majority of one vote; and again when, at the first election for
life senators, he concluded a treaty with the Legitimists, and by giving
them a dozen seats, secured fifty for the Republicans and ousted the
Orleanists altogether.

From this time the Republic was founded with at least temporary
security, and although a coalition of all the reactionary parties
rallied against it in 1877, when M. Jules Simon's ministry was
dismissed, and when the Duc de Broglie was induced to try to destroy the
new form of government by Caesarist methods, yet there was never any real
danger that the Republic would succumb. From the day when M. Thiers
died, M. Gambetta stood guarding it like a sentinel. Just before the
general election of 1877, an emissary was sent to him from the De
Broglie-Fourtou Ministry, requesting him for his own sake not to make a
speech against Marshal MacMahon. He laughed when he heard that he would
be prosecuted if he made the speech. He was twirling a cigarette, and
laid down a copy of the _Revue des Deux Mondes_ in which he had been
reading an essay on Mr. Gladstone's speeches about the Irish Church.
"Tell the Prime Minister," he said, "that I will speak from a pedestal
if I can, but if not, from a housetop. In one way or another, my voice
shall reach further than his, and so long as I have a drop of blood to
shed the Republic shall not fall." M. Gambetta was sentenced to four
months' imprisonment for the speech in which he said that Marshal
MacMahon would have to yield to the popular will or resign, but before
he could be put into jail the De Broglie cabinet had ceased to exist.
Marshal MacMahon's resignation in 1879 was the obviously natural
consequence of the complete victory which the Republicans gained in
1877; but it was greatly to M. Gambetta's credit that he quietly
tolerated during fifteen months the presidency of the gallant soldier
who had never been his friend. When urged to agitate for the marshal's
overthrow, he always said, "It will do the Republic good if its first
president serves his term of office quietly to the end."

Had Gambetta lived till 1885 he would probably have been the next
president of the Republic he had established and preserved; but it was
not to be. His work was done. He died December 31, 1882.

BENJAMIN DISRAELI[16]

By HARRIET PRESCOTT SPOFFORD

(1804-1881)

[Footnote 16: Copyright, 1894, by Selmar Hess.]

[Illustration: Benjamin Disraeli. [TN]]

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