the case. "Bah!" he answered, "the poor
wretches have suffered enough. I might have been transported myself,
had matters turned out differently in 1870."[1] Had he lived, it
is probable that in 1886 he would have supplanted M. Grevy. "Nor,"
says one of his friends, "can it be doubted that, loving the Republic
as he did, and having served it with so much devotion and honesty,
he would have found in his love a power of self-restraint to keep
him from courses that might have been hurtful to his own work."
For the establishment of the Republic _was_ principally "his own
work." He proclaimed its birth, standing in a window of the Hotel
de Ville in 1870; he gave it a baptism of some glory in the fiery,
though hopeless, resistance he opposed to the German invasion;
and he kept it standing at a time when it needed the support of
a sturdy, vigilant champion. To the end it must be believed that
he would, as far as in him lay, have preserved it from harm. Not
long before his death, during a lull in his pain, which for a moment
roused a hope of his recovery, he said to his doctor: "I have made
many mistakes, but people must not imagine I am not aware of them;
I often think over my faults, and if things go well I shall try
the patience of my friends less often. _On se corrige!_"

[Footnote 1: Cornhill Magazine, 1883.]

When Gambetta was dead, the man who stepped into his place was
Jules Ferry. He was a lawyer, born in the Vosges in 1832. He had
never been personally intimate with Gambetta, but he succeeded
to his political inheritance, became chief of his party, secured
the majority that Gambetta never could get in the Chamber, and
did all that Gambetta had failed to do.

His attention when prime minister was largely devoted to the development
of French industry in colonies. He began a war in Tonquin, he annexed
Tunis, and commenced aggressions in Madagascar. All of these enterprises
have proved difficult, unprofitable, and wasteful of life and money.

The position of France with relation to other powers has become
very isolated. Her best friend, strange to say, is Russia,--the
young Republic and the absolute czar! Germany, Austria, and Italy
form the alliance called the Dreibund. But their military force
united is not quite equal to that of France and Russia combined.
If Russia ever attacks the three powers of Central Europe on the
East, it is not to be doubted that France will rush upon Alsace and
Lorraine. The mob of Paris,