He was elected to the Legislature of France in 1869, and entered it the foremost of the sworn foes of the empire. Soon came the war with Prussia, and the collapse of the government of Napoleon III. Gambetta became a prominent member of the Government of National Defence, and served for a time as both Minister of War and Minister of the Interior. In this time of confusion and transition, when France was at war with a powerful nation, and had no established government, he performed herculean labors for his country. Escaping from beleagured Paris in a balloon, he joined himself to the army and directed its operations. His was the master-mind, more than any other, which ruled France. He appointed generals, raised re-enforcements for the army, and negotiated loans. Though defeat followed defeat, he urged that the war should be pushed on, and was bitterly opposed to the conclusion of a peace with Prussia. When, in 1871, the National Assembly convened at Bordeaux, voted to accept the enemy’s terms and make peace, Gambetta, in wrath, withdrew from the hall, followed by certain of his colleagues. The new elections of the same year sent him back to the Assembly, where he continued the peerless orator, and firm and brave champion of Republicanism. When President MacMahon, in 1877, supplanted the old Republican ministry with one of another character, Gambetta led the attack upon him, which resulted in his retirement. In the period which followed, until 1881, this statesman’s star was in the ascendant. His influence was greater than ever before. In the Assembly he had a strong Republican majority at his back. He was “the power behind the throne.” Deferred to by those at the head of the executive department of the nation, he governed while others did so in name. In the Autumn of 1881 he became Premier, but the defeat of one of his measures compelled his retirement in a few weeks.
Leon Gambetta was easily the most brilliant man of the Third Republic. He is the one man of genius we discover in recent French political life. As an orator he has had few equals. He possessed a magnificent voice, a commanding presence, a remarkable command of rich language, a rapid, fiery utterance, and his eloquence at times was overwhelming. He is spoken of as an editor, but his work in this character was probably small. His paper, La République Française, was perhaps chiefly edited by other hands, but became a very influential journal. He was a man of great courage, and that audacity which men admire. He loved his country, and rendered her services for which she should be ever grateful. He has been accused of aiming at a dictatorship for himself. There seems little ground for the charge, and for doubting that he was, his life through, true to Republican principles. He was a good hater, and never ceased to long for an opportunity for France to revenge herself upon Germany. His private life it is best to pass over with few words. It is not one, like that of our own great statesman whose death and his own were so strangely alike, to admire and to copy. He was destitute of moral and religious principle. We are left to believe that he passed out of life without faith in God or a future state, and another illustration he furnishes that, “With the talents of an angel man may be a fool.”
The Decennial Assembly.
The first note of preparation for the Assembly of 1883 has been sounded. Some of the proprietors of the Gibson House, at Cincinnati, Ohio, being at Chautauqua during the last Assembly, invited the trustees to hold this year’s annual session in their ample and elegantly furnished parlors. The invitation was gratefully accepted, and on January 10, the Chautauqua Board of Trustees met for deliberation. President Lewis Miller was in the chair, and presided with his usual ease and dignity. Nearly all the members were present, full of confidence, and ready to do and to dare. One of its members, Rev. E. J. L. Baker, answered not to roll-call, as he had only a few days previous responded to the summons of death. Appropriate action was taken by the Board in the case, recognizing the high character of the deceased, and the important part he had taken in the affairs of Chautauqua.
C. C. Studebaker, Esq., of South Bend, Indiana, a new and great admirer of the Chautauqua Assembly, was chosen to fill his place.
It appeared from the report of the Treasurer that the business part of the last Assembly, the erection of the hotel not included, amounted to nearly ninety-five thousand dollars. The department of instruction cost nearly sixteen thousand dollars. About two thousand dollars had been expended on music, the cost of the great organ not included.
In August, 1883, will be held the Decennial Assembly, and an attempt will be made to place it a little in advance of any of its predecessors. Joseph Cook will be present to give the public, in three lectures, the concentrated results of two years of travel, observation, and study in oriental lands. Other great lights, some old and some new, will appear upon the platform. Different methods of collegiate education will be thoroughly discussed by the best educators in the land. Among them will be President Cummins, LL. D., of the Northwestern University, at Evanston, Illinois. As yet the program is but partially arranged, nor will it be fixed and given to the public in all its details till sometime in June.
Ten years ago Chautauqua was compared to the groves of Greece in which Plato and Aristotle taught their disciples philosophy. Instinctively the people have watched the growth of the place, expecting that in due time it would develop into university proportions. Such hope, existing then, seems a dream, but coming events often cast their shadows before. Chautauqua can not stand still; its vital nature makes growth a necessity; but it can not advance much further and not embrace in its curriculum a university education. It can do what can be done in no other place, namely, combine a thorough and broad education with the great variety of exercises which characterize the Assembly gatherings.
July of this year will be characterized by the opening of a children’s school, under the instruction of the most accomplished teachers. Families have hesitated to come early to Chautauqua because their children were in school, and they did not like to disturb their studies. As this difficulty is to be obviated, the way will be open for our Southern friends and all others to come early in the season.