,
bringing up with great parliamentary skill his old
radical and wild declarations to the Paris electors in
1869; and Gambetta, eluding the onslaught with
equal skill, carried the war into the enemy's ranks,
and, amid a running fire of insulting interruptions-
M. Paul de Cassagnac being the chief offender-
demonstrated the unconstitutional position of the
Ministry, and prophesied that the country would con-
demn them with no uncertain voice. It was during
this sitting a sitting memorable even among the
annals of French Assemblies for rowdyism and offen-
sive turbulence *—that an incident occurred of a par-
ticularly striking and dramatic character. M. de
-
*It is said that on this occasion even M. Rouher was ashamed of
his followers and allies, and cried sadly: "They are disgracing the
party they are ruining us!" Mr. Washburn, who was present
during the debate, says that Gambetta's "bearing" amid the cat-
calls, mocking imitations, and insults "was magnificent."
DEFEATS ANTI-REPUBLICAN COALITION. 169
PASTA, IT, BËRË
.
Fourtou, speaking of the Assembly of 1871, took
occasion to say that it had delivered the country from
the presence of the Prussians. Whereupon Gam-
betta, who stood listening to the speech, lifted an
indignant voice and pointed to Thiers, crying, "There
sits the liberator of the country!" and the whole
Left, springing to their feet as one man, gave to the
fine old statesman round on round of applause.
According to the Constitution, the President could
only dissolve with the concurrence of the Senate.
But the Conservative groups had a majority in that
body and, moreover, it was difficult for the Senate
to refuse the President's request, as he threatened to
resign if not allowed to appeal to the country. So
on the 22nd of June the needed powers were given
by a majority of 149 to 130; and on the 25th,
the Chamber, having voted the necessary supplies,
held their last meeting.
It is scarcely necessary to follow Gambetta step by
step through the electoral campaign of the next few
weeks. The situation being given, the reader will have
no difficulty in imagining what were the arguments he
addressed to the constituencies, and how he mingled
truth and error, good sense and exaggeration, in his
speeches and newspaper articles. At one moment he
would be demonstrating, quite truly, that the new
Ministry had embarked upon unconstitutional courses,
and were abusing their power in an infinity of ways;
at another he would be absurdly inveighing against
them as a Government of priests, and declaring that
they were about to precipitate the country into a war
with Italy on behalf of the temporal power of the
Pope. The Ministry, meanwhile, were doing their
best, after their own fashion, to influence the consti-
170
LIFE OF LÉON GAMBETTA.
tuencies. Notwithstanding all Gambetta's allegations,
there seems little reason to doubt that neither M. de
Broglie nor M. de Fourtou had been privy to the
President's intention of dismissing M. Jules Simon,.
or had done anything to bring about that consumma-
tion. There seems every reason to believe, on the
contrary, that both these politicians considered that
the President, in resorting to extreme measures, had
shown his hand prematurely, and that he ought to have
waited till the Chamber had fallen into discredit
through its own internal dissensions. But the war
having been declared, they set to work, as I have said,
to carry it on in the approved fashion. They gagged
the Liberal press by prosecutions and prohibitions of
sale. They dismissed Liberal officials. They used and
abused every Government influence. Unfortunately,
however, there was one thing wanting among their
followers, and that was discipline. As the coalition had
fallen to pieces in 1873, and again in 1875, so it
fell to pieces now. Neither Legitimists nor Orleanists
had experience and skill in the manipulation of elec-
tions. Consequently the Imperialists came very much:
to the front, and this their rivals could ill brook..
Dissensions set in, and in some of the districts the
Conservative interest was divided. The Republicans,
on the contrary, marched forward as one man. They
had set their hearts on sending back to the Chamber
the identical 363 members who had voted against the
new Government on the 19th of June. To do this
they sank all minor differences. No Republican stood
against another Republican in that election.
One incident in the campaign deserves, however,
to be commemorated. Gambetta possessed in per-
fection a gift which Taper and Tadpole would have
DEFEATS ANTI-REPUBLICAN COALITION. 171
11.
envied—the gift of hitting upon an effective popular
"cry." It was he who had minted the phrase of an
"irreconcilable opposition" to the Empire. It was
he, again, who had dubbed Clericalism "the enemy,
and described the Government as a 66 Government of
priests." And now, on the 15th of August 1877, he
wound up a great speech at Lille with this declaration :
"Believe me, gentlemen, when France has once spoken
with her sovereign voice, then there will be nothing
left but submission or resignation." Se soumettre ou
se démettre-the jingle caught the popular ear at
once. Here were, indeed, winged words to fly hither
and thither throughout France. The confidence:
of the speaker grew contagious, and his "cry"
found an echo everywhere. The Government rose
in wrath. They would prosecute the République
Française, Gambetta's paper, for reproducing such
audacious sentiments. Gambetta was cited to appear
before the 10th Chamber on the 11th of September,
and condemned in default, together with the manager
of the paper, to a fine of 2,000 francs, with costs, and
three months' imprisonment. He appealed on a
technical point, and was non-suited on the 22nd of
September, and then appealed again. But, before this
second appeal came on for hearing, the Broglie-
Fourtou Ministry had become a thing of the past, and
the prosecution was allowed to drop.*
For during all this time the elections had been
approaching. They had been thrown back by the
Government to the utmost limit allowed by the law,
and even beyond; but still they could not be post-
* He had been condemned again, on the 12th of October, to three
months' imprisonment and a fine of 4,000 francs, for an analogous
offence.
172
LIFE OF LEON GAMBETTA.
>
poned indefinitely. On the 14th of October they took
place. The result was scarcely what either party could
have desired. Though the Republicans retained a good
strong working majority, they were far from having
triumphed all along the line, for they had lost some
fifty votes. The Government, on the other hand,
notwithstanding all their efforts, and the fifty votes
which they had gained, were still hopelessly out-
numbered. Nor, as may be supposed, were the
majority in any mood of forbearance. It is the curse
of such weapons of political warfare as had been
adopted by M. de Broglie and M. de Fourtou that
their recoil is so terrible. Væ victis! was the cry of
the conquering Republicans. One of the first acts of
the new Chamber which met at Versailles on the 7th
of November, was to appoint a committee of thirty-
three members to inquire into the validity of the
election of the Government candidates. No doubt
there had been administrative pressure in many of those
elections—perhaps in most. But very certainly the
majority were not in that judicial frame of mind which
would bode well for the impartiality of their investi-
gations. Vainly, as may be supposed, did M. de
Broglie and M. de Fourtou strive to stem the torrent.
Vainly did they appeal to the Senate. By the 23rd
of November a new Ministry, a colourless " Ministry
of Affairs," ruled in their stead, and for the next few
weeks, months indeed, the invalidation of the elections
of the members of the Right went on quite merrily.*
.
The new Ministry had but a short shrift. On the
day after it had been appointed the Assembly resolved,
by a majority of 315 to 204, to have absolutely nothing
* Over eighty elections were thus declared null.
DEFEATS ANTI-REPUBLICAN COALITION. 173
.
to do with it. Here was a Governmental crisis indeed.
The President swayed hither and thither and knew not
what to do. He had all the soldier's feeling of being
at his post in the hour of danger, and so would not
resign. He could not bring himself to place power
in the hands of the Republican Left, for he regarded
the Radicals as the mere enemies of public order.
He soon ascertained that the Senate had no mind
to give him authority to dissolve the Chamber and
appeal to the country once more. As an entirely
honourable and upright gentleman, the thought of
any resort to armed illegalities was odious to him. He
was evidently in sore straits. And the Chamber igno-
rant of what his next move might be, felt that they could
not with prudence divest themselves of the power of the
purse. On the 4th of December, at the instigation of
Gambetta, who had again been elected President of
the Commission of the Budget, they refused to vote
the supplies. The situation was becoming intolerable.
At last, sadly and in bitterness of spirit, Marshal
MacMahon gave way. Of the miserable alternatives"
placed before him by Gambetta, he chose the one which
to himself was probably the more miserable: he did not
resign, but he submitted. On the 13th of December he
once again accepted a Ministry chosen from among the
moderate Left, with Dufaure for Prime Minister.
"He is wise, religious, and upright," said the Presi-
dent, speaking a little ruefully, perhaps, of his new
Prime Minister, "and I know that he will not lead
me into any disastrous policy. I can therefore remain
at my post as long as he remains with me; but the
day he goes I shall certainly go too."
So at last, after seven long years of weary battling
and hope deferred, the Republicans were masters
174
LIFE OF LEON GAMBETTA.

of
of the situation. True, no doubt, that of the
great constitutional powers in the State, two, the
President and the Senate, were still to a large
extent animated by a spirit of reaction. But the
President's weapons had effectually been blunted, and
the Senate was subject to partial re-election in the
beginning of 1879, when the Republican majority in
the country, assuming that they held together, would
be able to "republicanise" it thoroughly. Thus the
Republican Chamber had before them a fair field.
Now was the time for the party to show what faculty
of government there was in them. They had, under
every previous form of rule, evinced a particular apti-
tude for criticism. Would they do so very much
better than their opponents now that their own turn
had come? That was the question of the future, at
the end of the year, 1877, in France; and the future,
so far, can scarcely be said to have answered it in a
very favourable manner. As of old, so it is still:
a man's worst foes are for the most part those of his
own household.
175
CHAPTER IX.
PRE-EMINENCE, PREMIERSHIP, AND FALL.
1877-1882.
Gambetta the foremost man in France-Something large about him—
He should then have been made Prime Minister-Invalidation of
elections-New election for Senate-Speech at Romans-His
political programme-Resignation of Dufaure and end of Marshal
MacMahon's presidentship-Election of M. Grévy—Gambetta, on
1st February 1879, elected President of Chamber-M. Wadding-
ton's Cabinet falls to pieces-Gambetta repudiates the accusa-
tion of exercising an occult influence-Everything contributes
to thrust power upon him-Scrutin de Liste-Gambetta its
passionate advocate-Voted by the Chamber but rejected by the
Senate Meeting at Belleville refuses to listen to him-Fall of
M. Ferry's Ministry on the 9th of November 1881-Gambetta at
last called to power-His Ministry-He brings forward the ques-
tion of Scrutin de Liste-Is defeated thereon-Did he court
defeat?—His foreign policy-His house at Ville-d'Avray-Is
wounded in the hand-Becomes severely ill-Dies on the 31st
December 1882-Immense sensation caused by his death.
At the beginning of the year 1878, the point which we
have now reached, Gambetta was, without question,
the foremost politician in France. It was his strategy
that had led the Republicans to victory through the
parliamentary campaigns of the last five years. It
was his eloquence that had rallied the country to the
Republican cause, and brought together the majorities
176
LIFE OF LÉON GAMBETTA.
which in election after election had overwhelmed the
monarchical candidates. Whether as a debater or as
a platform orator, he stood without a peer. Moreover,
with the efflux of time his policy and actions during
the war had come to be regarded in truer perspective
and a juster light. France now felt that she owed a
meed of honour to the man who had not despaired of
her courage and fortunes, even in the darkest hour of
her adversity. She had a kind of consciousness that
here was a politician who was not quite as other poli-
ticians excellent administrators perhaps, efficient
speakers and debaters very probably, adequate as one
might hope for the conduct of the country's affairs
under normal conditions, but still ordinary politicians
after all. In him there was the indescribable some-
thing which is not ordinary. He was unmistakably a
man of genius, and, in virtue of that quality, stood,
like Saul, towering by a head and shoulders over his
fellows.
And, in truth, whether one agrees with the man's
politics, or whether one does not, it is scarcely pos-
sible, I think, to avoid feeling towards him a kind of
sympathetic admiration. There is something about
him that is large, genial, generous. No one could hit
harder. No one probably ever felt a keener delight
in the strife of words, a wilder Berserker rage of
battle. When the orator fury was on him, he lashed
out with a terrible force. But the conflict once over,
The blows he
he bore from it no bitter memories.
had himself received left no rankling wounds. Many
had assailed him in the days after the war. He had
spilt the country's blood like water, they said; he
had squandered her treasure in useless braggadocio.
Among the men who had thus mis-said him, was M.
PRE-EMINENCE-PREMIERSHIP-FALL. 177
Daudet, and a natural estrangement had sprung up
between the two.* But some little time after, a friend
of Gambetta was surprised to find that he was again
on cordial terms with the novelist. "What, have
you forgiven him?" the friend asked. "Whom have
I not forgiven?" answered Gambetta.
"Whom
have I not forgiven?" One can almost imagine the
shrug of the large shoulders accompanying the words
-words eloquent of the tolerance of a great nature in
which there was no place for petty vanity. What
was an attack purely personal to himself that he
should brood over or remember it? So, again, no
one had assailed him with greater violence-one may
even say with more insolence of invective-than M.
Paul de Cassagnac. Nevertheless, when M. de Cas-
sagnac's father, M. Granier de Cassagnac, died, Gam-
betta, being then President of the Chamber, found
gracious terms in which to speak of the dead.†
All this, however, is in some measure a digression.
To return to the position which Gambetta held in the
beginning of 1878. He was then the recognised chief
of a successful party, and there can be no question that,
according to the usual traditions of Constitutionalism,
he should have been called to take a responsible part
in the administration of the country's affairs.
if Thiers had lived, does it seem at all improbable
that the great popular tribune would now have been
made Prime Minister. For this was what Thiers
was meditating when death struck him down in
Nor,
* M. Daudet has long since published his palinode for his offensive
article. He has also declared most positively that in the character
of Numa Roumestan he had not intended to portray Gambetta.
† M. Granier de Cassagnac had also been entirely opposed to
Gambetta in politics.
12
178
LIFE OF LEON GAMBETTA.
the midst of the electoral battle, on the 3rd of the
previous September.* But the idea, however natural,
was too startling to find a place in Marshal Mac-
Mahon's brain. The latter, as we have seen, had only
been brought with great difficulty to accept Dufaure,
and beyond Dufaure he would not go. Thus Gambetta
was placed, not, as it is only just to observe, by his
own act, in the anomalous position of being the most
influential politician in France, and yet without open and
avowed place either in the Ministry or the Opposition.
At first he seems to have made the most laudable
resolves, and preached moderation in persuasive tones.
He had been to Rome during the last days of 1877-
a journey which fluttered the quidnuncs of the time
not a little-and on his way back addressed a small
meeting at Marseilles on the 7th of January 1878.
He there spoke of the special perils that dog success,
reminded his hearers that even in earlier days he had
declared himself to be a "man of government, not
of opposition," and exhorted them to remember the
coming elections for the Senate, and meanwhile to
pursue reasonable ends by reasonable means. But,
alas! the circumstances were such as rendered the exer-
cise of reason very difficult, and neither Gambetta's
past nor his temperament fitted him particularly well
to be its apostle. The Republican party, exasperated
by the treatment that they had received since the 16th
of the previous May, had come back to power breath-
ing vengeance. They soon began to make short work
with the officials appointed under the previous régime,
and to invalidate the elections of the minority in a very
wholesale way. Gambetta had always advocated the
* Thiers himself expected to replace Marshal MacMahon as Presi-
dent of the Republic.
PRE-EMINENCE-PREMIERSHIP—FALL. 179
first measure very strongly, and one can but regret to
see how entirely he failed to appreciate that the second
was, in the highest and best sense, impolitic. To ap-
pease, as far as might be, the passions of the past, and
by magnanimity to disarm the opposition in the con-
stituencies—these should clearly have been the objects
of a party aspiring to become a national government.
Gambetta, however, as I have said, did not take this.
view. On the 21st and 26th of January, he was de-
fending the invalidation of the elections, and on the
1st of February, again à propos of an invalidated elec-
tion, he launched at Rouher one of the most scathing
and terrible of his denunciations of the Empire.
All, as it seems to me, a mistake. Gambetta and
his friends were in no fit state to exercise delicaté
judicial functions, and the time had gone by when
abuse of the Empire could do anything but inflame
political passions which all who loved their country
should have desired to appease. Nor, as regards this
special victory over the Imperialists, can I forbear to
say that it was rendered almost odious by the cir-
cumstances accompanying it. For when the torrent of
Gambetta's invective had ceased, the undaunted Rouher,
who never wanted for parliamentary courage, pleaded
earnestly, passionately, with tears of indignation in
his voice, for the bare justice of
and was ruthlessly silenced with the
as a politician merits little sympathy. But the party
that could gag an opponent under attack was not
working for its own future.
a
hearing in reply,
closure. Rouher
Gambetta, however, to do him justice, was not
always in such aggressive moods, and in his speeches
between the 1st of February and the 18th of Septem-
ber there is little that calls for animadversion, com-
12 *
180
LIFE OF LÉON GAMBETTA.
ment, or even mention-save perhaps his declaration
that he had a sufficiently free spirit to be at once a
worshipper of Joan of Arc and the admirer and
disciple of Voltaire." But on the 18th of September
he spoke out again in somewhat of his old manner.
According to the Constitution, a batch of senators
had to retire in the following January, and on the
27th of October the delegates were to be elected who,
in turn, were to elect the new senators. The occasion
was, of course, important, for if the Republicans suc-
ceeded in carrying these respective elections, they
would obtain a working majority in the Senate, and
the entire government of the country would be prac-
tically in their hands. Gambetta travelled into the
south-east provinces for the purpose of supporting
the good cause, and on the 18th of September found
himself at Romans, where he was received with all
due enthusiasm. There he made a great speech-a
speech moderate in parts, as when he said that, so far
as he himself was concerned, he did not think the
time had come for altering the Constitution, and also
that he hoped Marshal MacMahon would remain in
office for the full term of the Presidentship; but not so
moderate when he came to deal with the reforms to be
effected in the personnel of the army and magis-
tracy, with the overwhelming evils of "clericalism,"
with the "laicisation" of education, and with monastic
institutions—which last he described as constituting
the one great "social peril."
It has been said, I know not how truly, that Gam-
betta came to regret his speech at Romans almost as
soon as he had uttered it. And, in truth, his position
at this time, however superb and seemingly command-
ing, was both delicate and difficult. He had entered
PRE-EMINENCE-PREMIERSHIP-FALL. 181
public life as an ardent Radical, and, so far as ulti-
mate desirability was concerned, had never ceased to
advocate the extreme measures set forth in the Radi-
cal programme.
The divergence between himself, as
an Opportunist, and the party of the Intransigeants
did not, in one sense, affect any matter of vital prin-
ciple. He professed to desire the same things that
they did,* to have in view the same goal, and only to
differ as to paths and speed of progression. Thus he
had been enabled to keep the great Radical forces in
the country under strict discipline and in leash. The
Radicals had trusted that he would let them slip-
perhaps even (who knows?) "cry havoc "-as soon
as the right moment had come, and in that hope had
forborne for the most part to snap at his restraining
hand. And now the promised day seemed to be
dawning. The Republicans had a majority in the
Chamber. They would soon have a majority in the
Senate. The Marshal was disarmed, and must either
accept such measures
measures as were put before him, or
resign. Was patience still necessary, the eager and
restless Radicals began to inquire; and, with that
suspiciousness which is their curse, they also began to
ask, Are we not being betrayed?†
* Their immediate programme at this time has thus been sum-
marised: The suppression of the Catholic universities; free non-
religious and compulsory education; the suppression of non-authorised
religious bodies; the proclamation of an amnesty for the Communists.
of 1871; the impeachment of the Ministers of the 16th of May;
and, of course, a wholesale dismissal of judges, public functionaries,
and generals, whose antecedents were not Republican. But all this
was only an instalment. The impeachment of the Ministry of the
16th of May Gambetta, however, did not want.
This view of Gambetta's position and influence is stated with
great force in some papers by M. Louis Pauliat, entitled "La Situa-
tion républicaine," in La Nouvelle Revue for 1883.
182
LIFE OF LEON GAMBETTA.
Thus Gambetta was placed, as I have said, in a
position of considerable difficulty. That he had defi-
nitely, in his own mind, abandoned the old Radical
programme as a whole, I certainly do not believe.
There is no evidence of it. A traitor to the Radical
cause in that sense, he certainly was not. But with
"the years that bring the philosophic mind," with the
manifold experiences of an active political life, he had
come to see that all change in human affairs, to be
effective and durable, must be of gradual development,
and, to quote Wordsworth again, be "produced too
slowly ever to decay." Thus, in this very speech at
Romans, he had said—
Let us look our position straight in the face. What do we really
want? Ah! I know that we shall have to lay our hands to a great
many things; but let us not do so like children, or like men rash and
inconsiderate, or like utopians. I am the determined enemy of all
attempts to make a clean sweep of every existing institution, and I
am the enemy too of all abuses; but I desire that account should be
taken of time, of tradition, and even of prejudices, for they most
certainly exist--they are a power, and it is our duty, not indeed to
respect, but to study them, so that they may be dissipated and dis-
appear; and this result can only be attained if we act without passion
and without violence.
*
But to preach moderation and delay, and yet retain
a hold on the forces of revolution, that was a task
beyond the strength even of a Gambetta, just as it
had been beyond the strength even of a Mirabeau.
The attempt, however, may serve to explain much that
seems disproportionate and almost contradictory in his
utterances at various times. His heart was with the
Radicals, and yet as a practical politician he foresaw that
they would ruin the Republican cause—which, indeed,
has nearly come to pass-by undue haste; and at the
same time he knew-which also came to pass-that if
PRE-EMINENCE-PREMIERSHIP-FALL. 183
he forbore to cry forward, they would leave him
behind as a laggard, and cast stones at him as a
traitor. So he was torn this way and that, supporting
Dufaure's ministry both in private and in public, and
yet now and again embarrassing it by such utterances
as those at Romans.
Thus the year 1878 wore away. On the 27th of Octo-
ber the Municipal Councils elected their delegates in
view of the senatorial appointments, and there was
little doubt, from the character of the delegates chosen,
that the result would be a strong addition to the Re-
publican strength. On the 21st of November Gam-
betta fought a duel-pistols, and neither wounded-
with M. de Fourtou, one of whose parliamentary
statements he had publicly stigmatised as "a lie."
On the 24th of December he delivered to the Com-
mercial Travellers a public address in which he dis-
claimed all personal ambition, and again preached
moderation. On the 4th of January 1879 he donned
his advocate's gown once more, for the first time since
1869, to plead the cause of his friend M. Challemel-
Lacour, who had been ignobly libelled. And on the
following day, the 5th of January, the return of sixty-
six Republican members to the Senate at last gave
the Republicans a majority in that Assembly, and
placed full parliamentary power in their hands.
Neither Dufaure's ministry nor Marshal Mac-
Mahon's presidentship outlived the last event by many
days. The Radicals were not to be baulked. They
were eager for the spoils. The two Houses met on
the 14th of January. On the 16th the Ministry sub-
mitted its programme of desirable reforms. On the
20th they obtained a kind of vote of confidence,
though, as a matter of course, the Radicals regarded
184
LIFE OF LEON GAMBETTA.
their programme as miserably insufficient. And on
the 30th, the Marshal, utterly sick of signing decrees
of dismissal, and finally refusing to be the means of
depriving the country of the services of some of her
best generals, resigned his post as President of the
Republic. The Ministry of Dufaure came to an end
at the same time.
What was the precise part played by Gambetta at
this crisis remains very obscure. He seems to have
absented himself from Paris from the 17th to the
20th of January. He did not speak in the debate on
the policy of the Ministry; he abstained from voting
in the final division. But with the 30th of January
his course of action, on one point at least, though
only on one, becomes perfectly clear. There is every
reason to believe that he might, had he so willed it,
have successfully contested the Presidency of the
Republic. But he at once postponed his claims to
those of M. Grévy, as he had done on the 9th of
October 1877,* during the great disarray of the party
following on Thiers' death; and M. Grévy was
elected. Here, however, we again fall into doubt and
obscurity. The time has not arrived when the his-
tory of the relations between the new President and
Gambetta, both now and also during the period of
the latter's Ministry, can be definitely written.
According to M. Reinach, Gambetta's enthusiastic
follower and disciple, M. Grévy, should at once have
called on Gambetta to take office; and M. Reinach
not only supports his view by an unexceptionable
array of constitutional argument, but says also that
Gambetta had placed his services at M. Grévy's
* See his speech of that date at the Cirque du Château d'Eau.
PRE-EMINENCE-PREMIERSHIP-FALL. 185
disposal, and that it was wholly M. Grévy's fault
that the great party leader, instead of stepping into
his legitimate position as Premier, was relegated to
the Presidency of the Chamber, a position of com-
parative aloofness from the strife of parties.
His election to that post, on the 1st of February
1879, was not unanimous, but he obtained 338 votes
out of the 407 votes recorded, a quite sufficient
majority, and on the 6th of February took possession
of the Presidential arm-chair, and delivered a short
address, in which, after paying a graceful compliment
to his predecessor, M. Grévy, he went on to say :—
Elected by the Republican majority, and the firm guardian of your
prerogatives, I know what is my duty as the protector of the
minority; and I hope to be able to ally that duty unfalteringly with
the duty of maintaining the respect which everybody here is bound to
show for the Constitution and for the established authority of the
Republic. We can, we ought to feel, one and all, that the days of
battle are passed. Our Republic, after emerging victorious from
the mêlée of parties, must now begin to create and organise. Ac-
cordingly, gentlemen, I would invite you especially to concentrate
your zeal, your lights, your talents, all your efforts, upon those great
scholastic, military, financial, industrial, and economic questions
which have been brought to your notice, and of which the younger
generations, the army, the workers, the producers, the nation in
short, have a right to expect a solution.
Whereupon he withdrew to the Presidential heights,
like one of the gods of old to the summit of Olympus,
and for the next few months took no ostensible and
acknowledged part in the parliamentary battle.
The Chamber still sat at Versailles; but Gambetta
immediately took up his official residence at the Palais-
Bourbon in Paris, much to the scandal of the Right,
who continued to regard the capital as a doubtful
home for an independent parliament. It was some
time since he had left the apartment in the Rue
186
LIFE OF LEON GAMBETTA.
Montaigne, and gone to reside in rooms of greater
dignity, though still much on the hither side of
magnificence, under the same roof as the offices
of his paper, the République Française. And now
at the Palais-Bourbon he naturally lived as the Presi-
dent of a great Assembly should, though certainly
without exaggerating in any way the pomp and cir-
cumstance that fittingly attend high office. Never-
theless the extreme Radicals hated him the more that
he did not cultivate a Spartan simplicity. They re-
presented him as a kind of Roman Emperor, bathing
in a bath of silver, and faring sumptuously every day.
This was what Opportunism meant, they declared; it
meant playing on the people's credulity by the profes-
sion of high-sounding sentiments, and then, when
the time came for realising the people's legitimate
hopes, retiring to a life of luxury and sloth. For all
his eloquent plausibilities, he was, so they declared in
bitterness, one "lost leader" the more.
G
| Gambetta meanwhile was showing himself a very
efficient President of the Chamber. To set a thief to
catch a thief, or turn a poacher into a game-keeper,
has always been considered a cunning piece of
strategy; and it must be owned that in appointing
Gambetta to keep order over unruly and turbulent
members, the majority were pursuing a policy of
a somewhat similar kind, And it proved successful.
The members of the Right, when under rebuke, might
now and again take occasion to remind him of his own
interruptions in former days; but, on the whole, they
`felt they were in the presence of a strong man, not to
be trifled with, and a man, moreover, who, though a
partisan, had a sense of justice and of the dignity of
his office. So they, for the most part, accepted his
PRE-EMINENCE-PREMIERSHIP-FALL. 187
ruling; and in the thankless and difficult task of work-
ing the parliamentary system in the face of men whose
great aim was to bring that system into contempt, he
may be said to have done well.
Thus the months passed. The Chamber of Depu-
ties held its last meeting at Versailles on the 2nd of
August 1879, and reassembled in Paris on the 27th of
November. At the end of the year M. Waddington's
Cabinet fell to pieces, and on the 28th of December
another was formed under the presidency of M. de
Freycinet. A fortnight afterwards, on the 11th of
January 1880, Gambetta was re-elected President of
the Chamber, but-which was an ominous sign-by
only 289 votes out of 308 recorded. On the 21st of
June he descended once more into the political arena,
and delivered a great speech in the Chamber in favour
of extending a complete amnesty to all persons impli-
cated in the insurrection of the Commune. A little
later, on the 8th, 9th, and 10th of August, he was at
Cherbourg, in company with M. Grévy, the President
of the Republic, and M. Léon Say, the President of the
Senate three Presidents—and was there received with
all due enthusiasm. On the 19th of September M. de
Freycinet in turn resigned the Premiership, being
accused of truckling to the Clericals; and two days
afterwards M. Jules Ferry reigned in his stead. On
the 20th of January 1881, Gambetta was for a third
time elected President of the Chamber, but by the
still diminishing majority of 262 votes out of 376
recorded. And on the 21st of February 1881 he
once more left the Presidential arm-chair to make a
great speech on foreign affairs.
But here it is fitting that I should pause in the
cataloguing of events, for this speech of the 21st of
188
LIFE OF LÉON GAMBETTA.
February 1881 is significant, and has a distinct bio-
graphical value.
Gentlemen [the orator said in his exordium], Gentlemen, it is now
a long time since people began to accumulate against the man who
stands before you legend upon legend, fable upon fable, and
calumny upon calumny. I have never sought for any opportunity of
dispelling all these falsehoods, because they nearly always had rela-
tion only to home affairs, and there really did not seem to be any use
in brushing them aside. But since an attempt is now made to show
that the part I am supposed to play, and the influence attributed to
me, have a distinct relation to foreign policy--that is, have a distinct
relation to matters with regard to which it would be criminal to do
anything that might cause an injury to France—I feel that I owe an
explanation to my colleagues, just as I owe the truth to my country.
Well, gentlemen, I ask you to believe, in spite of all you may have
read in the newspapers of every shade with regard to specific acts of
alleged intervention or occult interference on my part-I ask you
to believe, for I affirm it boldly and without the slightest fear of being
contradicted either by the Ministers now before you, whom you pro-
fess not to regard as free agents, or by the members of former minis-
tries, who, as one may at least suppose, have recovered their liberty,
that never, at any time, or in any manner, have I intervened—I do not
say to advise, for I had no right to advise; the mandate which I hold
gives me no such right—but to influence, were it ever so slightly, their
opinions and their decisions. I imagine that everyone here is really in
possession of perfect freedom. Well, I defy any Minister, any French
agent, whether at home or abroad, whether now present in Paris
or absent on duty,to come here and say that at any time, at any moment,
I have given him either instructions or powers; I defy any one of
them to come here and say that there ever was any occult Cabinet,
or occult policy—which must necessarily be an anti-national policy,
-existing side by side with the policy of the Republic. Gentlemen,
I speak with warmth, because I have long restrained my emotion at
knowing that my every intention, my every act, was calumniated. I
am here to take my full share of responsibility as a deputy, whether
in my place or at this tribune. On the day when I am called to play
another part, I shall, be assured, still claim my full share of respon-
sibility; but till then my first duty is to allow full and free action to
others, and that I have always done.
"Calumnies! why, they are our daily bread," said
Madame de Maintenon to some lady who had come to
PRE-EMINENCE-PREMIERSHIP-FALL. 189
her to complain of a false accusation; and in the pride
of place which Gambetta had now reached calumnies
were heaped upon him without stint. If the Ministry
committed a fault, it was laid to his charge. If they.
were turned out of office, their fall was attributed to
his machinations. His most innocent words of patriotic
encouragement-such as those uttered in one of the
speeches at Cherbourg-were travestied into declarations
of war.
Nor did these attacks come only from the
members of the old monarchical parties, Legitimists,
Orleanists, and Imperialists-the last of whom espe-
cially had no cause to treat him with forbearance.
The Intransigeants of the extreme Left were equally
virulent. M. Clêmenceau, the leader of the party in
the Chamber, openly accused him of trying to
bring back personal government, and aiming at a
dictatorship of intrigue. M. Rochefort, whose forte
is not gratitude, bespattered him with abuse, called
him a "wretch," a "grocer's son," and conveniently
forgot that in the bad days of 1871 Gambetta had tried
to save him from the consequences of his misdeeds,
and had afterwards subscribed money so that he might
escape from the convict settlement of Nouméa.
[-
Gambetta, not being a sick lion, but a lion in very
full health and vigour, bore all such kicks with a quite
sufficient equanimity. Still he must have felt in-
creasingly the difficulties and anomalies of his own
position. He had probably no wish to be called to
power. With a statesman's judgment he appreciated
the confusion into which French politics had fallen on
the morrow of the victory over the reactionary Ministry
of the 16th May 1877-the factiousness, the imprac-
ticability, the impossibility of founding a strong and
In October 1880.
190
LIFE OF LÉON GAMBETTA.
stable government. With unerring foresight he saw
that these troubles would thicken in the future, as,
indeed, they have done, and that the causes dear to
his heart would be in danger of suffering eclipse, if
not of being irretrievably lost. He knew how quickly,
in such a hot-bed of parliamentary intrigue as the
French Chambers, politicians are forced into promi-
nence, and then cast aside like withered weeds. He
knew that he deserved better than such a fate, that in
the evil days to come he might yet do the State some
service. Therefore his interest was now, as it had been
since the death of Thiers, to keep his position as the
coming man, to hold himself in reserve for the country's
greater need.
But, as the days went on, it must have become
more and more clear to him that this could not be, and
that, within a very short time, the failure of successive
Ministries, the attacks of his enemies, the hopes of
his friends, the necessities of the situation, would
compel him to assume the reins of power. Then he
cast about to see how best his hand could be
strengthened for the coming task. What France
required was a strong government, deriving its power
from a Chamber not split into factions, but acting on
large party lines. How should this be secured?
Clearly, he argued, by altering the character of the
electorate. To tamper with the suffrage was impossible.
Universal Suffrage was a pet national institution and
not to be impugned. Moreover, it was one of Gam-
betta's fetishes, and he would in no case have thought
of touching it with a sacrilegious hand. But in the
history of French politics there were two methods of
election which had prevailed alternately. These were
the Scrutin d'Arrondissement and the Scrutin de Liste.

PRE-EMINENCE-PREMIERSHIP-FALL. 191
1
By the former, which was then in force, each member
was elected, on much the same system as prevails here
in England, by a circumscribed constituency returning
one member, and one member alone. By the Scrutin
de Liste, on the other hand, each Department returned
so many members-as if, to take an instance, sixty
members were assigned to Middlesex, and each elector
voted for the county generally, and could vote for
sixty candidates. Here was the change which Gam-
betta wanted for his purpose.
He would do away
with the existing Scrutin d'Arrondissement, with its
subjection to local influences and petty diversities of
interest. He would go back to the Scrutin de Liste
under which the constituencies would vote, presumably,
on larger issues, and in view of interests more purely
national, and under which, above all, the electors would
be able to concentrate their votes on one candidate in
such a manner as to give him an almost limitless
personal authority.
Of course the question had a history.
So far as
precedent went, Scrutin de Liste was decidedly in ac-
cordance with Republican traditions. It was under
that system that the Republican Assemblies had been
elected in 1848, 1849, and 1871; and the change to
Scrutin d'Arrondissement in 1875, combated by
Gambetta at the time, had been largely effected under
reactionary influences. In 1880 the question was
again brought forward for discussion by M. Bardoux,
an Opportunist deputy and friend of Gambetta. It at
once divided the country in a marked manner. The
floodgates of hostility to Gambetta were unloosed.
There seemed every reason to fear that the issue
would be decided-just as it has more recently been
decided under the panic caused by General Bou-
192
LIFE OF LEON GAMBETTA.
langer's successes-not on its own merits and with a
view to its permanent effect on the country, but in
its relation to an individual politician. Important as
the issue was, the Ministry itself failed to come to
any collective agreement as to the policy to be pur-
sued. M. Jules Ferry, the premier, and three of his
colleagues were in favour of the Scrutin d'Arrondisse-
ment; but three others were staunch advocates of the
Scrutin de Liste. The question came on for discussion
on the 19th of May 1881.
The debate was opened, in accordance with French
usage, by the reading of a report on the proposed
measure. That report was hostile. M. Bardoux set
himself to refute its arguments. He was answered
by a certain M. Roger. Next Gambetta ascended the
tribune. He began by disclaiming, in dignified terms,
all those views of personal ambition which had been
imputed to him; and then, with the lucidity and
method which characterised his oratory, he set forth
in array the arguments in favour of the Scrutin de
Liste, its superiority to small local interests, its larger,
more national character.
The future is in your hands [he cried, in conclusion], for it depends
on the issue now before you. It is for you to decide whether the
Republic shall be fruitful and progressive, or vacillating and insecure
among contending parties; it is for you to decide whether there shall or
shall not arise a true Government party, homogeneous, practical, which
shall lead France to the crowning of her glorious destinies.
I adjure you to think of the country. Review the faults, the abuses,
the impotence of the régime to which we are condemned; and con-
sider, on the other hand, the torrent of force, of power, of energy that
you can draw from the full flowing tide of the national sovereignty;
and then you will not hesitate to instantly abolish a régime without
possibility of life.
The Chamber, after listening to this address-
PRE-EMINENCE-PREMIERSHIP-FALL. 193
which Time has so entirely
so entirely falsified - passed
the Bill.* No opposition of a really serious character
was expected on the part of the Senate. Every-
thing seemed going in accordance with Gambetta's
wishes; and on the 24th of May he left Paris for
Cahors, his native town, where he was to unveil a
monument to the Mobiles of the department who had
fallen during the war. A pleasant expedition, as may
be supposed: addresses at the places where the train
stopped, flowers in profusion-flowers of nature and
flowers of rhetoric; at Cahors itself the most en-
thusiastic reception; Gambetta's father and the
notabilities of the town at the station; addresses of
all kinds; illuminations, in which the house of his
birth was not forgotten; a visit to the Lycée, where
he listens to an address from the head boy, and looks
back in half rueful retropsect to the days when he
had been a school-boy there himself-not always as
good a boy as he might have been, he tells the lads;
then again speeches, banquets; the city, in short,
over-bubbling with pride and pleasure at the glory of
its distinguished son, and all going "happy as a mar-
riage bell.”
*Nothing can better illustrate the hopeless disarray of French
parties than the following table of the numbers who voted on the
First Article of M. Bardoux's bill:-
Extreme Left.....
Republican Union...
Left..
Left Centre
Bonapartists
Legitimists
Totals
………….
For the
Scrutin
de Liste.
...
21
96
69
16
44
21
267
For the
Scrutin d'Ar-
rondissement.
16
44
61
15
32
34
202
13
194
LIFE OF LEON GAMBETTA.
But this display of local enthusiasm, natural as it
was, afforded ample material for the calumnies of
Gambetta's enemies. They made political capital out
of it diligently, affecting to call him the Czar, and to
regard him as aiming at supreme power. When he
came back to Paris, after an absence of eight days, he
found that matters were not at all where he had left
them, and that the question of the Scrutin de Liste
was more than in peril. The opponents of the mea-
sure displayed extraordinary activity. President
Grévy was openly represented as adverse to it; and
there seems no room for doubt that he was so in
reality. On the 19th of June the Senate threw out
the Bill.
سے
On the 29th of July the session came to an end,
and also the Parliament, for a general election was to
take place on the 21st of August. Gambetta, in
order to disprove the charge so freely made that he
was aiming at a dictatorship, decided to present him-
self for election to two Paris constituencies only. He
spoke twice in view of the coming struggle: once at
Tours on the 4th of August, when he advocated a
reform of the Senate-a reform which he had declared
to be anything but pressing when speaking at Cahors
before the rejection of the Scrutin de Liste; and again
in Paris on the 12th of August to the constituents of
the XXth Arrondissement. The latter was a most
important speech. One passage especially deserves to
be reproduced here, notwithstanding its length, be-
cause it contains so clear an exposition of his policy
from the date when he had entered public life.
I know well [he said] why I am attacked-it is not as an indi-
vidual;
there are some who even say that as an individual I am not
altogether a bad fellow-it is as the embodiment of a policy, a
PRE-EMINENCE-PREMIERSHIP—-FALL. 195
system, a method of defending and protecting the interests of French
Democracy. And it is that policy which I am here to defend, not
because it is attacked, but because I have an intense desire to prevent
men of honest minds and loyal hearts, who from their position labour
under certain social and political disadvantages, from being led
astray by sophists and demagogues. That is why I wish to explain
my views here, and why I am anxious that the policy I advocate
should receive once more at Belleville its sanction and consecration.
That policy has been called by an ill-sounding and barbarous name.
The thing itself having been misconceived, it was necessary to find for
it a misconceived epithet: it was called “ Opportunism." If this
barbarous word means a policy of enlightenment, a policy that
never suffers the favourable moment, the propitious circumstances, to
go by, a policy that is neither at the mercy of chance nor violence
-why, our opponents may apply to it any ill-sounding or even
unintelligible epithet they like, but I shall declare that I can recognise
none other, for it is the policy of right reason, and, I will add, the policy
of success. Yes, since I entered upon public life, I have not contented
myself with studying the general history of that great and unfortu-
nate country which is called France; I have also studied the history
of our party, and that not only since 1789, but in the old dark days
when Democracy still spoke with the lisp of childhood. I have tracked
our party as though by the marks of its blood, have followed its
advances, its failures, its acts of unreason, followed all too swiftly
by periods of reaction. And having done this I solemnly resolved
that I should teach to others the lesson I had learnt, and tell why
the great and admirable cause of Republican Democracy has had,
throughout the course of our history, not only chronic periods of
growth, but, alas! chronic periods of failure and decay; and it
appears to me clear as the noonday that the reason why our party,
notwithstanding all the glory of its Democratic heroism, has failed
so constantly in the sphere of practical affairs, is because it has
too often followed a visionary mirage and yielded to the spirit of
rashness and violence; and because, also, the governing classes.
the rest of France, have yielded to the worst, the basest of social
passions—to fear; to fear, which, in politics, is a terrible national vice
of ours; to fear, which is a nation's worst counsellor; to fear, which
so often led the middle classes, before the adoption of the policy I
am now advocating, to obstinately and blindly oppose all ideas of
political enfranchisement; to fear, which at the slightest public
excitement caused the streets to be immediately filled with armed
men, the invariable conclusion being misery and death on the one
hand, and on the other, the abject victory of a cynical and apostate
-
*
13 *
196
LIFE OF LÉON GAMBETTA.
reaction. This is what led me to do my utmost to cut such a past
adrift, and to determine that I would devote my life to disarming
that spirit of violence which has so often led Democracy astray, to
withdrawing Democracy from the evil influence of abstract formulæ,
to directing it to the study of facts, of concrete realities, to teaching
it to take account of tradition, of custom, of prejudice ; for pre-
judice is a power, and not to be crushed, but dissipated by persuasion
and reason. I said, I will teach my party to hate the spirit of
violence; I will do my utmost to blunt the evil goad of terror
that drives reaction on its course. I will present myself-and that
is how we obtained our first successes-I will present myself as
a kind of mediator between the one party and the other; and if I can,
at last, effect an alliance between the people and the middle class,
I shall have given to Republican order a foundation never to be
moved.
Having thus eloquently expounded the principles of
Opportunism to the democracy of Belleville, Gambetta
proceeded to explain at length the reforms which he
considered urgent-reforms in the administration of
justice, reforms in the army, reforms in education,
reforms in matters ecclesiastical, reforms in matters
financial, reforms in the civil administration generally,
reforms in the laws relating to the combination of
workmen—a budget of reforms, indeed, quite sufficient,
as one might have supposed, to satisfy the most hungry
reformer. But not sufficient altogether to satisfy the
people of Belleville. Though the meeting of the 12th
of August heard him gladly, another meeting, convened
for the 16th of August, and to which he proposed to
speak on social questions, refused to hear him at all.
They howled, they shouted, they yelled, every time he
tried to open his mouth. One adventurous spirit hissed
in an ear-piercing manner. Whereupon Gambetta,
nothing daunted, after several ineffectual efforts to
obtain a hearing, shouted back to them that the man
with a shrill whistle was a "coward," and the rest
"drunken" and "irresponsible" "slaves," and, having
PRE-EMINENCE-PREMIERSHIP-FALL. 197
thus delivered himself, left the place in high dudgeon.
It was his first popular check. Nevertheless, on the
21st he was elected by one of the two constituencies
of the XXth Arrondissement. Belleville, spite of the
efforts of the ultra-Radicals, had not yet deserted its
great representative.
Gambetta travelled into Germany at the end of
September; was back again in Paris on the 10th of
October; on the 12th or 13th had an interview with
President Grévy, in which the question of his immi-
nent succession to the Premiership seems first to have
been mooted; then went into Normandy, speaking as
was his wont; and on the 28th was in Paris once
more for the meeting of the new Parliament.
By that time it was generally known that M.
Ferry's Ministry was moribund. On the 9th of
November, after a four days' debate on the expedition
to Tunis, the Chamber refused to give him a vote of
confidence.** Then followed a scene of great parlia-
mentary confusion. For two hours motion after
motion was proposed and rejected. It seemed as if
the Chamber had neither definite purpose nor power of
expression. Then Gambetta, who had not previously
spoken, went to the tribune. It was a solemn moment
in his own history, one may almost say again in the
history of France. By endeavouring to give to the
Chamber an articulate voice at this particular juncture,
he was openly putting himself forward as its leader,
and declaring his readiness to assume the reins of
power. That he had counted the cost, though not,
perhaps the whole cost, seems clear. He knew what
a short-lived thing a French ministry is. He had had
T
* Technically, according to French forms, to vote "the order of
the day" pure and simple.
198
LIFE OF LEON GAMBETTA.
experience enough to show him how soon a French
public man is played out, when once he exchanges
the place of the critic for that of the criticised. With
his profound knowledge of the French democracy, he
can scarcely have been ignorant of its jealousy of the
statesman in power. Had he been disposed to forget
all this, there were his enemies openly exultant ät
the thought that he was ascending what they hoped
and expected would prove to be the "Tarpeian rock."
Nor, to those who judged dispassionately, did he seem
bound in honour to accept office at this particular
time. The mode of election for which he had pas-
sionately pleaded as essential to good government had
been rejected. The Chamber with which he would
have to deal was a Chamber elected under the hated
Scrutin d'Arrondissement, and it had just shown itself
to be utterly incapable of discipline. Nevertheless, he
ascended the tribune, and slowly, sadly, in but very
few words, proposed an "order of the day," vindicat-
ing the honour of France, and declaring that she must
remain true to her engagements. On the following
day, the 10th of November, he was commissioned by
M. Grévy to form a ministry.
That Ministry had long been looked for with a
mighty expectation. It was to be a "Ministry of all
the talents," a ministry consisting for the most part of
ex-prime ministers, or ex-presidents, a ministry of
ministries, a Grand Ministère. That such a body would
have been remarkable for coherence or unity of action
seems unlikely, and there is reason to believe that
the suggestion of the Grand Ministère had first been
thrown out in derision, and as an invention of the
enemy. But the notion had caught the popular
fancy, and Gambetta appears to have considered it
PRE-EMINENCE-PREMIERSHIP-FALL. 199
his duty to try to realise it. He went to M. Say,
the President of the Senate; but they were unable to
agree on financial matters. He then went to M. de
Freycinet; but that somewhat enigmatical person
would give him no assistance. M. Brisson and M.
Challemel-Lacour also intimated that their co-opera-
tion was not to be expected. Then it became useless
to apply to M. Ferry, who had just been defeated
over the Tunis question, and the idea of the Grand
Ministère had to be abandoned. Gambetta, nothing
daunted, turned to the group of his followers, and
got together a ministry composed, for the most part,
of men comparatively unknown, who had never held
office before. Their names were received with any-
thing but enthusiasm. Here was a falling off,
indeed! Hyperion to a satyr-this a Grand Minis-
tère, forsooth! The country felt baulked of its due;
and the Premier's enemies naturally made capital out
of the general disappointment, crying that he was
surrounding himself with mediocrities in order to
exercise an unchecked dictatorship.
.
Nor from the first did the new Ministry make any
way with the Chamber Their opening address, read
by Gambetta on the 15th of November, was coldly re-
ceived. On the 24th, the Minister of the Interior,
M. Waldeck-Rousseau, exasperated the majority of
members by sending a circular to the prefects in
which he boldly told them that their duty was to
the Central Government, that they were the
depositaries of all local authority; and that, for
himself, he intended to send back any local appli-
cations presented to him direct by members, and not
forwarded through the prefects. The members to
have no power in their own districts, and no patron-
200
LIFE OF LÉON GAMBETTA.
age! Here was a revolution which they could ill
brook. From that moment many of them felt that
Gambetta must be deposed, and that soon. Mean-
while, until that happy consummation, it was ob-
viously right that he should be harried. In his
large desire for the development of all the resources
of France, he had created two new and essentially
useful ministries-a ministry of agriculture and a
ministry of arts. The appointments were gravely
opposed on the 8th of December as involving a
violation of the Constitution. In his equally large
desire to put an end at last to the ostracism
which the Republican party had exercised towards
its erewhile adversaries, he had appointed an able
publicist, M. Weiss, to a high post in the Ministry
of Foreign Affairs, and had allowed the War Minister
to appoint a particularly efficient officer, General de
Miribel, as Chief of the Staff. Evidently such ap-
pointments-so argued his enemies-could only have
been made in view of a coup d'état.
There was one
perfectly absurd member who, during the course of a
short discussion about them, even hurled at him the
epithets of "Cæsar" and " Vitellius."
Gambetta was not the man to be disturbed by this
outrageous folly, except in so far as it gave evidence
that his position was being undermined. Even with
this knowledge, he and his colleagues went on with
their administrative and legislative labours as if they
felt secure of holding office for an indefinite period.
M. Reinach gives an account, in some detail, of the
reforms to which they applied themselves-reforms
real and desirable for the most part-and the list
is distinctly creditable as a monument of human
energy. There were to be reforms in the army and
PRE-EMINENCE PREMIERSHIP-FALL. 201
9
navy; reforms in the magistracy, and a reduction of
redundant magistrates; similar reforms in the civil
service, and a wholesale dismissal of unnecessary
placemen; reforms in the relation of the State to the
great railway companies; reforms in matters finan-
cial, educational, agricultural, colonial, ecclesiastical ;
and reforms, above all, in the Constitution, of which a
word or two presently. Here was a
Here was a "ministry of
battle" of a new kind-a ministry of battle against
abuses. No wonder that all these leagued interests
set themselves in array to resist such an onset. Nor
is it without significance that M. Wilson, President
Grévy's son-in-law, since convicted as an arch jobber,
was one of the chief leaders of the host.
The Chambers separated on the 16th of December
1881, and on the 14th of January 1882, six days after
they had reassembled, the indefatigable Gambetta.
was ready with a plan for the revision of the Consti-
tution. His proposals bore on several points, which
need not here be particularised, relating to the mode
of election for the Senate; but the chief proposal of
all, the great rock ahead, was a return to the Scrutin
de Liste. As soon as this was announced murmurs
broke forth. A Commission was appointed, according
to usage, to examine the Bill; and, very ominously,
of the thirty-three members nominated, thirty-two
were hostile. The Commission decided to hear Gam-
betta, and he appeared before them on the 21st of
January; when his explanations were deemed so
little satisfactory that one excited and ridiculous
member rushed out of the room "with terror in his
looks, his hair dishevelled, and pale as death," crying
"It's a coup d'état! It's a revolution in the streets!
What are we coming to? The world is turned
202
LIFE OF LEON GAMBETTA.
topsy-turvy. I feel as if I were walking on my head!
It's the organisation of insurrection!" Another
childish member besought a group of journalists
standing by, "in the name of the Republic,” not to
tell the people how "deplorable" was the attitude of
the President of the Council. With men's minds in
this condition, what reasonable issue could be antici-
pated? The great debate took place on the 26th of
January, and turned for the most part on the question,
not of Scrutin de Liste at all, though that was para-
mount in all thoughts, but of the legitimate powers
of the Congress of the two Chambers when assembled
for the purpose of revising the Constitution. Gam-
betta spoke with superb power and effect. There was
a kind of indignant pathos in his voice as he repu-
diated the odious accusation of aiming at personal
dictatorship :-
To your apprehensions I can but oppose my own uprightness, the
sincerity of my words, the legislative measures we have prepared, my
whole past—and I appeal to your consciences. Nor can I believe
that that Republican legion with which I began my career, with
which I have fought and suffered, will fail us in the day of success any
more than it failed us in the day of battle. In any case, I shall bow
to your verdict without bitterness, and, above all, without the shadow
of a feeling of personal resentment. For, whatever may have been
said to the contrary, there is something that I prize more than any
other object of ambition, however legitimate, and that is, the confidence
of the Republicans, without which I should not be able to accomplish
what is--and I have some right to say so-my allotted task, the
rehabilitation of our country.
The answer to this was an adverse majority of 282
to 227 votes; and on the same evening Gambetta
placed his resignation in the hands of President
Grévy.
Thus fell, after sixty-six days of existence, the
Ministry to which France had looked forward with
PRE-EMINENCE-PREMIERSHIP-FALL. 203
L
such sanguine hopes. It fell before a coalition of the
Extreme Left and of the Right, and of such members
of the Radical and Democratic Left as clung to the
Scrutin d'Arrondissement because that mode of elec-
tion gave them more personal patronage and power.
It fell, therefore, as one may fairly say, before a
coalition of political incapacity and private greed. It
fell after so short a lease of life, and, in one sense, so
easily, that many people came to the conclusion at the
time, as many people have come to the conclusion
since, that Gambetta from the first had never meant
it to stand, and sought the earliest decent opportunity
of letting it go to pieces. Was it conceivable, so
people have
have argued, that a politician so astute
should insist upon carrying the Scrutin de Liste in
that particular Chamber if he had any intention of
remaining in power? Was he not, of set design, play-
ing to lose? But here, I think, a great distinction
must be made. That Gambetta attached an alto-
gether exaggerated importance to the Scrutin de Liste
is unquestionable. Scrutin de Liste is no more a uni-
versal panacea for all the ills to which political flesh is
heir than Universal Suffrage or the Republic. Selfish-
ness and greed, if greatly prevalent in the constituen-
cies, will find an issue under one mode of election as
well as under another. Experience here speaks with
no uncertain voice. France went back for a time to
the Scrutin de Liste after Gambetta's death, and there
was not the slightest improvement in the character of
her representative Assembly. Moreover, Gambetta, in
advocating the change, obviously failed to grasp its
inherent danger, and to perceive what a weapon of
destruction he was placing in the hand of any design-
ing popular politician. Perfectly honest in his own
204
LIFE OF LEON GAMBETTA.
1
intentions, he wanted power for the purpose of build-
ing up and purifying the Republic. Others might
want power for quite difierent purposes. But the
point I wish to insist upon here is not so much the
inherent value of his opinions on the Scrutin de Liste,
as his attitude of mind when pressing it forward.
That attitude, so far as one can judge, seems to have
been this: "I have been accused for months past "-so
he would say to himself—" of exercising an occult and
unconstitutional influence. Well, I have been called
upon to form a responsible ministry, and have done so.
It is, however, scarcely believable—judging from the
character of the Chamber--that my ministry can
live. Yet I will do my best. But in order to keep
in power I shall certainly bate not one jot of the
reforms I consider essential to the good of the
country, Scrutin de Liste among the first. The
chances are that I shall fall anyhow, and that soon,
whether I finesse, and adjourn important questions,
and try to play one party against another, or whether I
pursue a bold, straightforward course. But in the
latter case I so fall that at some future date, in the
country's sore need, I may again have power to do
her service." To this extent, and this only, can he be
supposed, I think, to have "speculated for the fall."
"Without bitterness, and, above all, without the
shadow of a feeling of personal resentment"—so had
Gambetta declared that he would accept the verdict of
the Chamber. He at once resumed the chief editor-
ship of the République Française, took steps to see that
his various projects of reform should not be lost to the
country, and devoted much time to his duties as
president of a commission ou recruiting for the army.
Twice only does he seem to have reappeared at the
PRE-EMINENCE-PREMIERSHIP-FALL. 205
tribune-once on the 1st of June 1882, and again on
the 18th of July, the questions in debate on both occa-
sions being the eternal Egyptian question. And here,
perhaps, it may not be amiss to say a word with regard
to certain matters of foreign policy on which he thought
constantly, yet spoke very seldom. What had been
his attitude during the war, we have seen. In the
"Terrible Year" there had been no stauncher advocate
of resistance to the bitter end. But when once peace
had been declared, he recognised immediately that if
France was to regain her place among the nations
she must walk circumspectly, and cultivate great
prudence of speech. With what must have been a
strong effort-for he had the orator's temperament in
superabundant measure he set a curb upon his
tongue, and carefully abstained during the suc-
ceeding years from uttering any words at which
Prussia could take umbrage. But though he held
that France, in view of her great defeat, ought to
be wary, he was far from desiring that she should
step out of the European Concert altogether, and per-
manently abandon her place as one of the Great
Powers. To say that he ceased to think of her lost
provinces would not be true. He thought of them
constantly, and never lost the hope that they might
sooner or later be regained, either by arms, or diplo-
macy, or a generous recognition on the part of Germany
that their capture had been a mistake. Meanwhile, he
would advocate every measure tending to place France
in the position she had occupied before the war. He
approved of the expedition to Tunis as extending her
influence in the Mediterranean, and had no objection.
to England's compensatory acquisition of Cyprus. He
supported with all his power the dual action of England
*
206
LIFE OF LEON GAMBETTA.
and France in Egypt-that dual action which was so
foolishly abandoned by his successor, M. de Freycinet.
Indeed, with regard to England his attitude was always
cordial. He held that England and France, each in
their several spheres, were the world's two great
liberalising and civilising influences. This is how he
spoke of the English alliance in almost the last words
of the last speech he ever made-words uttered at a
time when he certainly had no reason to anticipate
that he was marked out for death, and yet words that
have in them an almost prophetic ring:-
Gentlemen,-For the last ten years there has been a western policy
in Europe represented by England and France, and allow me to say
here that I know of no other European policy likely to avail us in
the most terrible of the contingencies we may have to face here-
after. And what I am now saying to you, I say with the most pro-
found conviction that I am seeing clearly into the future. [Murmurs
to the Extreme Left.] Those who interrupt me can come to this
place and give their reasons for believing that I know nothing of
foreign politics; but this, at least, I have a right to say: that both
before and after the war of 1870 I have had no more engrossing and
constant object and an object, I pray you to mark well, superior to
all personal and party interests-than the security of France; and I
should loathe myself-I should, in my own estimation, for ever forfeit
the right of speaking in her councils-if I were capable of allowing
anything to weigh for a moment in the balance with her future and
her greatness. Well, I have seen enough to entitle me to say this:
At the cost of whatever sacrifices, never break with the English
alliance Ah! I know what men will say, and I will speak here with the
utmost frankness and lay my whole thoughts bare before you.
I am
certainly an enlightened and sincere friend of the English, but not to the
extent of the sacrifice of French interests. Moreover, be assured that the
English, being the capable politicians that they are, only respect those
allies who respect themselves and know how to take care of their own
interests. And in this very case-and here, I tell you all, I have
nothing to hide-what induces me to seek for the English alliance,
for the co-operation of England in the basin of the Mediterranean and
in Egypt, is—and I pray you to mark me well-is that what I most
apprehend, in addition to an ill-omened estrangement, is that you
PRE-EMINENCE-PREMIERSHIP-FALL. 207
should deliver over to England, and for ever, territories, and rivers,
and waterways, where your right to live and traffic is equal to her own.
*
Gambetta had purchased a house called Les
Jardies at Ville-d'Avray, not far from Versailles
on the Paris side. It was a modest residence enough,
consisting of nothing more sumptuous than the out-
lying buildings of the Château d'opéra comique which
Balzac had inhabited from 1838 to 1842, and where
the great novelist had written apace, and dreamt of
millions amid a bewildering entanglement of debt.
Here, in semi-rural, semi-suburban felicity, Gambetta
was living in the autumn of 1882. That he had
taken his dismissal from office quite without a feeling
of bitterness it would probably be too much to affirm;
and there seem to be indications, such as an occa-
sional ruffling of the hitherto admirable temper, that
he was not altogether in good physical or mental
condition. Still he does not appear to have been
unduly depressed. He was, as he had ever been,
a delightful companion, a "charmeur," as the French
say, and in conversation most brilliant. He had
56
troops of friends," all greatly devoted to him.
Apart from his absorbing political interests, he
possessed the resources of a cultivated literary and
artistic taste. M. Zola, indeed, calls him " more
Philistine than the Philistine Thiers," because he failed
to appreciate the "naturalist" literature of which
M. Zola is the apostle. Yet even M. Zola is constrained
to admit that he had a zeal, however narrow and hide-
bound, for the “ Antique and the Renaissance” in art,
"
* So Balzac described it. The curious will find a full account of
the place in his correspondence.
† He had for some time been growing stout and unwieldy. There
seems to have been clear physical failure.
208
LIFE OF LEON GAMBETTA.
and for "the classics" in literature. And I think the
following extract from a letter,* written by him in
1873, after a visit to a picture gallery in Brussels,
may
be taken as showing that in his appreciation of
art he was not such a "Philistine
"Philistine" after all. The
description of Millet's "Angelus" is particularly sympa-
thetic, and the recognition of the value of English
painting might serve as a useful lesson to many pro-
fessed French art-critics.
The Wilson gallery is specially remarkable for its landscapes.
Standing distinct from the Flemings, who hold an unobtrusive place,
one may fitly praise the three great representatives of the contempo-
rary French school, Dupré, Rousseau, and F. Millet. The first, with
his romantic fervour, triumphs in three landscapes, full of vigour and
boldness. Rousseau gives us his immortal" Forest of Fontainebleau'
""
in which he shows us a kind of pictorial Virgil, imparting to the
forest of our ancient kings the brightness, the colouring, the very
poetry that the great Mantuan shed over Tempe. Millet appears here
with all his marked characteristics as the painter of the seasons, of
the fields, of the peasantry.
The "Angelus "-that masterpiece, in which two peasants stand
bathed in the pale rays of the setting sun, and bow in mystic fervour
as the tinkle of the bell ringing to evening prayer comes stealing from
yon monastery on the horizon-the "Angelus" forces us to think of
the still powerful influence of religious traditions among the rural
population. With what minuteness, and yet with what breadth, do
these two grand figures of the peasant and his servant stand before
us in the still glowing field. The day's work is over. There is the
wheelbarrow full of its harvestage; they are about to return to the
cottage for the night. The bell has rung the curfew of labour, and
immediately these two mysterious animals, as La Bruyère would call
them, rise from the soil and stand there motionless. They are waiting
for, and counting, each stroke of the bell, as they did yesterday, as
they will do to-morrow, in an attitude too natural not to be habitual.
The fleecy, melancholy sky hanging over the landscape empha-
sises the pensiveness of the rest of the composition.
It is an admirable scene, and has a wide significance. You feel that
the artist is not merely a painter-that he is moved by the passions
and problems of his age, that he has his part in them, and that
* Published in the Times of July the 9th, 1889.
•
•
*
PRE-EMINENCE-PREMIERSHIP-FALL.
209
what he feels and thinks he carries on to his canvas. Painting, as
thus understood, ceases to be only an appeal to the eye. It rises to
higher things, moralising and educating. The artist draws a kind of
inspiration from his own citizenship, and in addition to a grand and
noble picture, you get a lesson in social and political morality.
What is very unusual, the English occupy, and justly so, the most
distinguished place in this gallery. Turner, Constable, and Rey-
nolds represent with sovereign majesty the art of their country.
Turner shows more of reason and restraint than in the works of his
which you may see in his native land. Constable displays that
genuine feeling for nature which made of him the father of the
"naturalist" school of painting-which led him to cast aside all
conventions, artifices, all pseudo Greek and Roman idealisations, and
to see and understand and admire grass and water and trees in their
own great beauty; and, having seen and remembered, to fix . . . on
canvas the vagueness of Nature's outlines, and the variableness of her
tints-anxious only to secure two things: truth of light and truth of
form. Such was Constable, and such he shows himself in this fine
gallery; and it is not without emotion that we have here revived our
memories of a man but for whom the great school of French land-
scape painters might perchance be still copying and diluting the
art left to us by Lesueur, Poussin, Vernet, Girodet, and the
other lovers of Greek temples amid pasteboard trees.
But the gem of the collection . . .. is the Reynolds, for everything
is to be found in this marvellous picture of his, just as Nature and
Humanity are epitomised in Millet's "Angelus." And here, too, we
have Nature, in the fresh shade of an immense English park, and
Humanity in all the grace of maternal love.
A young widow,
beautiful exceedingly, is playing with the baby (Gambetta wrote the
word in English) seated on her lap. She sees in its features the
image of a loved husband; and, as though the child were unconsciously
imitating some gesture of its dead father, it lifts its chubby little pink
hand to the mother's chin. Even in her sorrow she cannot help
smiling. And the smile, like a flower suddenly unfolding in the
midst of a storm, brings to the memory those splendid lines in which
Homer tells how Hector's young wife, as she bade the hero . . . fare-
well, smiled through her tears when the child Astyanax played all
unconscious with the plume on his father's helmet. In the moist
yet happy eyes of Reynolds's widow are mingled sad memories and
pleasing hopes-the hopes bound up in the full strength and promise
of the active little creature she holds in her lap. It is impossible to
give better expression to what is noble and pathetic in family life.
All things end, and all things begin again. Flowers spring up and
•
•
•
• •
•
•
14
210
LIFE OF LEON GAMBETTA.
flourish on graves. And, after all, what to Nature, which knows no
end, are our joys, our griefs, our disappointments? She is for ever
inexhaustible. We, in her hands, are but as material which she tries
and rejects in the process of her divine architecture. Our pride, our
duty, our honour, and also our reward, consist in understanding her,
and, if possible, helping her forward; but, at all events, in appearing
and departing with an equal fortitude and an equal impassiveness.
M. Daudet, too, may be taken as a witness of the
interest Gambetta took in the things of the spirit:
Gambetta [he says] was one of the very few politicians who care
for art, and suspect that letters really do occupy some little place in
a nation's life. . . . I met him once again.
There was no
explanation between us [M. Daudet, it will be remembered,had attacked
him with some violence after the war]. He came to me holding out
both his hands; it was at Ville-d'Avray, at the house of Alphonse
Lemerre, the publisher, the house so long inhabited by the painter
Corot. We lunched in the garden, in the open air, among the
flowers and the birds, and remained the whole of the afternoon talk-
ing of the past.
Then we turned to art and literature. Gambetta,
I noticed with joy, read everything, looked at everything that was
worth looking at, remained what he had been of yore, a skilled con-
noisseur in art and a lettered critic. Five delightful hours we spent
there, in that green and flowery retreat, situated between Paris and
Versailles, and yet so remote from all the roar of politics.
•
•
•
This interview took place before Gambetta had
purchased his own house at Ville-d'Avray, and con-
sequently before the time of which I am speaking.
But still I think M. Daudet's description may be taken
as suggesting the kind of life which the deposed Prime
Minister was living at Les Jardies when, on the 27th
of November, Paris was startled by the announce-
ment that he had been wounded in the hand and fore-
arm by a pistol-shot. All sorts of rumours were imme-
diately afloat: he had tried to commit suicide-there
was a woman in the case, and the pistol had been dis-
charged in the midst of a struggle and altercation.
The truth seems to be that the accident was an accident
merely, and had resulted from the incautious handling
PRE-EMINENCE-PREMIERSHIP-FALL. 211
At first the wound seemed to
of a loaded weapon.
be progressing fairly enough, and no ill results were
anticipated. But as the days went on, grave compli-
cations set in-serious abdominal derangement, peri-
tonitis, growing weakness. He himself appears to
have had no clear notion that his end was approaching.
Those about him, however the medical men who
were unremitting in their attention, the friends who
loved his great nature, the woman-for there was a
woman there, who had shared his later life and now
never left his side-these can scarcely have retained
any illusion.
He died with the dying year, at five
minutes to twelve on the 31st of December 1882.
Then, above the strife and the hubbub of parties,
France raised her great voice. She felt that in losing
Gambetta she was losing the most passionately de-
voted of her sons; the son who, in the hour of her
need, had done most for her honour and highest
interest. She felt, too, confusedly and yet with a
sure instinct, that though he might, during the last
few months, have seemed a failure, she would yet,
perchance, stand in need of his strong arm at some
future time; and then he seemed so young to die, and
his death was so sudden! If he had had faults, they
were forgotten. When would she see his like again?
That the feeling of the country should find expression
in a public funeral was a matter of course. Mean-
while the body lay in state, and thousands, including
some of the most illustrious in the land, came sorrow-
fully to look at the face which bore once again in
death the look of youthful serenity and strength that
had faded from it in the "Terrible Year." But of
posthumous honours, of the wreaths sent in by
14 *
212
LIFE OF LEON GAMBETTA.
hundreds, the imposing funeral procession, the sym-
pathetic and sorrowing crowds, the eloquent addresses
at the grave in the Cemetery of Père-Lachaise,
-what need to speak at length here? These were
the man's due, fairly earned by great services,
and they were duly paid. One incident only connected
with the funeral ceremonies shall I stop to record, as
having a peculiar pathos and significance. On the night
before the interment it was the delegates of Alsace and
Lorraine who, at their own earnest request, kept watch
by the dead.
One incident more, however: though borne to Père-
Lachaise on the 4th of January 1883, the body rests.
otherwhere. Not within sound of the murmur of the
great city he had loved so well does Gambetta lie.
His father willed it otherwise--whether anxious that
in death his son should not be divided from his
own people, or by what other reason impelled, I know
not. Nor was the old man moved from his determina-
tion by the many who held that Paris was the patriot
statesman's right place of sepulture. So on the 13th
of January the body was conveyed to Nice, and there
re-interred, on the following day, in the grave where his
mother had lately been laid, and where lay also the
aunt by whom he had, in earlier years, been tended
with such devotion.
.
There he rests, if so be that the grave is a resting-
place, in the high terraced cemetery, with the blue
southern sky above, and the bluer Mediterranean below
-in a place, for its beauty, not unfit to be a great
man's last home, and yet surely less appropriate as the
last home of Gambetta than a grave within sound of
the central beating heart of France.
213
CHAPTER X.
CONCLUSION.
Objects for which Gambetta strove The Empire-The War-The
establishment of the Republic-Where he was wrong-Democracy
-His eloquence-His supreme honour.
FOURTEEN years, from the 14th of November 1868 to
31st of December 1882, so long and no longer had it
taken to exhaust Gambetta's exuberant vitality. He
was a young man of thirty at the earlier of these dates;
he was only forty-four when he died; and yet within
the short intervening space what a throng of
events, and what unceasing labours and anxieties!
Twice he had been, without question, the foremost man
in France: once during his dictatorship in the year of
the war, and again when he was leading the Republican
forces to victory over the various Monarchical parties.
That his prestige and influence had suffered some decline
with the fall of his Ministry is undeniable; but it was
a decline that had in it all the promise of a new and
ampler day. Had he lived till now, there seems little
doubt that France, in her sore need and dearth of men,
would have turned to him again as her one real states-
man.
With regard to the value of his life-work, and the
214
LIFE OF LEON GAMBETTA.
means by which it was effected, there is room un-
questionably for a wide difference of opinion. He
started on his public career with three great objects
of worship-fetishes, as one may say. The first was the
French Revolution, which he regarded as the great
era of emancipation for the human race. The second
was Universal Suffrage, which he held to be, not indeed
the vox dei, for there was no deus in his philosophy,
but the rightful source of all political power. And
the third was the Republic, which he considered as the
only form of government allowing to the will of the
people free and unfetterd sway. With these objects of
worship the Empire was incompatible. It might boast
itself the descendant of the Revolution and the offspring
of Universal Suffrage; but obviously there was a bar
sinister somewhere, and towards Universal Suffrage
in particular it was in the habit of behaving in a very
unfilial manner, while with the Republic it was at
deadly feud. So to the fiery young paladin of the
Baudin trial the Empire was as a blatant beast to be
exterminated at all hazards. Nor, whatever view be
taken of the ultimate dangers inherent in his mode of
attack, can it be said, I think, that his hostility was
not justified. As I have already endeavoured to show,
the government founded by Louis Napoleon had no real
root in the country, no power of bearing fruit for the
healing of the nation. Those who helped to cut it down
were not blameworthy.
Then came the war, and here Gambetta played a
part which, however vilified at the time, was grand
and heroic. If France emerged from her troubles and
disasters uncrushed as a nation, with her superb past
uncancelled, and with possibilities of a great future
still before her, she owes it mainly to him.
He it was
CONCLUSION.
215
who taught her not to despair, even in her darkest
hour; he it was who made her enemies understand
that, though defeated, she was not to be trampled
on with impunity.
After the war, the nature of his task changed. He
himself was for the time discredited by the failure of
his military efforts; and the hideous insurrection of the
Commune had naturally shed a very baleful light on
the Radical cause to which he was attached. More-
over, the majority of the Assembly governing France
was Monarchical and reactionary. To show that he
himself was no mere fire-brand, that the Republican
party had no necessary connection with insurrection
and disorder, and that the Republican form of govern-
ment was that which France must necessarily adopt-
these were the objects he kept steadily in view. And
one can but admire the skill and general prudence
with which he carried them out. Diversely as his
career may be judged, scarcely anyone would say that
from 1871 to 1882 he did not prove himself to be a
sane and responsible statesman. Notwithstanding all
provocations, he kept the Republican party within
strictly legal bounds while the Monarchists were using
all their efforts to upset the Republic, and he demon-
strated the superiority of that form of government
by the best of practical arguments-by giving his
opponents room and verge enough to show that they
could establish no other.
With the final defeat of the Monarchists his task
changed, to some extent, again. He had no longer to
conduct his forces to the attack of a hostile position.
But as he had had to teach to those forces discipline
in battle, so now he had to induce them to use mode-
ration in victory, and that without exciting a suspicion
216
LIFE OF LÉON GAMBETTA.
that he himself was lukewarm in the good cause.
Hence his "Opportunism." Hence, too, in great part,
his defeat, for the Reactionists opposed him because
they knew that at heart he was a Democratic Radical,
with Democratic Radical ends in view, while the
Democratic Radicals blamed him for sloth and apathy.
Thus, then, to recapitulate, he was right in think-
ing that the Empire must be swept away, and that a
Republic was the best form of government for France.
He was right, too, grandly right, in his course during
the war.
He was right afterwards in his desire to
restrain the wild ardour of his party, and teach them
the ways of compromise and moderation. Where, then,
was he wrong ?-for wrong somewhere he presumably
must have been, seeing that the success of the policy
which he may be said, speaking generally, to have
advocated, has led Republicanism in France to its
present most doubtful position.
L
He was wrong in his fetish-worship-wrong in not
having sufficiently assimilated his own Opportunist
philosophy to see that Universal Suffrage, the Repub-
lic, the Organisation of the Democracy, are, at best,
but means to an end, and that if they do not con-
duce to the establishment of a sound and just
polity, they are but as small dust in the balance.
He was wrong in thinking that it was possible to
found a stable government on the mere reasoning
power-such as it is-of the majority, divorced from
all sane tradition and the humanising influences of the
past. He was wrong in the foolish optimism which
led him to believe that the general vote would neces-
sarily be exercised for the general good, and that uni-
versal sovereignty might be made to mean universal
wisdom. He was wrong, in short, in being spite of
CONCLUSION.
217
his surface Opportunism-a disciple of the eighteenth
century, and regarding man as an abstract being
compounded of reason alone, and to be governed by
an appeal to that one faculty.
We are witnessing in France-not to say elsewhere
a strong movement towards democracy. What that
movement may lead to, none can tell. Whether it
will result, as its advocates hold, in a juster appor-
tionment of life's burdens and pleasures, and a real
advance in man's development; or whether its out-
come will be, as the pessimists among us see reason to
fear, a temporary retrogression to something like
barbarism-these are matters on which the Future alone
can speak with an authoritative voice. One thing,
however, seems pretty certain—that if the democratic
movement is to end in anything but disaster, it must
be effected slowly, step by step, here a little and there
a little, and with infinite diffidence. And this is no
mere saw of insular Conservatism. It is a deduction,
as one may say, from Nature's method of work, and
of general application. Nor did Gambetta, as expe-
rience taught him its lessons, fail to see such truths
altogether; but whether driven onwards in a vain
attempt to conciliate his party, or by native impa-
tience of temperament, he failed to grasp them to
sufficient purpose, and he has, alas! not left behind
him a firmly constituted Republic.
Of what may be called his tactical mistakes in the
great parliamentary campaigns of the last eleven years
of his life I have already spoken, and need not
speak again at any length here. It was a mistake
to weaken Thiers by supporting the election of M.
Barodet in 1873. It was a mistake to argue that the
Assembly of 1871 had no right to establish a perma-
20
218
LIFE OF LÉON GAMBETTA.
nent constitution, and then, when it suited his pur-
pose, to accept a constitution from that same Assembly.
It was a mistake to outrage the religious feeling of
France, and alienate whole classes of citizens, by his
repeated attacks on "Clericalism." It was a mistake
to countenance the sacrificing of hecatombs of per-
manent officials to the desire of his party for places
and pelf. It was a mistake to perpetuate and envenom
old feuds by such measures as the wholesale invalida-
tion of hostile elections. It was a mistake—but why
continue the catalogue? Who in such troublous
waters as the politics of France from 1871 to 1882
could have guided his bark without shipping a sea here
and there? Rather should we dwell on the general
skill and courage of Gambetta's pilotage. Rather
should we specially mark that amid all the tempta-
tions to which French Radicals are specially exposed,
he resolutely set himself against Socialism, Com-
munism, Cosmopolitanism, and similar quackeries.
As regards the essential bases of human society he
spoke ever with no uncertain voice.
And what an eloquent voice it was! To judge of
an orator by his reported speeches, as the future will
have perforce to judge of Gambetta's eloquence, is
always to some extent unjust. It is not merely that
the printed page fails to reproduce the personality of
the speaker, his voice, his action, the fervour and pas-
sion which he throws into his words-all, in short,
that make of a delivered speech a living thing. It is
that the art of the orator is essentially different from
the art of the writer, that he instinctively arranges
his subject in broader, bolder masses, and avoids its
depths and subtleties as being difficult of ready appre-
hension, and, therefore, not adapted to his purpose.
CONCLUSION.
219
Thus the speech which in the delivery may have been
admirably effective, may to the reader seem over-
emphasised, redundant in exposition, and of the sur-
face. All this should in justice be remembered when
judging the eleven volumes of Gambetta's collected
speeches. They are not literature, but oratory, and
as such they should be estimated. And when so esti-
mated, it is impossible not to recognise what an
admirable speaker the man was. Apart from a voice
of magnificent power and compass, he had great gifts.
He knew how to arrange his subject on broad lines
which no one could mistake. He knew how to make
the mere exposition of his case as effective as a serried
argument. He had at command, and, what is rarer
still, strictly under command, a great array of eloquent
and overwhelming words. No speaker possessed in a
higher degree the faculty of crystallising a whole
situation into one flashing sentence. No speaker was
more ready under the fire of interruption. Of course
there are points at which other great orators have sur-
passed him. He had not Bright's charm of simplicity
and naturalness, nor Bright's touches of pathos. He
could not wing a shaft of ridicule like Beaconsfield.
Thiers' flawless lucidity, Jules Favre's elegance of
diction, these lay beyond him. For mere gladiatorial
skill, the faculty of seizing the weakest point in his op-
ponent's case, and presenting the strongest point in
his own, Mr. Gladstone was and is more than his
rival. Mirabeau's was unquestionably the louder
thunder. But, take him for all in all, as a popular
platform orator, as a parliamentary speaker gaining
the ear of a hostile assembly, as a debater, as a master
of scathing rhetoric, as a statesman using speech for
the purposes of government, he fairly holds his own
220
LIFE OF LÉON GAMBETTA.
against all comers. And there are some of his
patriotic utterances that have in them the ring as of a
trumpet blast.
-
Such utterances came straight from his heart.
They were the very voice of the intense and passionate
love he bore to France. Whether, with a longer lease.
of life, and new opportunities, it would have been
given to him to render his country the supreme ser-
vice of permanently settling the form of her govern-
ment, may be doubted. He had patriotism enough
and disinterestedness enough to play the part of
Washington. But in France, and in this disinte-
grated nineteenth century of ours, that part offers
greater difficulties than those which Washington
had to face. Nor can it be denied that some of
Gambetta's own acts had not tended to make future
success more easy. Probably, therefore, he would have
failed, as every French statesman has failed in similar
attempts for the last hundred years. But against this
hypothetical failure must be set his success during the
war. Yes, success. True he did not roll back the tide of
the German invasion, did not even stay its advance, did
not save Alsace and Lorraine. And yet he succeeded
in the same sense as the Revenge succeeded in her
fight with the Spanish fleet at the Azores, or the Six
Hundred in their charge through the Valley of Death
at Balaklava. He succeeded because he gave to his
country a memory of heroic resistance to overwhelm-
ing odds, and of undaunted fortitude in disaster. He
succeeded because he compelled the world to respect
her even in defeat. And therefore, so long as she
remains a nation, there will linger about his memory
a light of honour and grateful pride.
дни париета
·
A.
Arago, 2, 70, 97.
INDEX.
B.
Barbou, M., life of Gambetta
quoted, 16, 18 (note).
Barodet, M., his election, 122-
123; 217.
Baudin, his death, 5.
Baudin Trial, 1-2, 5-12, 40.
Bazaine, 61, 87.
Benedetti, 56.
Berryer, 3, 8, 9, 23, 31.
Bert, Paul, 120.
Beulé, M., 128, 129.
Bismarck, Prince, 55, 95, 96, 97.
Blanc, Louis, 102, 114.
Bonaparte, Pierre, kills Victor
Noir, 45-46, 47.
Bordeaux, Pacte de, 107-109.
Bordeaux, the seat of the Govern-
ment of the Delegation, 94-97 ;
Assembly meets there, 101.
Boulanger, General, 192.
Bourbaki, General, 91, 92, 93,
98.
Brisson, M., 146; refuses to join
Gambetta's Ministry, 199.
Broglie, M. de, 124, 128, 136,
149, 152; Ministry of the
16th of May 1877, 166, 170;
defeated 172.
Buffet, M., 58, 150, 151, 152,
155, 163.
C.
Cahors, 14, 17, 19.
Castellane, Marquis de, quoted,
90
Challemel-Lacour, M., 25, 26,
120, 162, 183; refuses to join
Gambetta's Ministry, 199.
Chambord, Comte de, 133, 134;
refuses to give up the white
flag, 134-135; 136.
Changarnier, 9; attacks Gam-
betta, 118.
Chanzy, General, 91, 93, 98, 99.
Cissey, M. de, 145, 149.
Clémenceau, M., 160, 189.
"Clericalism," 160-162; 180,
218.
Constable, Gambetta's view of his
art, 209.
Coup d'Etat of 1851, 2-5, 6, 8–
11, 40-41.
Crémieux, 1, 21, 66, 70, 79, 80,
83, 86, 93.
D.
Daudet, M., quoted, 18, 177, 210.
Delescluse, 21, 26, 77.
Dufaure, 124; appointed Prime
Minister, 156, 163; again, 173;
178; Ministry comes to an end,
183-184.
Duval, M. Raoul, 117.
222
INDEX.
E.
Egyptian Question, Gambetta's
views on, 206–207.
English Alliance,
views on, 206–207.
Gambetta's
F.
Faidherbe, General, 93, 98, 99.
Favre, Jules, 21, 36, 58, 60, 63,
64, 65, 68, 69, 70, 81, 82, 94,
95, 102, 108, 109, 219.
Ferry, M. Jules, 68, 70, 152,
187; Ministry comes to an end,
197, 199.
Fourichon, Admiral, 29, 80, 84,
96.
Fourtou, M. de, appointed Minis·
ter on the 16th May 1877, 166;
168, 170; defeated, 172; fights
duel with Gambetta, 183.
Franco-German War, circum-
stances leading thereto, 52-
59; 60, 84, 85; defeat of
Germans at Coulmiers, 88;
repulse of French, 89-90;
final defeat of French in all
directions, 92-94; end of war,
94, 95.
Freycinet, M. de, 87, 88, 89, 153,
187; refuses to join Gam-
betta's Ministry, 199, 206.
G.
Gambetta, Joseph (Gambetta's
father), 13, 193; refuses to
allow his son to be buried in
Paris, 212.
Gambetta, Léon, speech at Bau-
din trial, 2, 8-12; parentage,
13-14; birth, 14; education,
15-19; starts as an avocat,
20-24; early political bias,
22-25; returned by Paris
and Marseilles, 33, 34; first
speech in the Chamber, 43-
44; speaks against Plebis-
cite, 49-50; opposes war, 57-
58; 60, 61, 63, 64; tries to
Gambetta, Léon-cont.
keep order in Chamber on 4th
September 1870, 66-67; pro-
poses to proclaim Republic,
68; appointed Minister of the
Interior, 70; explains his atti-.
tude on 4th September 1870,
74-72; wishes the Government
to remove its seat from Paris,
78; leaves Paris in balloon for
Tours, 81-84; stirs the coun-
try to action, 84-86; personal
courage, 90; fortitude under
defeat, 91, 92; refuses to
yield, 95; estimate of his
action during the war, 98-100;
elected by four Departments,
102; retires to St. Sebastian,
103; re-elected to Assembly,
105; speaks at Bordeaux, June
1871, 109-112; attitude in
August 1871, 113; supports
M. Barodet's election, 123;
attacks the De Broglie-Beulé
Ministry, 128-132; attitude in
view of attempted Royalist re-
storation, 135-136; renews his
attacks on the Empire, 137-
139; becomes an Opportunist,
141-143; mainly instrumental
in obtaining recognition of Re-
public, 147; speaks on Scrutin
de Liste and Scrutin d'Arron-
dissement, 151; takes active
part in elections for Senate,
153; tries to obtain fusion of
the Republican party, 156–
157 views on
;
"Clericalism,"
160-161; appeals to Marshal
MacMahon against M. Jules
Simon's dismissal, 165–166; ac-
tive part in electoral campaign
of 1877, 169–171; his position
at the beginning of 1878, 175–
176; preaches moderation,
182; fights duel with M. de
Fourtou, 183; elected Presi-
dent of the Chamber, 185–
187; repudiates accusation of
exercising an occult influence,
188; advocates Scrutin de
INDEX.
223
Gambetta, Léon-cont.
Liste, 192; visits Cahors, 193;
explains his policy since he
entered public life, 194-196;
meets with momentary check
at Belleville, 196, 197; accepts
Premiership 197-198; brings
forward plan for revision of
Constitution, including Scrutin
de Liste, 201-202; defeated
and resigns, 202; views
English alliance, 206-207;
some of his views on art, 208-
210; his death on 31st Decem-
ber 1882, 211; obsequies, 211,
212; general review of his
career, 213-220; character of
his eloquence, 218-220.
Garibaldi, 98.
Girardin, Saint-Marc, 114, 115.
Glais-Bizoin, 70, 79, 80, 84, 86,
96.
on
Goltz, Baron Colmar von der, on
Gambetta's attitude during the
War, 100.
Gramont, M. de, 56, 57.
Grand Ministère, 198–199.
Grévy, M., 102, 122, 147; elected
President of Republic, 184
185, 187; opposed to Scrutin
de Liste, 194, 197; at length
commissions Gambetta to form
a Ministry, 198, 201.
H.
Hohenzollern incident, 55-59.
Hugo, Victor, 6, 10, 37, 45, 102,
114, 153.
J.
I.
Imperial, Prince, 133, 135, 137.
Jardies, Les, Gambetta's resi-
dence at the time of his death,
207.
K.
Kératry, M. de, 36, 69.
L.
Laurier, Clément, 21, 86, 91.
Leboeuf, General, 43, 57.
Louis Napoleon, 2-3, 35, 37, 55
62, 71, 137.
M.
MacMahon, Marshal, 61; elected
President of Republic, 125,
128, 145, 155, 163; dismisses M.
Jules Simon, 164-167; appeals
to the country, 169; submits,
173;
resigns Presidentship,
183-184.
Manteuffel, General, 93.
Massabie, Jenny (Gambetta's
aunt), 20-21, 120, 212.
Maupas, M. de, 35, 41.
Metz, fall of, 87.
Millet's Angelus," criticism of,
by Gambetta, 208-209.
Miribel, General de, 200.
Morny, 41.
Morley, John, Mr., 39.
N.
Naquet, M., 154.
Noir, Victor, his death, 45-46,
47.
0.
Ollivier, M., 29, 35, 37-38, 40,
42, 43, 45, 48, 55, 56, 57, 60.
Opportunisme, 141, 148, 158, 181;
expounded by Gambetta, 194-
196.
Orléans, fighting round, 86, 87.
P.
Paladine, d'Aurelles de, 87; de-
feats the Germans, 88; his
inactivity, 89, 99.
Palikao, Comte de, 63, 64, 65.
Paris, Comte de, 133, 134.
224
INDEX.
Paris invested, 80; capitulates,
94; significance of elections in,
122; Chamber moves thither
from Versailles, 187.
Persigny, de, 35, 41..
Picard, Ernest, 70, 108, 109.
Prevost-Paradol, 23.
Pyat, Félix, 77.
Q.
Quinet, 114, 150.
R.
Reinach, M., editor of Gambetta's
speeches, 22, 23, 167, 184,
185, 200, 201.
Remusat, M. de, 121, 122.
République française, Gambetta's
paper, founded, 115; character
of the paper, 120–121, 204.
Revolutions in France, 38-40;
revolution of 4th September
1870, 64-70; Gambetta's view
of, 72-74, 113, 114-115.
Reynolds, Sir Joshua, criticism
of one of his pictures by Gam-
betta, 209.
Rivet, M., 113, 114.
Rochefort, M., 35-45; attitude
with respect to Victor Noir's
death, 46-47, 48; 69, 70, 79,
119, 189.
Rouher, 35, 62, 138, 179.
S.
Saint-Arnaud, 41.
Sarcey, M., quoted, 24.
Say, M. Léon, 187; refuses to
join Gambetta's Ministry, 199.
Schneider, 63, 67.
Scrutin d'Arrondissement,
151,
190-194, 198, 203.
Scrutin de Liste, 151; accepted
by Chamber, but rejected by
Senate, 190 194; question
again brought forward by
Gambetta, 201, 203, 204.
<
9
Sedan, French defeat at, 62, 64.
Simon, M. Jules, 69, 70, 75, 76,
78; delegated to Bordeaux to
put an end to war, 95-97; 108,
114, 121, 152; his Ministry
and dismissal, 163-165.
Spuller, M., 68, 82, 83, 91, 120,
153.
T.
Tann, General von der, 86.
Ténot, his history of Coup
d'État, 6, 7
Thiers, 9, 23, 34; protests
against war, 56, 58, 65, 67,
96, 100, 102; his position after
the war, 106-108, 109, 118,
121, 122, 123; deposed from
Presidentship of Republic,
125, 126, 127, 128, 140, 144,
156, 168, 169; his death, 178,
219.
"Third Party, The," 29, 37, 42.
Trochu, General, 70.
Tours, the seat of the war dele-
gation, 79, 80, 81, 84, 85;
evacuated, 91.
U.
Universal Suffrage, 44, 50, 80,
112, 117, 190, 214, 216.
√.
Veuillot, Louis, 126.
W.
Waddington, M., 187.
Waldeck-Rousseau, M., 199.
Wallon, M., 145.
Washburn, Mr., 70, 157, 168
(note), 169.
Weiss, M., 200.
Wilson, M., 201.
Wolff, Albert, M., 24.
Z.
Zola, M., 207.
London: Printed by W. H. Allen & Co., 13 Waterloo Place. S.W.
112
114
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اقد
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