Background
He was born on April 2, 1838 in Cahors, son of a Genoese father and a French mother.
(Originally published in 1910. This volume from the Cornel...)
Originally published in 1910. This volume from the Cornell University Library's print collections was scanned on an APT BookScan and converted to JPG 2000 format by Kirtas Technologies. All titles scanned cover to cover and pages may include marks notations and other marginalia present in the original volume.
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He was born on April 2, 1838 in Cahors, son of a Genoese father and a French mother.
At the age of fifteen, Gambetta lost the sight of his right eye in an accident, and it eventually had to be removed. Despite this handicap, he distinguished himself at school in Cahors, and in 1857 went to Paris to study law.
In 1859 he was called to the bar, but he was unsuccessful as a lawyer until 1868 when a political case known as the Affaire Baudin made him suddenly famous. Jean-Baptiste Baudin, a deputy (legislator) killed resisting Napoleon III’s coup d’état of 1851, had become a republican martyr, and eight journalists were being prosecuted for attempting to have a monument erected in his memory. As counsel of one of the accused, Gambetta delivered an extremely forceful speech in which he indicted the imperial regime, its origin, and its policy.
Press reports of his speech made his political fortune, and almost overnight Gambetta became an acknowledged leader of the Republican Party. In 1869 he was elected to the Legislative Assembly.
The most pressing problem of the provisional government was the defense of Paris, which was besieged by the Germans. Most members of the government stayed in the city, but Gambetta, as their delegate, left Paris in a balloon on October 7, 1870, floating over the German lines. Establishing himself at Tours, he began to arouse unoccupied France for the defense of the entire country. He became war minister as well, assuming virtually unlimited powers.
Of the two main French armies, one had been captured at Sedan, and the other was besieged at Metz and soon forced to surrender. Gambetta, as always enthusiastic and indefatigable, succeeded in raising new armies, which were trained and supplied with arms. These achieved some local successes but were more often defeated.
When Tours was threatened by the Germans, Gambetta left for Bordeaux in southwestern France. Though he wished to continue fighting, the country was tired of war, and the provisional government signed an armistice on January 18, 1871.
The armistice convention provided for the election of a National Assembly, which met at Bordeaux in March 1871 to ratify the peace terms. Gambetta was elected a deputy for Strasbourg, in Alsace, but, after the ratification of the peace, which yielded most of Alsace and Lorraine to Germany, he lost his seat and retired for a short time to Spain.
In by-elections in July 1871, he was elected to the National Assembly by the département of the Seine. The assembly was to determine whether France would remain a republic or restore the monarchy. The majority of the deputies were monarchists. There were, however, two candidates to the throne, the heads, respectively, of the elder and the younger branch of the Bourbons, and they were unable to reach agreement on which should become king. With supreme skill, Gambetta managed to push ratification of the republic through the weary assembly. The republican constitution of 1875 formed the basis of the French Third Republic until the latter’s demise in 1940.
In 1872 he began a liaison with Léonie Léon, a pretty, well-educated woman, and, after his resignation, he settled with her outside Paris, with the intention of marrying her. While handling a revolver, he shot himself in the arm, and, as his health was very poor, the wound healed slowly. During his convalescence, he was stricken with appendicitis, but the doctors did not operate. He died on December 31, 1882, at the age of 44.
(Originally published in 1910. This volume from the Cornel...)
Léon opposed the steps that led to the outbreak of the Franco-German War in July 1870, but, once it had begun, he urged the quickest possible victory over the Germans. After the disastrous defeat of the French at Sedan, in which Napoleon III was captured on September 1, 1870, Gambetta played a principal role in proclaiming the republic and forming a provisional government of national defense. He became minister of the interior in this government.
Quotations: "There is no truth in the rumours being spread that I am refusing to stand for election in Paris. No. I accept, to the contrary, with pride and gratitude the Parisians' votes, if they would do me the honor of choosing me. I am prepared. "
The romance of Leon's life was his connection with Léonie Léon, the full details of which were not known to the public till her death in 1906. She was the daughter of a creole French artillery officer. Gambetta fell in love with her in 1871. She became his mistress, and the liaison lasted until he died. Gambetta constantly urged her to marry him during this period, but she always refused, fearing to compromise his career; she remained, however, his confidante and intimate adviser in all his political plans. It seems she had just consented to become his wife, and the date of the marriage had been fixed, when the accident which caused his death occurred in her presence. Contradictory accounts of this fatal episode exist, but it was certainly accidental, and not suicide. Her influence on Gambetta was absorbing, both as lover and as politician, and the correspondence which has been published shows how much he depended upon her.