LEON GAMBETTA.
On January 6, 1883, Paris presented a sad and imposing spectacle. Her shops were closed; her public buildings and her homes were draped in black. Her streets were solid with hundreds of thousands, all dispirited, and many in tears. A large catafalque covered with black velvet upheld a coffin shrouded with the tricolor. From a vase at each corner rose burning perfume, whose vapor was like sweet incense. Six black horses drew the funeral car, and two hundred thousand persons followed in the procession, many bearing aloft wreaths of flowers, and shouting, "Vive la Republique! Vive la Gambetta!"
The maker of the Republic, the brilliant, eloquent leader of the French people, was dead; dead in the prime of his life at forty-five. The "Figaro" but voiced the feeling of the world when it said, "The Republic has lost its greatest man." America might well mourn him as a friend, for he made her his pattern for his beloved France. The "Pall-Mall Gazette" said, "He will live in French history among the most courageous"; and even Germany courted him as the bravest of the brave, while she breathed freer, saying in the "Berlin Press," "The death of Gambetta delivers the peace of Europe from great danger." The hand that would sometime doubtless have reached out to take back sobbing Alsace and Lorraine was palsied; the voice that swayed the multitude, now with its sweet persuasiveness, and now with its thunder like the rush of a swollen torrent, was hushed; the supreme will that held France like a willing child in its power, had yielded to the inevitable,—death.
LEON GAMBETTA.
Leon Gambetta was born at Cahors, April 2, 1838. His father was an Italian from Genoa, poor, and of good character; his mother, a French woman, singularly hopeful, energetic, and noble. They owned a little bazaar and grocery, and here, Onasie, the wife, day after day helped her husband to earn a comfortable living. When their only son was seven years old, he was sent to a Jesuits' preparatory school at Monfaucon, his parents hoping that he would become a priest. His mother had great pride in him, and faith in his future. She taught him how to read from the "National," a newspaper founded by Thiers, republican in its tendencies. She saw with delight that when very young he would learn the speeches of Thiers and Guizot, which he found in its columns, and declaim them as he roamed alone the narrow streets, and by the quaint old bridges and towers of Cahors. At Monfaucon, he gave his orations before the other children, the mother sending him the much-prized "National" whenever he obtained good marks, and the Jesuits, whether pleased or not, did not interfere with their boyish republican.
At eight years of age an unfortunate accident happened which bade fair to ruin his hopes. While watching a cutter drill the handle of a knife, the foil broke, and a piece entered the right eye, spoiling the sight. Twenty years afterward, when the left, through sympathy, seemed to be nearly destroyed, a glass eye was inserted, and the remaining one was saved.
When Leon was ten years old, the Revolution of 1848 deposed Louis Philippe, the Orleanist, and Louis Napoleon was made President of the Republic. Perhaps the people ought to have known that no presidency would long satisfy the ambition of a Bonaparte. He at once began to increase his power by winning the Catholic Church to his side. The Jesuits no longer allowed the boy Leon to talk republicanism; they saw that it was doomed. They scolded him, whipped him, took away the "National," and finally expelled him, writing to his parents, "You will never make a priest of him; he has an utterly undisciplinable character."
The father frowned when he returned home, and the neighbors prophesied that he would end his life in the Bastile for holding such radical opinions. The poor mother blamed herself for putting the "National" into his hands, and thus bringing all this trouble upon him. Ah, she wrought better than she knew! But for the "National," and Gambetta's unconquerable love for a republic, France might to-day be the plaything of an emperor.
Meantime Louis Napoleon was putting his friends into office, making tours about the country to win adherents, and securing the army and the police to his side. At seven o'clock, on the morning of December 2, 1851, the famous Coup d'état came, and the unscrupulous President had made himself Emperor. Nearly two hundred and fifty deputies were arrested and imprisoned, and the Republicans who opposed the usurpation were quickly subdued by the army. Then the French were graciously permitted to say, by ballot, whether they were willing to accept the empire. There was, of course, but one judicious way to vote, and that was in the affirmative, and they thus voted.