party; to accomplish such a task, eloquence' was only one of the tools of this great workman. He brought it to bear on men and events; but what was it in comparison with the political sagacity he displayed in disciplining the masses of universal suffrage, in obliging every class of French society to contribute to the erection of the political and national monument it was the ambition of his life to establish? It is not as an orator that Gambetta will be remembered, at least in France it is as the Founder of the French Republic.

To measure what he accomplished in the way of statesmanship, it will be sufficient to recall the state in which the Franco-German war and the insurrection of the Commune had left France. Politically speaking, nothing remained standing, and the Government of France was nameless, because it partook of the character of all régimes. The State was handed over to the bitterest enemies of democratic institutions, and their hostility was backed by a strong reaction caused by the excesses of the Parisian rebellion. The question was not whether monarchy was to be proclaimed, but what monarch would secure the crown. The Bonapartists meditated a second descent at Boulogne; the Orleanists were negotiating with the Count de Chambord and making up old quarrels; and meanwhile the army and the administration were handed over to all the antidemocratic influences rampant in France. It was then that Gambetta reappeared in the political field, and took the lead of the Republican party. He was essentially a creator; he had proved it in the provinces, where in less than three months he sent more than 600,000 men in the field, and kept the invading parties at bay. The difficulties he had now to contend with were scarcely less great. Circumstances and men were against him. While the reactionary collision of the National Assembly strived to ruin and dishonor him, he had to discipline his friends, to teach them the advantages of discretion and union. More than one challenged his leadership; Louis Blanc, that political idealist, was foremost to challenge his system. Louis Blanc and his friends wanted everything or nothing. By dint of patience, foresight, and constant re

monstrance, the young statesman brought them to understand, at least for a time, that the essence of politics consists in obtaining of public opinion and of circumstances what is really obtainable. His next effort was to show the French bourgeoisie that the Republic was not a myth, a chronic state of revolution, a mere opening for the experiment of more or less absurd socialistic Utopias, but a form of government founded on the wants of all classes, and offering to rich and poor sufficient guarantees of stability. Was he a mere orator, the man who thus rekindled the spirit of his party, and by sheer good sense, opportune boldness, and shrewd moderation converted his countrymen and brought victory to his side, although the State, the army, and the whole potent strength of the executive were in the hands of his opponents? Political speakers, we have had plenty in France, and of the most brilliant description. The orations of the Berryers, the Jules Favres, the Ledru Rollins, the Guizots, the Thiers, are still within the remembrance of the living; but who among these men possessed the rare and choice faculty of accomplishing great things, as well as indicating them? Who among the great figures of French democracy ever united the power of theory and that of execution? If that is not statesmanship, and of the highest order, I cannot say what it is.

For much M. Gambetta trusted to opportunity to favor and further his designs; the main object he pursued was quite definite and settled in his own mind, and I do not think he ever swerved from it. He was deeply convinced that democracy was the only form of government compatible with the fortunes and growth of France. But he was also persuaded that democracy, renouncing apish imitations of the first revolution, and the dogmatic errors of the revolution of 1848, could only thrive by being practical. Hence his untiring efforts to conciliate all Republicans of the same bent of mind as his own, and to convert those who saw in the acts of the Convention the gospel of French modern democracy. Not that he rejected any of the principles consecrated by the great revolution; what he rejected was their exaggeration and

the permanent revolutionary character which was wholly out of place at this period of the present century. Knowing the dangers of political proselytism, he was averse to any propaganda beyond the French frontiers. He rightly thought that the definite success of Republican institutions in France would eventually carry sufficient weight to dispense with meddling with other people's affairs.

He believed also-and this conviction, in spite of his premature death, he has succeeded in instilling in the most important section of the Republican party-that centralization, political and administrative, was not the necessary result of monarchical institutions, but that it was the indispensable attribute of the French nation. Without this centralization, he thought, France could not exist. History and events had confirmed him in this belief, which was the basis of his political system. Far from destroying centralization, the first revolution had maintained and remodelled it, and it was chiefly to this that the Convention was enabled to resist not only an European coalition, but a formidable rebellion. In the course of the Franco-German war, he had witnessed and repelled in the south (at Marseilles and Lyons) alarming attempts at secession. From this, and other historical circumstances, he concluded that a nation composed, like France, of so many different elements, could only be threatened in its very existence by decentralization. As a natural consequence Gambetta was an uncompromising partisan of State rights. "It is all very well," he was once wont to say, 'to speak of decentralization in countries naturally protected by their boundaries. Give me the geographical position of England and I will try decentralization as much as you please. also, his preference for an electoral system which would free, in a reasonable degree, the national representation from the trammels of local influence. With the system of scrutin d'arrondissement, he maintained that it would ever be impossible to constitute a governmental majority. Experience has only too well realized his forecasts. Scrutin de liste was not, to him, an instrumentum regni, but the only manner of insuring governmental stability in a democracy which,

Hence,

much as it may have done, has yet a great deal to learn. For the same reason Gambetta was resolved by every loyal means, until popular instruction had remodelled the mind of the forthcoming generation, to resist the transgressions of the Roman Catholic Church. Personally, Gambetta was a confirmed freethinker; he belonged, though without any sectarianism, to that section of the Comtist school of which Littré was the exponent and M. Laffite the chief. His religion, in a spiritual sense, was patriotism, and that he carried, as I have said before, to an extraordinary climax of enthusiasm. He was tolerant in his intentions toward all species of religious beliefs, but to nothing was he more sternly hostile than to the trespass of the Church into politics. He would not allow that there could be a power claiming to be above the State and bending only to ultramontane authority. The State, in Gambetta's view, was France itself, and none could be allowed to defy its sovereign authority. "Let the Catholic Church," he often said to Nuncio Czacki (who, curiously enough, was almost on intimate terms with him), "let the Catholic Church remain in the Church, let the clergy confine themselves to their spiritual avocations, and they shall have nothing to fear at my hands." It will easily be understood how, these being his ideas, he was irritated by the levée en masse of the congregations of monks against the Republican government; and there is no doubt that he was the chief instigator of the execution of the decrees of March. This radical measure, in his opinion, was urgently required for two reasons-the first was that if the Government capitulated before the clerical conspiracy, whereof the monkish insurrection was only the offshoot, it was doomed to become the prisoner of clericalism; the second reason was that the Republican government should not lose so momentous an opportunity of affirming its power before the country. In this his native sagacity and deep knowledge of the national bent served him well. The dispersion of the congregations certainly wounded to the quick many religious convictions, many sincere believers, who have not yet come to distinguish between clericalism and religion; and yet this

act of authority immensely strengthened the Government and the Republic. Government in France is never more respected by the masses than when it shows itself possessed of decision and authority. This very notion that Gambetta was essentially a man of government and authority was the chief source of his immense popularity among his countrymen. He knew that, beyond and above a limited number of theoretical Republicans and révolutionnaires, the enormous mass of French democracy could only believe in the duration of the Republic if the Republic showed itself qualified to govern with a strong and resolute hand. He knew, as the country knows, that Republican government is only possible in France if it couples authority with liberty, and that constitutional government under the Republic cannot last unless this principle be understood and promptly applied by those who are at the helm of public affairs.

Thus it will be perceived that Gambetta's system of government was not directed against the Church, but that one of its chief points consisted in maintaining the State above the Church, which is very different. Let it not be forgotten by those foreign critics who are at pains to explain the militant attitude of the French Republic in connection with the Roman Catholic clergy, that France is the scene of a phenomenon almost obsolete in the Roman Catholic world. In Austria, in Hungary, in Italy, in almost every country devoted to the Catholic creed, the clergy is national, and submits to the laws of the country. Not so the French episcopacy, who, although bound to submit to the common law, and to counsel the respect thereof by an arrangement which has the force of a treaty, attack the government from the pulpit, conspire with pretenders, and recognize no other authority than the Pope's. And when Leo XIII.-a pontiff as politic and shrewd and far-seeing as his predecessor was impetuous and fanatical-counsels moderation and observance of the Concordat, the coalition of French bishops respectfully disregard his injunctions. This chronic insurrection of the clergy, their hostility to Republican institutions, their defiance of national supremacy, is what is called in France

And now that this great and powerful individuality, feared and respected by all the enemies of the French Republic, has prematurely disappeared, it will be asked to what extent his demise affects the security of the political edifice whereof he was the most active and successful workman.

Gambetta's death is beyond question a heavy blow to France. In less than thirteen years he had achieved that which perhaps no man accomplished before him. It would be idle to deny that he leaves in the ranks of the Republicans a place which cannot be filled, and which no one among its most distinguished members will attempt to fill. As a creator, as a national force, Gambetta cannot be replaced. The question is whether his death endangers the Republic. Much as I am conscious of the incomparable loss suffered by France, much as I am disposed to admit that the Republicans, as a governmental party, have yet much to acquire, I do not hesitate to answer in the negative, and I will attempt to prove it.

The Republic, in the art of government, I readily admit once more, is still in its teens. But it has passed that critical period when its existence could be affected by the death of one man, however great. When Thiers died, it was thought that the days of French democracy were counted. Since then it has steadily increased in influence and organization. Gambetta's death is, it is true, an incomparably greater loss to the Republic than Thiers's; but then the Republic is incomparably stronger now, thanks to the great patriot whose death France mourns, than it was when Thiers was stricken down. Its progress will be retarded by Gambetta's absence; it will be more fitful, more contested, less orderly than if he were still at his country's side; but it cannot be stopped. The immense mass of the

French people have really become attached to the present form of Government; they have tasted the sweets of liberty and independence; it would require enormous faults on the part of their Republican leaders to forfeit their favor and good-will, and these I cannot foresee. I can well imagine, and I could almost predict one by one the errors the Republicans are still likely to commit; yet they are sufficiently wise not to commit those errors which it is not in the nature of things a nation could condone. The real and genuine anger spontaneously manifested throughout France by the manifesto of a Pretender, the surly suspicions entertained against other members of a royal stock, are presently confirming these forecasts. Gambetta was not spared long enough to lead his party and country sufficiently far in the path of safety and national greatness; but it will be to his eternal honor that he laid down the principles of practical Republican Government.

It was believed after his death that the particular section of the Parliamentary majority which obeyed his leadership-the Union Républicaine-must fall to pieces after his death. The Union Républicaine forms the most numerous and powerful portion of the Parliamentary majority, and it had been significant if it had been dissolved by the demise of its leader. Nothing of the kind has taken place; it has even been swelled by new adherents. The reason is obvious to those who follow closely the progress of French politics. The Union Républicaine can no more be broken up by the death of Gambetta than the English Conservative party was dislocated by the death of Lord Beaconsfield, for the simple reason that it is constituted on definite and settled principles of government. It counts the picked men of the Chambers, those who are proficient in parliamentary and committee work, and who are apt to shine most in public discussion-men like M. Ferry, Waldeck Rousseau, Naquet, Raynal, Léon Renaud, Rouvier, Spullere, Allain Targé, Challemel Lacour, Humbert, Cazot, etc., all marked out for future office. There are no

*Prince Napoleon.

sectarians among them; none but men of business and practical sense. They invariably vote in the same way, and form the governmental strength of the Republican party. And should perchance universal suffrage vary in its manifestations, is there not a higher Chamber which disposes of a powerful and temperate Republican majority-a Senate, rightly described by Gambetta. as the bulwark of Republican institutions, which would correct and moderate such transient fluctuations in public opinion? And are not all the public administrations filled with Republic

ans?

There is still, it is true, a factor, which some put down as an unknown quantity-the army. Those who incline to think that France is still at the mercy of a military pronunciamento forget two facts of paramount importance. In the first place, the French army is no longer what it used to be; not even what it was seven years ago, when M. de Broglie and his clerical and monarchical friends attempted to force monarchy down the country's throat. Compulsory service has rendered the army an exact reflex of the nation; it is essentially national in constitution as well as in temperament and while the soldiers would follow blindly their chiefs in a foreign strife, I strongly doubt that a foolhardy general could bring out into the street three regiments to attempt a coup d'état. In the second place, it should be borne in mind that a coup d'état was never possible in France except when such chaos and confusion prevailed in governmental circles that national displeasure and indifference favored an appeal to force. France is far from such a hopeless condition. It has an administration strongly imbued with democratic ideas, an army wherein faith in Republicanism is rapidly prevailing, politicians able, brilliant, and courageous. None have felt more than they the immense loss they have sustained by the death of France's greatest statesman and noblest son; but they understand the responsibilities which so heavy a misfortune entails for them, and they believe that the task now devolving upon them is not beyond their strength, wisdom, and patriotism. Fortnightly Review.

MUCH has been said about M. Gambetta, too much perhaps; for the absence of all sense of proportion and perspective, peculiar to our time, has seldom betrayed itself with less disguise than on the mournful occasion of his untimely death; seldom also, be it added, has an illusion of the kind been more natural. Here indeed we have no calm, deliberate comparison between the living and the dead, as when a young Frenchman-a friend of M. Gambetta's, by the way-thought fit not long ago to discern an Addison lined with a Sterne in a third-rate Parisian feuilletonist. A man who might not have seemed great by the side of a Pitt or a Canning, but who towered high above his puny contemporaries, the head of a numerous political party, which finds itself suddenly disorganized by his decease, the centre-point of a wide circle of personal friends who were wont to look upon him as the inspiring breath of their lives, disappears all at once. Is it much to be wondered at that friends, partisans, nay even a considerable portion of the public at large, should have yielded to the temptation of magnifying the relative importance of one who was all in all to them? The floods of retrospective admiration are beginning even now to subside; public, if not private, sympathy is already giving way to a soberer appreciation; nor did the pompous ceremony with which the French Government has honored the man of the people" exhibit any signs of that heartfelt grief which burst forth with irrepressible violence at the funeral of Mirabeau-for even Mirabeau has not been allowed to escape comparison with the tribune of the nineteenth century. May we be permitted to examine with the historian's eye the career and the individuality of him whose place has thus unexpectedly become vacant, without incurring the historian's obligation to relate all the well-known events of M. Gambetta's public life?

I.

66

Of his public life; for the private life of a politician does not belong to the

historian, or belongs to him only as far as it may have had any influence upon his public life. Of M. Gambetta it may be said, that his good-nature, which won him so many personal friends, proved of no mean assistance to him in his public career every one felt that his vehement attacks upon his political adversaries were not the expression of personal enmity, as every one felt how unable he was to say no to a partisan. His sympathetic disposition and powerful temperament attracted and subdued even many who did not come into closer contact with him, causing them to take a lenient view of much that, to English eyes, might have appeared a laxity of morals. So also his incontestable personal integrity served to extenuate his excessive indulgence with regard to much that was going on in his surroundings.

From the very outset M. Gambetta's career bore the impress of an indomitable, revolutionary temperament, which gave the tone to his intellect, to his eloquence, to his conduct. It never allowed him to study the questions he had to deal with calmly; it inspired him with that dislike to particulars, that partiality for generalities, by which not only his speeches, but also the small number of official despatches it fell to his lot to dictate, are characterized. His singularly open and quick intelligence recoiled from anything that required slow, patient effort, and led him to believe he had grasped an object as soon as he had understood its general bearing. Besides, words, high-sounding, happily cadenced words, often did him good service in lieu of ideas, nor did he, throughout the whole of his career, even feel the want of anything less shallow than the political creed of 1792. He was in truth well aware that words convey not only ideas but feelings likewise; so he was wont to inebriate himself no less than his listeners by means of passionate words. In the whole of that famous speech of November, 1868, in which he pleaded the cause of a public demonstration against the 2d of December, we fail to discover