I made a gesture of surprise, which he noticed.
“You are astonished at what I tell you,” he remarked, “but do you think me such a poor patriot to put my own personal advantage or ambitions before her welfare? This would be very miserable indeed, and I know of no meaner thing than accepting office when one is aware that it is not for the good of one’s fatherland. I know very well what is thought about me in Europe, and especially in Germany, and I do not wish to give the latter country the slightest excuse to say that she has been provoked, or that we are following a policy of aggression. Such policy is unworthy of a great nation, and we are a great nation, in spite of our reverses, and we must remain one, though some people would like us to come down from that height. We must work to consolidate our position, to become powerful enough and strong enough to be able to strike when the day comes, not only with the chance, but with the certitude, of success. What is the good of wasting one’s time in petty strifes or petty recriminations? Yes, I think about revenge, I think of nothing else, but I should be ashamed to be thought eager for it at once, and at any price; above all I would not like to risk losing it by such a miserable circumstance as my becoming head of the government at a time when the hour for it had not yet struck.”
I relate this conversation in its entirety as it shows the real patriotism which animated Gambetta, as well as his great foresight and intuition in politics in general. Very few statesmen would have viewed a situation with such entire self-abnegation. In France especially, where the thirst after power and official positions was so great, he constituted a solitary and noble exception. I think that the happiest time in Gambetta’s life was when he was President of the Chamber, and inhabited the Palais Bourbon. There he felt in his element, and also at the height, not of his ambitions, but of his wishes—a totally different matter. In the old home of the Duc de Morny he did not consider himself inferior to that clever councillor of Napoleon III., and reflected with some satisfaction on the circumstances that had brought him there, and placed him in the chair occupied with such authority by the illegitimate son of Queen Hortense. In his new position also he could give way to the luxurious tastes which he had always nursed and only appeared to scorn, because he had not been able to believe he would ever be in a position to gratify them.
Leon Gambetta also felt that in the capacity of leader of the representatives of the nation he would have more opportunities of learning the real wants of that nation, and thus, when the day came that he could do so, would be able to work for its welfare with better chances of success than he had had hitherto. His rare tact served him well, and his knowledge of mankind, something quite different from knowledge of the world, made him avoid many of the mistakes another placed in his position would inevitably have fallen victim to. He made an excellent President of the Chamber, just as he made an admirable host in the Palais Bourbon, where he displayed his epicurean tastes in a way that drew upon him the censure of the newspapers, which tried to ridicule the former Socialist leader, whose first care had been to get as his cook the most famous chef in Paris.
Madame Adam used sometimes to smile at the change which her influence, more than anything else, had brought about in Gambetta. But when he became President of the Chamber their intimacy slackened, for a very short time it is true, but slackened all the same. Gambetta, it must be owned, was very sensible to feminine charms and feminine blandishments. Strange as it may seem when one takes into consideration his extreme ugliness, the fact that he had but one eye, and was enormously fat, he yet exercised a great fascination on women in general, and he liked to use it, and to spend part of his spare time in the society of the fair ladies who worshipped at his shrine. This partly was the cause of his death. But about this we shall speak later on.
When at last circumstances arose which obliged Gambetta to accept the task of forming a Cabinet, it was with the utmost reluctance, in spite of all that has been said concerning this subject, that he undertook it. He had no faith in the possibility of being a long time at the head of affairs, and as he told one of his friends: “Why take such trouble when one is assured beforehand it is for nothing?” Nevertheless he started earnestly to work to give to the government the direction he thought the best for the interests of the country. But the composition of the Chambers was not congenial to him; he felt himself far superior to all those men upon the vote of whom his fate depended, and this made him impatient as to the control which they pretended to exercise over him. He despised them, if the truth must be said, and involuntarily he allowed this feeling to appear in the manner in which he handled them, a fact that had much to do with the short time he remained in power.
His advent as Prime Minister had excited considerable sensation abroad; even in France it was the signal for the retirement from public life of many people who felt that they could not remain in office under such a thoroughly Radical government as the one he was supposed to lead. Among those who resigned was the Comte de St. Vallier, at that time French Ambassador in Berlin.
When his resignation was accepted he thought himself obliged, nevertheless, to call on the Prime Minister when he returned to Paris, in order to express to him his regrets that the opinions which he held prevented him from working harmoniously with him. Gambetta received him with great affability and courteousness, and at once said: “You are wrong to go away, I shall not remain for long where I am now, and you would have rendered a greater service to France by remaining at your post than by a retreat which, as you will see, will prove to have been useless. Je ne suis qu’un bouche-trou (‘I am only a stop-gap’), and very probably the President of the Republic in entrusting to me the task of forming a government wanted to prove to France how impossible it is for a Radical ministry ever to maintain itself. The sad part of this is that, though I am a Republican, I have no Radical sympathies. I assure you that this is the fact, and that you would have found me far more inclined to sympathise with your opinions than with those of the people who are supposed to be my followers. The great mistake that we are constantly making in France is to mix up opinions with the way in which the country must be governed. We ought to have neither a Conservative, nor a Radical, nor even a Republican government; we ought to have a French one. This would be quite enough. I am sorry you have resigned; very sorry, indeed.”
But Gambetta did not convince M. de St. Vallier, and he insisted on retiring from the diplomatic service, a fact which I have reasons to believe he regretted later on.
The great dream of Gambetta was to establish a modus vivendi and a kind of understanding with Germany. He knew very well how useless it is in life to go back on things which are already accomplished, and to cry over spilt milk. And he did not care for France to go on living in the state of qui vive which had been hers ever since the disasters which had accompanied the war of 1870. He knew also that he had far greater chances to take into his hands the reins of government, and to keep them if once he had succeeded in doing away with this fear of a German aggression, which haunted the public mind. He was no partisan of compulsory service, and did not approve of too great military expenses, entered into by fear of an imaginary danger. That it was imaginary he was convinced, because he knew very well that Germany was in the same position in which Napoleon III. had found himself: that of risking the loss of everything and gaining nothing from a new campaign. But this conviction which was his alone he could not persuade others to share, and for this reason he tried to arrange an interview between himself and Prince von Bismarck.