s for a
moment embarrassed how to answer him. M. Thiers was for the time
the chief executive officer of the Republic, but he was not formally
its president. The soldier's answer, "Oui, mon Executif," caused
much amusement.

At this time there was no suspicion in men's minds that it was the
intention of M. Thiers to form a permanent republic. The feeling of
the country was Royalist. The difficulty was what royalty? It seemed
to all men, and very probably to Thiers himself, that that question
would be answered in favor of Henri V., the Comte de Chambord.

Gambetta, resigning his power without a word, retired to San Sebastian,
just over the Spanish frontier. There he lived in two small rooms
over a crockery-shop. "He is jaded for want of sleep," writes a
friend, "and distressed by money matters." Much of his time he
spent in fishing, no doubt meditating deeply on things present,
past, and future.

No pains were spared to induce him to give in his adhesion to one
of the candidates for royalty. His best friend wrote thus to him:--

"Those wretches the Communists have destroyed all my illusions,
but perhaps I could have forgiven them but for their ingratitude
to you. See how their newspapers have reviled you! A time may come
when a republic may be possible in France; but that day is not
with us yet. Let us acknowledge that we have both made a mistake.
As for you, with your unrivalled genius you have now a patriotic
career open before you, if you will cast in your lot with the men
who are now going to try and quell anarchy."[1]

[Footnote 1: Clement Laurier, Cornhill Magazine, 1883.]

Besides this, offers were made him of the prime minister-ship, a
dukedom, a Grand Cordon, and other preferment; but Gambetta only
laughed at these proposals. He was a man who had many faults, but
he was always honest and true. Both he and M. Thiers were devoted
Frenchmen, patriots in the truest sense of the word, and each took
opposite views. That Thiers was right has been proved by time.

On March 16 the Government of the Provisional Republic removed from
Bordeaux to Versailles. Nobody dreamed of the pending outbreak of
the Commune; all the talk was of fusion between the elder Bourbon
branch and the House of Orleans.

Thiers was decidedly opposed to taking the seat of government to
Paris, nor did he wish a new election for an Assembly; he preferred
Fontainebleau for the seat of government, but fortunately (looking
at the matter in the