France from Behind the Veil: Fifty Years of Social and Political Life

by Princess Catherine Radziwill

A great deal has been written about this episode, and several of Gambetta’s friends have done their best to try to induce the public to forget it. I don’t know why they believed that it was not to his honour. Nor why, either, Gambetta could not have met the German Chancellor when other French political men had done so without anyone saying a single word against it. By every sensible person the idea of this interview could only have been hailed with pleasure. Two great minds like those could not but have found together the solution of many difficulties which divided the two nations, and it would have been doing the greatest injustice to Leon Gambetta to imagine that he would not have borne himself with the dignity necessary to the representative of a great country.

It was Count Henckel von Donnersmarck, the husband of Madame de Paiva, whose fame still lives in Paris, who was sounded by Gambetta as to the possibility of a meeting between himself and Bismarck, and he did his very best to arrange it in such a manner that it might not become known to the public, at least not until after it had actually taken place. Unfortunately outward circumstances interfered with this plan, and Gambetta had to forgo his intention, partly because his great friend Ranc told him that if he ventured on such a thing he would entirely lose the confidence of the Radical party. Whether it was this consideration or another one, the fact remains that he felt afraid at the last minute, in view of the hostility of his constituents, to incur the responsibility of a step which his intelligence and his intuition told him was the best for the interests of the France he loved so dearly.

Much has been written, and much surmised, concerning the death of Gambetta. It is now pretty certain that the wound which he received was not its immediate cause, which must be looked for elsewhere, and can be attributed partly to his general constitution, which was considerably impaired, and partly to the treatment which had been applied to him. But upon this point it must not be forgotten that at that time operations were not the usual thing that they have become since, and surgical intervention was generally dreaded, and resorted to only as a last resource.

As to the pistol shot, about which so many suppositions have been made, I think that in spite of Gambetta’s own denials there can be hardly a matter of doubt that it was a lady who, in a fit of fury, had inflicted the wound that disabled him. It is no secret now, that Gambetta was on the point of marrying a lady of high social standing, the Marchioness Arconati-Visconti, the daughter of the Senator Peyrat, and the widow of a Milanese nobleman. That union was to put the seal to his career, and to open for him many new vistas. As the husband of a beautiful, accomplished woman of the world, he could in time aspire to anything and, who knows, become President of the Republic for life, which was his dearest secret wish.

But in order to accomplish his desire, he had first to end a situation that did not date from yesterday, to cut off an intimacy of twenty years with a noble woman who had been his friend in the bad as well as in the good days, and who had given him innumerable proofs of her devotion. Gambetta was well aware of the difficulties which such a step presented, and for a long time he had not the courage to tackle the subject, hoping that she would hear something about his new plans, and herself begin the conversation on this delicate matter. The lady, however, kept silent, perhaps because she did not believe in the rumours which had reached her, and partly because she would not give her friend the opportunity he was seeking. At last Gambetta asked his old comrade Spuller to see her and to try to persuade her to have the courage to sacrifice herself to his welfare. He reasoned like a man, and an ungrateful man into the bargain, and she refused to accept the solution which was offered to her, and which might have soothed the pride of a person more devoid of feelings of attachment for her lover of long years than was the case with her. She dismissed Spuller with scorn, and rushed to Ville d’Avray, where Gambetta was residing, in order to seek an interview that could only be a stormy one.

It was during this interview that Gambetta was wounded. And those who were made aware of all the circumstances attending this drama of feminine jealousy, knew who it was that fired the fatal shot which lodged itself in the right hand of the French statesman. When he himself was questioned as to the accident, he always said that he had wounded himself in trying to clean a revolver, a circumstance that was the more unlikely because he was seldom in possession of such a weapon. Moreover, to some of his friends, like Spuller and Paul Bert, he only remarked that he had got nothing but what he had deserved.

Perhaps it was this consciousness which made him so patient during his illness, and also so shy of seeing anyone, even his friends, whilst it lasted. He used to lie quietly, with closed eyes, and avoid any conversations that could have touched upon the subject of the accident which had occurred to him. And when later on other symptoms made their appearance, he begged the people who surrounded him to say everywhere that these symptoms had nothing to do with his wound.

If, in his dying moments, he was conscious, he must have regretted deeply his ingratitude in regard to the woman who had loved him with such true affection, and who had been tempted to an act of despair when she learned that she was about to be forsaken for one who certainly did not have for Gambetta the same passionate affection. It was after all the sweet lady who had for so long had him in her affections who watched over his deathbed, and who closed his eyes for ever, whilst the proud lady for whose sake he had been about to sacrifice her never even made an appearance at Ville d’Avray. She went on living her former life as if no tragedy had crossed it, after death had removed from this worldly scene the great politician to whom ambition had very nearly united her.

And now that years have passed over this drama, since the removal from the scene of political France of the great patriot who was called Leon Gambetta, it is still very difficult to form a true judgment about him. He died before he had given the full measure of his qualities, or shown the real stuff he was made of. He was for too short a time in a responsible position to allow us to say whether he would have proved as able a leader of a government as he had shown himself to be a powerful leader of men. The two things are very different, and the man who can master one is found sometimes to be lacking in the other. What, however, cannot be taken away from him is his true, earnest patriotism, the absence of all vanity that distinguished him, his readiness to sacrifice everything in his power at the shrine of his fatherland, and his desire to serve it, according to what he considered to be its interests. He was fearless in his devotion, and worked for his country without paying any attention to the reproaches of the crowd.

The man was colossal in his way, and there was nothing mean about him. His conceptions were as great as his soul. Of course he was often mistaken, like every human being, but he was always sincere even in his errors, and he never hesitated to acknowledge the latter when they were shown to him.