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GAMBETTA, LEON (1838-1882)
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See also:GAMBETTA, See also:LEON (1838-1882) , See also:French statesman, was See also:born at See also:Cahors on the 2nd of See also:April 1838. His See also:father, a Genoese, who had established himself as a See also:grocer and had married a French-woman named Massabie, is said to have been his son's prototype in vigour and fluency of speech. In his sixteenth See also:year See also:young Gambetta lost by an See also:accident the sight of his See also:left See also:eye, which eventually had to be removed. Notwithstanding this privation, he highly distinguished himself at the public school of Cahors, and in 1857 proceeded to See also:Paris to study See also:law. His See also:southern vehemence gave him See also:great See also:influence among the students of the Quartier Latin, and he was soon known as an inveterate enemy of the imperial See also:government. He was called to the See also:bar in 1859, but, although contributing to a Liberal See also:review, edited by Challemel Lacour, did not make much way until, on the 17th of See also:November 1868, he was selected to defend the journalist See also:Delescluze, prosecuted for having promoted the erection of a See also:monument to the representative Baudin, who was killed in resisting the coup d'etat of 1851. Gambettaseizedhisopportunity and assailed both the coup d'etat and the government with an eloquence of invective which made him immediately famous. In May 1866 he was returned to the See also:Assembly, both by the first circumscription of Paris and by See also:Marseilles, defeating Hippolyte See also:Carnot for the former See also:constituency and See also:Thiers and See also:Lesseps for the latter. He elected to sit for Marseilles, and lost no opportunity of attacking the See also:Empire in the Assembly. He was at firstopposed to the See also:war with See also:Germany, but when satisfied that it had been forced upon See also:France he did not, like some of his colleagues, refuse to See also:vote supplies, but took the patriotic See also:line of supporting the See also:flag. When the See also:news of the disaster at See also:Sedan reached Paris, Gambetta called for strong See also:measures. He himself proclaimed the fall of the See also:emperor at the See also:corps legislatif, and the See also:establishment of a See also:republic at the hotel de ville. He was one of the first members of the new govern4ment of See also:national See also:defence, becoming See also:minister of the interior. He advised his colleagues to leave Paris and conduct the government from some provincial See also:city. This See also:advice was rejected from dread of another revolution in Paris, and a delegation to organize resistance in the provinces was despatched to See also:Tours, but when this was seen to be inefficient Gambetta himself (7th See also:October) quitted Paris in a See also:balloon, and upon arriving at Tours took the supreme direction of affairs as minister of the interior and of war. Aided by M. de See also:Freycinet, then a young officer of See also:engineers, as his assistant secretary of war, he displayed prodigies of See also:energy and intelligence. He speedily organized an See also:army, which might possibly have effected the See also:relief of Paris if See also:Metz had held out, but the surrender of See also:Bazaine brought the army of the See also:crown See also:prince into the See also: This policy he continued during the early days of the now consolidated Republic, and gave it the appropriate name of " opportunism." It was not until the 4th of May 1877, when the peril from reactionary intrigues was notorious, and the clerical party had begun a See also:campaign for the restoration of the temporal power of the See also:pope, that he delivered his famous speech denouncing " clericalism " as " the enemy." On the 16th of May Marshal MacMahon, in See also:order to support the clerical reactionaries, perpetrated his parliamentary coup d'etat, and on the 15th of See also:August Gambetta, in a speech at See also:Lille, gave him the alternative se soumettre ou se demettre. He then under-took a political campaign to rouse the republican party through-out France, which culminated in a speech at See also:Romans (See also:September 18, 1878) formulating its See also:programme. MacMahon, equally unwilling to resign or to provoke See also:civil war, had no choice but to dismiss his advisers and See also:form a moderate republican See also:ministry under the premiership of See also:Dufaure. When the resignation of the Dufaure See also:cabinet brought about the See also:abdication of Marshal MacMahon, Gambetta declined to become a See also:candidate for the See also:presidency, but gave his support to See also:Grevy; nor did he See also:attempt to form a ministry, but accepted the office of See also:president of_ the chamber of deputies (January 1879). This position, which he filled with much ability, did not pre-vent his occasionally descending from the presidential See also:chair to make speeches, one of which, advocating an See also:amnesty to the communards, was especially memorable. Although he really directed the policy of the various ministries, he evidently thought that the See also:time was not ripe for asserting openly his own claims to See also:direct the policy of the Republic, and seemed inclined to observe a neutral attitude as far as possible; but events hurried him on, and early in 1881 he placed himself at the head of a See also:movement for restoring scrutin de liste, or the See also:system by which deputies are returned by the entire See also:department which they represent, so that each elector votes for several representatives at once, in See also:place of scrutin d'See also:arrondissement, the system of small constituencies, giving one member to each See also:district and one vote'to each elector. A See also:bill to re-establish scrutin de liste was passed by the Assembly on l9th May 1881, but rejected by the See also:Senate on the 19th of June. But this See also:personal rebuff could not alter the fact that in the See also:country his was the name which was on the lips of the voters at the See also:election. His supporters were in a large See also:majority, and on the reassembling of the chamber, the See also:Ferry cabinet quickly resigned. Gambetta was unwillingly entrusted by Grevy on the 14th of November 1881 with the formation of a ministry—known as Le See also:Grand Ministere. He now experienced the See also:Nemesis of his over-cautious system of See also:abstinence from office for fear of compromising his popularity. Every one suspected him of aiming at a dictatorship; attacks, not the less formidable for their injustice, were directed against him from all sides, and his cabinet fell on the 26th of January 1882, after an existence of only sixty-six days. Had he remained in office his declarations leave no doubt that he would have cultivated the See also:British See also:alliance and co-operated with Great See also:Britain in See also:Egypt; and when the Freycinet See also:administration, which succeeded, shrank from that enterprise only to see it undertaken with See also:signal success by See also:England alone, Gambetta's foresight was quickly justified. His fortunes were presenting a most interesting problem when, on the 31st of December 1882, at his See also:house in Ville d'Avray, near Sevres, he died by a shot from a revolver which accidentally went off. Then all France awoke to a sense of her See also:obligation to him, and his public funeral on the 6th of January 1883 evoked one of the most overwhelming displays of national sentiment ever witnessed on a similar occasion. Gambetta rendered France three inestimable services: by preserving her self-respect through the gallantry of the resistance he organized during the See also:German War, by his tact in persuading extreme partisans to accept a moderate Republic, and by his energy in overcoming the usurpation attempted by the advisers of Marshal MacMahon. His See also:death, at the early See also:age of See also:forty-four, cut See also:short a career which had given promise of still greater things, for he had real statesmanship in his conceptions of the future of his country, and he had an eloquence which would have been potent in the See also:education of his supporters. The See also:romance of his See also:life was his connexion with Leonie Leon (d. 1906), the full details of which were not known to the public till her death. This See also:lady, with whom Gambetta fell in love in 1871, was the daughter of a French See also:artillery officer. She became his See also:mistress, and the liaison lasted till he died. Gambetta himself constantly urged her to marry him during this See also:period, but she always refused, fearing to See also:compromise his career; she remained, however, his confidante and intimate adviser in all his political plans. It is understood that at last she had just consented to become his wife, and the date of the See also:marriage had been fixed, when the accident which caused his death occurred in her presence. Contradictory accounts have indeed been given as to this fatal See also:episode, but that it was accidental, and not See also:suicide, is certain. On Gambetta the influence of Leonie was absorbing, both as See also:lover and as politician, and the See also:correspondence which has been published shows how much he depended upon her. But in various matters of detail the serious student of political See also:history must be cautious in accepting her later recollections, some of which have been embodied in the writings of M. See also:Francis Laur, such as that an actual interview took place in 1878 between Gambetta and Bismarck. That Gambetta after 1875 See also:felt strongly that the relations between France and Germany might he improved, and that he made it his See also:object, by travelling incognito, to become better acquainted with Germanyand the adjoining states, may be accepted, but M. Laur appears to have exaggerated the extent to which any actual negotiations took place. On the other See also:hand, the increased knowledge of Gambetta's attitude towards See also:European politics which later See also:information has supplied confirms the view that in him France lost prematurely a See also:master mind, whom she could See also:ill spare. In April 1905 a monument by See also:Dalou to his memory at Bordeaux was unveiled by President See also:Loubet. Gambetta's Discours et plaidoyers politiques were published by J. See also:Reinach in 1a vols. (Paris, 1881–1886) ; his Depeches, circulaires, decrets . . . in 2 vols. (Paris, 1886–1891). Many See also:biographies have appeared. The See also:principal are J. Reinach, Leon Gambetta (1884), Gambetta orateur (1884) and Le Ministere Gambetta, histoire et See also:doctrine (1884); Neucastel, Gambetta, sa See also:vie, et ses iddes politiques (1885); J. Hanlon, Gambetta (See also:London, 1881); Dr Laborde, Leon Gambetta biographie psychologique (1898); P. B. Gheusi, Gambetta, Life and Letters (Eng. trans. by V. M. See also:Montagu, 1910). See also G. See also:Hanotaux, Histoire de la France contemporaine (1903, &c.). F. Laur's Le Cceur de Gambetta (1907, Eng. trans., 1908) contains the correspondence with Leonie Leon ; see also his articles on " Gambetta and Bismarck " in The Times of August 17 and 19, 1907, with the correspondence arising from them. (H. Additional information and CommentsThere are no comments yet for this article.
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