ark, short, stout, and
somewhat vulgar, nor was there any social polish in his manners.

Not long after his great speech in defence of the Press, in the matter
of Baudin, Gambetta was elected to the Chamber by the working-men
of Belleville, and at the same time by Marseilles. He entered the
Chamber as one wholly irreconcilable with the Empire or the emperor.
His eloquence was heart-stirring, and commanded attention even
from his adversaries.

When, on Sept. 4, 1870, the downfall of the Empire was proclaimed,
Gambetta was made a member of the Council of Defence, and became
Minister of the Interior. He remained in Paris until after the
siege had begun; but he burned to be where he could _act_, and
obtained the consent of his colleagues to go forth by balloon and
try to stir up a warlike spirit in the Provinces. He was made Minister
of War in addition to being Minister of the Interior. From Nov.
1, 1870, to Jan. 30, 1871, his efforts were almost superhuman;
and but for Bazaine's surrender at Metz, they might have been
successful.

Gambetta raised two armies,--one under General Aurelles des Paladines
and General Chanzy; the other under Bourbaki and Garibaldi. The
first was the Army of the Loire, the second of the Jura.

When the plan of co-operation with Bazaine's one hundred and
seventy-five thousand well-trained troops had failed, and the Army of
the Loire had been repulsed at Orleans, Gambetta with his Provisional
Government moved to Bordeaux. Thither came Thiers, returned from
his roving embassy,--a mission of peace whose purpose had been
defeated by the warlike movements of Gambetta's armies.

Gambetta in the early days of his dictatorship wrote to Jules Favre:
"France must not entertain one thought of peace." He sincerely believed
any effort at negotiation with the Prussians an acknowledgment of
weakness, and he fondly fancied that a little more time and experience
would turn his raw recruits into armies capable of driving back the
Prussians, when the experienced generals and soldiers of France
had failed.

And now we have reached that terrible hour when news was received
at Bordeaux that all Gambetta's efforts had been useless; that
Paris had consented to an armistice; that an Assembly was to be
elected, a National Government to be formed; and that to resist
these things or to persist longer in fighting the Prussians would
be to provoke civil war.

No wonder that Gambetta and Thiers, both devoted Frenchmen,