both
leaders of parties with opposing views,--the one resolved on No
surrender, the other urging Peace on the best terms now
procurable,--passed a terrible night after Jules Favre's arrival
at Bordeaux, Gambetta debating what was his duty as the idol of
his followers and as provisional dictator, Thiers dreading lest
civil war might be kindled by the decision of his rival.

Hardly less anxious were the days while a general election was
going on. Bordeaux remained feverish and excited till February
13, when deputies from all parts of France met to decide their
country's fate in the Bordeaux theatre. Notabilities from foreign
countries were also there, to see what would be done at that supreme
moment.

Seven hundred and fifty deputies had been sent to the Assembly, and
it was clear from the beginning that that body was not Republican. But
the Anti-Republicans were divided into three parties,--Imperialists,
Legitimists, and Orleanists, each of which preferred an orderly and
moderate republic to the triumph of either of the other two. Moreover,
that was not the time for deliberations concerning a permanent
form of government. The deputies were met to make a temporary or
provisional government, qualified to accept or to refuse the hard
terms of peace offered by the Prussians. The two leaders of the
Assembly were Thiers and Gambetta,--the one in favor of peace,
the other of prolonging the war. We can see now how much wiser
were the views of the elder statesman than those of the younger;
but we see also what a bitter pang Gambetta's patriotic spirit
must have suffered by the downfall of his dictatorship.

The Assembly had been three days in session, clamorous, riotous,
and full of words, when in the middle of the afternoon of Feb. 16,
1871, two delegates from Alsace and Lorraine appeared, supported by
Gambetta. The Speaker--that is, the president of the Assembly--was
M. Jules Grevy, who had held the same office in 1848; he found it
hard to restrain the excitement of the deputies. The delegates
came to implore France not to deliver them over to the Germans;
to remember that of all Frenchmen the Alsatians had been the most
French in the days of the Revolution, and that in all the wars
of France for more than a century they had suffered most of all
her children. No wonder the hearts of all in the Assembly were
stirred.

"At this moment there appeared in the midde aisle of the theatre
a small man, with wrinkled face and stu