M.LEON GAMBETTA.

Clutha Leader, Volume IX, Issue 482, 5 January 1883, Page 6

M. LEON GAMBETTA.

.The-.cable news., has iofi: late referred 'to the unsatisfactory. state of health rof. M. Gambetta/ -the. [celebrated French statesman. The disease from which. he suffered proved' .fatal . at midnight on Sunday night. A'.Men-of the. Time" gives the following' particulars of the life, of the deceased :'-r- .

Leon Gambebta,.a?.French statesman, born at Cahorsj of a Genoese family, October 30,. 1838. Adopting the legal profession, he Became a member of the

Paris bar in 1859, and soon acquired -fame as a forensic orator, being much employed, in political causes both in the capital and in the provinces, while he obtained immense popularity, among certain classes of the Parisians on account of his advanced Republican opinions. In March, 1869, on the occasion of the prosecution of the Emancipation newspaper at Toulouse,, the young and eloquent, orator received a most enr thusiastic reception in the south. At the general election held that year M. Gambetta stood . for . Paris and Marseilles, as a representative of the " irreconcilable Opposition,", and was returned ■ for both constituencies, but elected to take his seat for Marseilles. In January, 1870, he made a violent attack on the Ollivier Ministry, declaring that the day would come when the majority of the people would, without appealling to foi'ce, succeed in establishing a Republic. On the fall of the Empire and the consequent formation of the Government of .the National Defence, in September, 1870, he was nominated Minister of the Interior, and soon showed that he possessed administrative powei's of a high order. When a serious misunderstanding took place between the Delegate Government at Tours and the National Defence Committee at Paris, . regardingthe contemplated election of deputies, M. Gambetta was selected by his colleagues to proceed to the former city and explain the ■ position of affairs in the capital. Accordingly he left Paris on October 7, 1870, in a balloon named the " Armand-Barbes," accompanied by a secretary and an aeronaut, passed safely over the Prussian lines, and reached Rouen in the evening. Proceeding without loss of time to Tours, he there assumed the direction, and for some months was virtually Dictator, of all those provinces of France which were free from the German invaders. He urged the people to continued resistance, raised the Army of the Loire, and after the Delegate Government had been obliged to remove to Bordeaux he issued a proclamation advocating war a outrance, and resistance even to complete exhaustion. It is scarcely necessary tojidd that his dream of driving out the Prussians was not realised, and that his volunteer armies were completely crushed by the well-trained forces of the enemy. On February 6, 1871, MM. Arago, Gamier Pages, and Eugene Pelletan, members of the Paris Government, arrived at Bordeaux, bringing with them a decree signed by all the members of the Government, which annulled that of M. Gambetta, by which certain classes of electors ■were disqualified as candidates for the Assembly. In consequence of this censure M. Gambetta at once resigned. his | functions. Shortly afterwards he proceeded to Spain, and resided there for i some months in seclusion, but he has since returned to France and obtained a seat . in the Assembly, where. he is regarded as a leader of the Radical wing of the Republican party. In < September, 1872, he made a kind of Democratic " progress" in the south of France, receiving. a semi-official welcome from the municipal authorities. He delivered a famous speech at Grenoble, which was regarded as a manifesto and programme of the Red .party, amounting to the declaration of war, against the Government of the National Assembly. Another famous speech of his was delivered at Aix in January 1876. At the close of 1877 M. Gambetta paid a visit to Rome, and had private co:aferences with the leading statesman of the Italian Kingdom. On September 11th, 1877, he was condemned by the eleventh Correctional Tribunal of Paris to three months' imprisonment and to pay a fine of 2000fr, for having said of Marshal MacMahon, at a private meeting at Lille, that after the next elections the President of the Republic must .either submit or resign. " II faudrr ou se soumettre ou se de7nettre." M. Gambetta, Avas also prosecuted for his circular to the electors of the, t.wentieth arrondissement of Paris. Judgment was pronounced on October 12th, two days before the election, M. Gambetta being condemned to three months' imprisonment and to pay a-fine of 4000fr. .Two • days later .he was elected Deputy for the twentieth arrondissement. In the disscussion in the. Chamber respecting the election of M. de Fourtou (November- 18th, . 1878), M. Gambetta called that statesman a liar. This unparliamentary expression led to their fighting a duel with pistols at Plessis Piquet, about five miles from the Tijilerie's. The encounter was a perfectily harmless one, and it was hinted that blank cartridges were used with the connivance of the seconds.