tary Series, 1904),
founded on Hoenig's _Der Volkskrieg an der Loire_.]

Leon Gambetta had leaped to the front rank at the Bar in the closing
days of 1868 by a passionate outburst against the _coup d'etat_,
uttered, to the astonishment of all, in a small Court of Correctional
Police, over a petty case of State prosecution of a small Parisian
paper. Rejecting the ordinary methods of defence, the young barrister
flung defiance at Napoleon III. as the author of the _coup d'etat_ and
of all the present degradation of France. The daring of the young
barrister, who thus turned the tables on the authorities and impeached
the head of the State, made a profound impression; it was redoubled by
the Southern intensity of his thought and expression. Disdaining all
forms of rhetoric, he poured forth a torrent of ideas, clothing them in
the first words that came to his facile tongue, enforcing them by blows
of the fist or the most violent gestures, and yet, again, modulating the
roar of passion to the falsetto of satire or the whisper of emotion. His
short, thick-set frame, vibrating with strength, doubled the force of
all his utterances. Nor did they lack the glamour of poetry and romance
that might be expected from his Italian ancestry. He came of a Genoese
stock that had for some time settled in the South of France. Strange
fate, that called him now to the front with the aim of repairing the
ills wrought to France by another Italian House! In time of peace his
power over men would have raised him to the highest positions had his
Bohemian exuberance of thought and speech been tameable. It was not. He
scorned prudence in moderation at all times, and his behaviour, when the
wave of Revolution at last carried him to power, gave point to the taunt
of Thiers--"c'est un fou furieux." Such was the man who now brought the
quenchless ardour of his patriotism to the task of rousing France. As
far as words and energy could call forth armies, he succeeded; but as he
lacked all military knowledge, his blind self-confidence was to cost
France dear.

Possibly the new levies of the Republic might at some point have pierced
the immense circle of the German lines around Paris (for at first the
besieging forces were less numerous than the besieged), had not the
assailants been strengthened by the fall of Metz (Oct. 27). This is not
the place to discuss the culpability of Bazaine for the softness shown
in the defence. The voluminous evidence taken at