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{{Short description|French politician (1838–1882)}}
].]]
{{Other uses}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=July 2020}}
{{Infobox officeholder
| name = Léon Gambetta
| image = Gambetta par Étienne Carjat (photo recadrée).jpg
| caption = Gambetta photographed by ]
| office = ]
| president = ]
| term_start = 14 November 1881
| term_end = 30 January 1882
| predecessor = ]
| successor = ]
| office1 = ]
| term_start1 = 31 January 1879
| term_end1 = 27 October 1881
| predecessor1 = Jules Grévy
| successor1 = ]
| office2 = ]
| primeminister2 = ]
| term_start2 = 4 September 1870
| term_end2 = 6 February 1871
| predecessor2 = ]
| successor2 = ]
| office3 = ]
| term_start3 = 8 June 1869
| term_end3 = 31 December 1882
| constituency3 = ] {{small|(1869–71)}}<br>] {{small|(1871)}}<br>] {{small|(1871–76)}}<br>] {{small|(1876–82)}}
| birth_date = {{Birth date|1838|4|2|df=y}}
| birth_place = ], ]
| death_date = {{Death date and age|df=yes|1882|12|31|1838|4|2}}
| death_place = ], ]
| party = ]<br>{{small|(1863–1869)}}<br>]<br>{{small|(1869–1871)}}<br>]<br>{{small|(1871–1882)}}
| alma_mater = ]
| profession = Lawyer
| signature = Leon Gambetta signature.gif
}}
{{republicanism sidebar}}
'''Léon Gambetta''' ({{IPA|fr|leɔ̃ ɡɑ̃bɛta|lang}}; 2 April 1838 – 31 December 1882) was a French lawyer and republican politician who proclaimed the ] in 1870 and played a prominent role in its early government.


==Early life and education==
'''Léon Gambetta''' (], ], ] - ], ], ]), was a ] statesman prominent after the ].
Born in ], Gambetta is said to have inherited his vigour and eloquence from his father, a ] grocer who had married a Frenchwoman named Massabie.<ref>{{cite book|last1=Laborde|first1=Jean Baptiste Vincent|title=Léon Gambetta, Biographie psychologique: le cerveau, la parole, la fonction et l'organo. Histoire authentique de la maladie et de la mort|date=1898|publisher=Schleicher frères|location=Paris|page=11|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=i__AFyubcDEC}}</ref> At the age of fifteen, Gambetta lost the sight of his right eye in an accident, and it eventually had to be removed. Despite this disability, he distinguished himself at school in Cahors. He then worked at his father's grocery shop in Cahors, the ''Bazar génois'' ("Genoese bazaar"), and in 1857 went to study at the ].<ref name=Larousse>{{cite encyclopedia|encyclopedia=]|title=Léon Gambetta|url=https://www.larousse.fr/encyclopedie/personnage/L%C3%A9on_Gambetta/120756|language=fr|access-date=29 May 2021}}</ref> His temperament gave him great influence among the students of the '']'', and he was soon known as an inveterate enemy of the imperial government.


==Career==
He is said to have inherited his vigour and eloquence from his father, a Genoese grocer of ] descent who had married a Frenchwoman named Massabie. At the age of fifteen, Gambetta lost the sight of his left eye in an accident, and it eventually had to be removed. Despite this handicap, he distinguished himself at school in Cahors, and in 1857 went to ] to study ]. His southern temperament gave him great influence among the students of the ''Quartier Latin'', and he was soon known as an inveterate enemy of the imperial government. He was called to the bar in 1859, but, although contributing to a Liberal review, edited by ], did not make much impact until, on ] ], he was selected to defend the journalist ], prosecuted for having promoted the erection of a monument to the representative Baudin, who was killed in resisting the '']'' of 1851. Gambetta seized his opportunity and attacked both the ''coup d'état'' and the government with an invective which made him immediately famous.
{{Moresources | section|date=February 2024}}
] of Léon Gambetta by Lége, Paris.]]
Gambetta was called to the bar in 1859.
He was admitted to the ] in 1861 and wrote to his father, "It is no mere lawyers club, but a veritable political assembly with a left, a right, a center; legislative proposals are the sole subject of discussion. It is there that are formed all the political men of France; it is a veritable training ground for the tribune."<ref>{{citation|page=123 |last=Nord|first=Philip G.|title=The Republican Moment: Struggles for Democracy in Nineteenth-century France|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=RDo7CFULR74C&pg=PA123|year=1995|publisher=Harvard University Press|isbn=978-0-674-76271-8}}</ref>
Gambetta, like many other French orators, learned the art of public speaking at the Molé.<ref>{{citation|page=348 |author=Fraser's Magazine|title=The Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=esURAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA348 |year=1881|publisher=Leavitt, Trow, & Company|chapter=Léon Michael Gambetta}}</ref>


However, although he contributed to a Liberal review edited by ], Gambetta did not make much of an impression until, on 17 November 1868, he was selected to defend the journalist ]. Delescluze was being prosecuted for having promoted a monument to the representative ], who had been killed while resisting the ], and Gambetta seized his opportunity to attack both the ''coup d'état'' and the government with a vigour which made him immediately famous.
In May ] he was returned to the Assembly, both by the first circumscription of Paris and by ], defeating ] for the former constituency and ] and ] for the latter. He chose to sit for Marseille, and lost no opportunity of attacking the Empire in the Assembly. At first opposed to the war with Germany, he did not, like some of his colleagues, refuse to vote supplies, but took the patriotic line and accepted that it had been forced on France. When the news of the disaster at ] reached Paris, Gambetta called for strong measures. He himself proclaimed the fail of the emperor at the ''corps législatif'', and the establishment of a republic at the ''hôtel de ville''. He was one of the first members of the new ], becoming minister of the interior. He advised his colleagues to leave Paris and conduct the government from some provincial city.


In May 1869, he was elected to the Assembly, both by a district in Paris and another in ], defeating ] for the former constituency and ] and ] for the latter. He chose to sit for Marseille, and lost no opportunity of attacking the Empire in the Assembly. Early in his political career, Gambetta was influenced by '']'', the seventeen statutes that defined the radical program in French politics throughout the ].
].]]


This made him the leading defender of the lower classes in the ]. On 17 January 1870, he spoke out against naming a new Imperial Lord Privy Seal, putting him into direct conflict with the regime's de facto prime minister, ]. (see Reinach, J., ''Discours et plaidoyers politiques de M. Gambetta'', I.102 – 113) His powerful oratory caused a complete breakdown of order in the Corps. The Monarchist Right continually tried to interrupt his speech, only to have Gambetta's supporters on the Left attack them. The disagreement reached a high point when M. le Président Schneider asked him to bring his supporters back into order. Gambetta responded, thundering, "l'indignation exclut le calme!" ("indignation excludes calm!") (Reinach, ''Discours et plaidoyers politiques de M. Gambetta'', I.112)
This advice was rejected through the fear of another revolution in Paris, and a delegation to organize resistance in the provinces was despatched to Tours, but when this was seen to be inefficient Gambetta himself (]) left Paris in a balloon -the "''Armand-Barbès''"- and upon arriving at Tours took the supreme direction of affairs as minister of the interior and of war. Aided by ], then a young officer of engineers, as his assistant secretary of war, he displayed prodigious energy and intelligence. He speedily organized an army, which might have effected the relief of Paris if ] had held out, but the surrender of ] brought the army of the crown prince into the field, and success was impossible. After the defeats of the French near ] early in December the seat of government had to be transferred to Bordeaux, and when Paris surrendered at the end of January, Gambetta, though resisting and protesting, was compelled to submit to the capitulation concluded with ]. He immediately resigned. Elected by alne departments to the National Assembly meeting at Bordeaux (on the ] ]) he chose to sit for ], which by the terms of the treaty about to be submitted to the Assembly for ratification was to be ceded to Prussia, and when the treaty was adopted he resigned in protest and retired to ].


It was also in 1869 that Gambetta was initiated into ] at "La Réforme" lodge in Paris, sponsored by ]. In this lodge he met ] and ].<ref>Dictionnaire Universelle de la Franc-Maçonnerie - Jode and Cara (Larousse - 2011)</ref>
Gambetta returned to France in June, was elected by three departments in July, and began to agitate for the definitive establishment of the Republic. On ] 1871 he established a journal, ''La Republique française'', which soon became the most influential in France. His orations at public meetings were more effective than those delivered in the Assembly, especially that made at ] on his return, and that at ] on ] ], in which he spoke of political power having passed to ''les nouvelles couches sociales''. When Thiers, however, fell from power in May 1873, and a Royalist was placed at the head of the government in the person of ], Gambetta gave proof of his statesmanship by unceasingly urging his friends to a moderate course, and by his tact and parliamentary dexterity, no less than by his eloquence, he was mainly instrumental in the voting of the constitution in February 1875. He gave this policy the appropriate name of "opportunism."


===Proclamation of the Republic===
]]]
]]]
Gambetta opposed the declaration of the ]. He did not, however, like some of his colleagues, refuse to vote for funds for the army.<ref name=Larousse/> On 2 September 1870, the French Army suffered a disastrous defeat at the ], in which the emperor ] surrendered and was taken prisoner. The news arrived in Paris on the night of 3 September, and early on 4 September large-scale protests began in the capital.


Parisians broke into the ], meeting place of the ], interrupting a session and calling for a Republic. Later that day, from the ], Gambetta proclaimed the French Republic to a large crowd gathered in the ]:<ref>{{cite book|title=The Third Republic in France, 1870-1940|author=Fortescue, William|pages=5–7|year=2017|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=4CMxDwAAQBAJ|publisher=]|isbn=9781351540001}}</ref>{{blockquote|
It was not until ] ], when the danger of reactionary intrigues was notorious, and the clerical party had begun a campaign for the restoration of the temporal power of the pope, that he delivered his famous speech denouncing "clericalism" as the enemy. On ] Marshal MacMahon, in order to support the clerical reactionaries, perpetrated his parliamentary ''coup d'état'', and on ] Gambetta, in a speech at Lille, gave him the alternative ''se soumettre ou se démettre''. He then undertook a political campaign to rouse the republican party throughout France, which culminated in a speech at Romans (], ]) formulating its programme. MacMahon, equally unwilling to resign or to provoke civil war, had no choice but to dismiss his advisers and form a moderate republican ministry under the premiership of ].
Frenchmen!
The people has forestalled the Chamber which was wavering.


To save the ], it has asked for the Republic.
When the resignation of the Dufaure cabinet brought about the abdication of Marshal MacMahon, Gambetta declined to become a candidate for the presidency, but gave his support to ]; nor did he attempt to form a ministry, but accepted the office of president of the chamber of deputies (January 1879). This position did not prevent his occasionally descending from the presidential chair to make speeches, one of which, advocating an amnesty to the ''communards'', was especially memorable. Although he really directed the policy of the various ministries, he evidently thought that the time was not ripe for asserting openly his own claims to direct the policy of the Republic, and seemed inclined to observe a neutral attitude as far as possible; but events hurried him on, and early in 1881 he placed himself at the head of a movement for restoring ''scrutin de liste'', or the system by which deputies are returned by the entire department which they represent, so that each elector votes for several representatives at once, in place of ''scrutin d'arrondissement'', the system of small constituencies, giving one member to each district and one vote to each elector. A bill to re-establish scrutin de liste was passed by the Assembly on ] 1881, but rejected by the Senate on ].


It has put its representatives not in power, but in peril.
This personal rebuff could not alter the fact that his was the name on the lips of voters at the election. His supporters were in a large majority, and on the reassembling of the chamber, ]'s cabinet quickly resigned. Gambetta was unwillingly entrusted by Grévy on ] ] with the formation of a ministry-known as ''Le Grand Ministère''. Every one suspected him of aiming at a dictatorship; attacks, albeit unjust, were directed against him from all sides, and his cabinet fell on ] ], after only sixty-six days. Had he remained in office, he would have cultivated the British alliance and cooperated with Britain in Egypt; and when the Freycinet administration, which succeeded, shrank from that enterprise only to see it undertaken with signal success by Britain alone, Gambetta's foresight was quickly justified. However, on December 31, 1882, at his house in Ville d'Avray, near ], he died by a shot from a revolver which accidentally went off. His public funeral on ] ] evoked one of the most overwhelming displays of national sentiment ever witnessed.


The Republic was victorious against the invasion of 1792: the Republic is proclaimed.
Gambetta rendered France three inestimable services: by preserving her self-respect through the gallantry of the resistance he organized during the ], by his tact in persuading extreme partisans to accept a moderate Republic, and by his energy in overcoming the usurpation attempted by the advisers of Marshal MacMahon. His death, at the early age of forty-four, cut short a career which had given promise of still greater things, for he had real statesmanship in his conceptions of the future of his country, and he had an eloquence which would have been potent in the education of his supporters.


The Revolution has been carried in the name of the right of public safety.
The romance of his life was his connection with ], the full details of which were not known to the public till her death in ]. She was the daughter of a French artillery officer. Gambetta fell in love with her in 1871. She became his mistress, and the liaison lasted till he died. Gambetta constantly urged her to marry him during this period, but she always refused, fearing to compromise his career; she remained, however, his confidante and intimate adviser in all his political plans. It seems she had just consented to become his wife, and the date of the marriage had been fixed, when the accident which caused his death occurred in her presence. Contradictory accounts of this fatal episode exist, but it was certainly accidental, and not ]. Her influence on Gambetta was absorbing, both as lover and as politician, and the correspondence which has been published shows how much he depended upon her.
However, some of her later recollections are untrustworthy. For example, she claimed that an actual interview took place in 1878 between Gambetta and Bismarck. That Gambetta after 1875 felt strongly that the relations between France and Germany might he improved, and that he made it his object, by travelling incognito, to become better acquainted with Germany and the adjoining states, may be accepted, but M. Laur appears to have exaggerated the extent to which any actual negotiations took place. On the other hand, the increased knowledge of Gambetta's attitude towards European politics which later information has supplied confirms the view that in him France lost prematurely a master mind, whom she could ill spare. In April 1905 a monument by ] to his memory at Bordeaux was unveiled by ].


Citizens, watch over the City which is entrusted to you, tomorrow, along with the army, you shall avenge the Nation!<ref>{{cite book|title=France: Empire and Republic, 1850–1940: Historical Documents|author-link=David Thomson (historian)|author=Thomson, David|year=1968|page=54|publisher=Springer |isbn=9781349005789|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=Ye-wCwAAQBAJ}}</ref>}}
==Gambetta's Ministry, ] ] - ] ]==


===Government of National Defense===
].]]
{{or section|date=July 2023}}
Gambetta was one of the first members of the new ], becoming ]. He advised his colleagues to leave Paris and run the government from some provincial city.
] aboard the ''Armand-Barbès'', 1870]]
This advice was rejected because of fear of another revolution in Paris, and a delegation to organize resistance in the provinces was dispatched to ], but when this was seen to be ineffective, Gambetta himself left Paris 7 October with ] in a ]-filled balloon—the "'']''"—and upon arriving at Tours took control as minister of the interior and of war. Aided by ], a young officer of engineers, as his assistant secretary of war, he quickly organized an army, which might have relieved Paris if ] had held out, but ]'s surrender brought the army of the Prussian prince ] back into the field, and success was impossible. After the ] near ] early in December the seat of government was transferred to ].


==Self-exile to San Sebastián==
*Léon Gambetta - ] and ]
{{more citations needed section|date=July 2023}}
*] - ]
Gambetta had hoped for a republican majority in the general elections on ]. These hopes vanished when the conservatives and Monarchists won nearly 2/3 of the six hundred Assembly seats. He had won elections in eight different ''départements'', but the ultimate victor was the Orléanist ], winner of twenty-three elections. Thiers's conservative and bourgeois intentions clashed with the growing expectations of political power by the lower classes. Hoping to continue his policy of "guerre à outrance" against the Prussian invaders, he tried in vain to rally the Assembly to the war cause. However, Thiers' peace treaty on 1 March 1871 ended the conflict. Gambetta, disgusted with the Assembly's unwillingness to fight, resigned and quit France for ] in Spain.
*] - ]
*] - ]
*] - ]
*] - Minister of the Colonies and of Commerce
*] - ]
*] - ] and Worship
*] - Minister of the Arts
*] - Minister of Agriculture
*] - Minister of Public Works
*] - Minister of Posts and Telegraphs


Meanwhile, the ] had taken control of the city. Despite his earlier career, Gambetta voiced his opposition to the Commune in a letter to ], his former secretary while Minister of the Interior, in which he referred to the Commune as "les horribles aventures dans lesquelles s'engage ce qui reste de cette malheureuse France - the ghastly madness blighting what remains of our poor France".<ref>Gambetta, L., ''Lettres de Gambetta'', no. 118 (a Antonin Proust, 24 Mars 1871.</ref>
{{start box}}

{{succession box|title=]|before=]|after=]|years=1870&ndash;1871}}
Gambetta's stance has been explained by reference to his status as a republican lawyer, who fought from the bar instead of the barricade<ref>Joly, M., "Le Barreau de Paris"; Debré, J.-L., ''Les Républiques des Avocats''.</ref> and also to his father having been a grocer in Marseille. As a small-scale producer during the decades of the ] in France, Joseph Gambetta was nearly ruined by the competition of new chain-store food shops. This sort of "big business" made the hard-working middle-class - "petite bourgeoisie" - very resentful, not only of bourgeois industrial capitalism, but also of the working class, which now held the status of backbone of the French economy, rather than the class of small, independent shopkeepers.<ref>Nord, P., ''Paris Shopkeepers and the Politics of Resentment''</ref> This resentment may have been passed down from father to son, and manifested itself in an unwillingness to support the lower-class Communards in their usurpation of what the "petite bourgeoisie" had won a certain hegemony over.
{{succession box|title=]|before=]|after=]|years=1879&ndash;1881}}

{{succession box two to one|before1=]|before2=]|title1=]|years1=1881&ndash;1882|title2=]|years2=1881&ndash;1882|after=]}}
===Return===
{{end box}}
], 1871]]
] (1875).]]
]

On 24 June 1871, a letter was sent by Gambetta to his Parisian confidant, Dr. Édouard Fieuzal:

{{blockquote|Je veux déjouer l'intrigue de parti de ceux qui vont répétant que je refuse toute candidature à Paris. Non. J'accepte au contraire avec fierté et reconnaissance les suffrages de la démocratie Parisienne si elle veut m'honorer de son choix. Je suis prêt.}}

{{blockquote|There is no truth in the rumours being spread that I am refusing to stand for election in Paris. No. I accept, to the contrary, with pride and gratitude the Parisians' votes, if they would do me the honor of choosing me. I am prepared.
(Lettres de Gambetta, no. 122)}}

Gambetta returned to the political stage and won on three separate ballots. On 5 November 1871 he established a journal, '']'', which soon became the most influential in France. His public speeches were more effective than those delivered in the Assembly, especially the one at ]. His turn towards moderate republicanism first became apparent in ], a small coal-mining town along the ] River. There, he boldly proclaimed the radical republic he once supported to be "avoided like the plague" (''se tenir éloignés comme de la peste'') (Discours, III.5). From there, he went to ]. On 26 September 1872, he proclaimed the future of the Republic to be in the hands of "a new social level" (''une couche sociale nouvelle'') (Discours, III.101), ostensibly the ] to which his father belonged.

When ] resigned in May 1873, and a Royalist, ], was placed at the head of the government, Gambetta urged his friends to a moderate course. By his tact, parliamentary dexterity and eloquence, he was instrumental in voting in the ] in February 1875. He gave this policy the appropriate name of "opportunism," and became one of the leader of the "]." On 4 May 1877, he denounced "clericalism" as the enemy. During the ], Gambetta, in a speech at ] on 15 August called on President MacMahon ''se soumettre ou se démettre'', to submit to parliament's majority or to resign. Gambetta then campaigned to rouse the republican party throughout France, which culminated in a speech at ] (18 September 1878) formulating its programme. MacMahon, unwilling both to resign and to provoke civil war, had no choice but to dismiss his advisers and form a moderate republican ministry under the premiership of ].

When the downfall of the Dufaure cabinet brought about MacMahon's resignation, Gambetta declined to become a candidate for the presidency, but supported ]; nor did he attempt to form a ministry, but accepted the office of president of the chamber of deputies in January 1879. This position did not prevent his occasionally descending from the presidential chair to make speeches, one of which, advocating an amnesty to the ''communards'',<ref>{{cite news |url= https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1880/07/05/109300586.pdf |title=The French Amnesty Bill |work=The New York Times |date=5 July 1880}}</ref> was especially memorable. Although he directed the policy of the various ministries from behind the scenes, he evidently thought that the time was not ripe for asserting openly his direction of the policy of the Republic, and seemed inclined to observe a neutral attitude as far as possible. However, events hurried him on, and early in 1881 he headed off a movement for restoring ''scrutin de liste'', or the system by which deputies are returned by the entire department which they represent, so that each elector votes for several representatives at once, in place of ''scrutin d'arrondissement'', the system of small constituencies, giving one member to each district and one for vote to each elector. A bill to re-establish ''scrutin de liste'' was passed by the Assembly on 19 May 1881, but rejected by the Senate on 19 June.

This personal rebuff could not alter the fact that his name was on the lips of voters at the election. His supporters won a large majority, and ]'s cabinet quickly resigned. Gambetta was unwillingly asked by Grévy on 24 November 1881 to form a ministry, known as ''Le Grand Ministère''. Many suspected him of desiring a dictatorship; unjust attacks were directed against him from all sides, and his cabinet fell on 26 January 1882, after only sixty-six days. Had he remained in office, he would have cultivated the British alliance and cooperated with Britain in Egypt; and when the succeeding ] government shrank from that enterprise only to see it undertaken with signal success by Britain alone, Gambetta's foresight was quickly justified.

On 31 December 1882, at his house in Ville d'Avray, near ], he died from intestine or stomach cancer.<ref>Lannelongue, ''Blessure et maladie de M. Gambetta'', G. Masson, Paris, 1883</ref> Even though he was wounded a month earlier from an accidental revolver discharge, the injury had not been life-threatening. Five artists, ], a realist painter, ], defender of the vanguard who Gambetta had named Minister of Fine Arts, ], an academic painter, ], who did his mortuary mask, and his personal photographer ] all sat at his death-bed, making five widely different representations of him which were each published by the press the following day.<ref>Michel Melot, "''L'icône démocratique – à propos des portraits de Gambetta''" in the review ''Médium'' n°12 (July–August–September 2007, dir. ]) (pp. 39–59)</ref> His public funeral was on 6 January 1883.{{clear}}

==Personal life==
]
The love of his life was his connection with ], the full details of which were not known to the public until her death in 1906. She was the daughter of a ] French artillery officer. Gambetta fell in love with her in 1871. She became his mistress, and the liaison lasted until he died. Gambetta constantly urged her to marry him during this period, but she always refused, fearing to compromise his career; she remained, however, his confidante and intimate adviser in all his political plans. It seems she had just consented to become his wife, and the date of the marriage had been fixed, when the accident which caused his death occurred in her presence. Contradictory accounts of this fatal episode exist, but it was certainly accidental, and not suicide. Her influence on Gambetta was absorbing, both as lover and as politician, and the correspondence which has been published shows how much he depended upon her.

However, some of her later recollections are untrustworthy. For example, she claimed that a meeting took place in 1878 between Gambetta and Bismarck. That Gambetta after 1875 felt strongly that relations between France and Germany might be improved, and that he made it his object, by travelling incognito, to become better acquainted with Germany and the adjoining states, may be accepted, but M. Laur appears to have exaggerated the extent to which any actual negotiations took place. On the other hand, the increased knowledge of Gambetta's attitude towards European politics which later information has supplied confirms the view that when he died, France had prematurely lost a clear thinker whom she could ill spare. In April 1905 a monument by ] to his memory at Bordeaux was unveiled by ].{{clear}}

==Legacy==
], c.1900]]
]]]
{{citation needed span|Gambetta rendered France three inestimable services: by preserving her self-respect through the gallantry of the resistance he organized during the ], by his tact in persuading extreme partisans to accept a moderate Republic, and by his energy in overcoming the usurpation attempted by the advisers of Marshal MacMahon. His death at forty-four cut short a career which had given promise of still greater things, for he had real statesmanship in his conceptions of the future of his country, and he had an eloquence which would have been potent in the education of his supporters.|date=June 2021}}

Gambetta proclamation of the Republic and call for a ] left a lasting impact on Germany in the decades following. Future Field Marshall ] wrote in 1877:

{{quote|Should it come to pass that...our German fatherland suffers a defeat like that of the French at Sedan, I would wish a man emerges who knows how to inspire the sort of absolute resistance Gambetta tried to organize.}}

In October 1918, when Germany was on the verge of defeat during the ], industrialist ] called for a German ''Levée en masse'' to reverse the deteriorating situation. Conservative Revolutionary ] was also inspired by Gambetta. ] favorably contrasted Gambetta's actions with that of the ] leaders of the ]:

{{Quote|With the collapse of France at Sedan, the people rose in revolution to ''save'' the fallen tricolor! The war continued with new energy! The revolutionaries bravely fought countless battles. The will to defend the state created the French Republic in 1870. It was a symbol not of dishonor nut of the upstanding will to preserve the nation. French national honor was revived by the Third Republic. What a contrast to our republic!<ref>{{Cite book |first=Wolfgang |last=Schivelbusch |title=Culture of Defeat |date=2003 |publisher=Metropolitian Books |pages=8–9, 210–211}}</ref>}}

A tall {{ill|Léon Gambetta Monument{{!}}monument to Léon Gambetta|fr|Monument à Léon Gambetta (Paris)}} was planned in 1884 and erected in 1888 in the central space of the ], now ]. That initiative carried heavy political symbolism, since Gambetta was widely viewed as the founder of the ], and his outsized celebration in the middle of ] thus affirmed the final victory of ] over ] nearly a century after the ] – in the same vein, the Gambetta monument visually overpowered ]'s comparatively diminutive ]. Most of the monument's sculptures were in bronze and in 1941 were melted for military use by ]. What remained of the Gambetta Monument was dismantled in 1954.{{citation needed|date=August 2021}}

A stone urn containing Gambetta's heart was placed in 1920 in the monumental staircase leading to the crypt of the ] in Paris. The Russian red ] stone that was used for the urn was part of the same shipment that was used for ] at ].<ref name=Russia>{{citation |url=https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/217176609.pdf |title=The Russian contribution to the edification of the Napoleon tombstone in Paris |author1=Jacques Touret |author2=Andrey Bulakh |date=2016 |journal=Vestnik of St Petersburg University |series=Series 15 |access-date=23 May 2021 |archive-date=22 March 2023 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20230322192714/https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/217176609.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref>

==Gambetta's Ministry, 14 November 1881 – 26 January 1882==

*Léon Gambetta – ] and ]
*] – ]
*] – ]
*] – ]
*] – ]
*] – Minister of the Colonies and of Commerce
*] – ]
*] – ] and Worship
*] – Minister of the Arts
*] – Minister of Agriculture
*] – Minister of Public Works
*] – Minister of Posts and Telegraphs

==See also==
{{commons category}}
* ]


==References== ==References==
{{wikiquote}} {{Reflist}}

{{commonscat}}
==Sources and further reading==
{{1911}}
{{EB1911|wstitle=Gambetta, Léon|volume=11|last= Chisholm |first= Hugh |author-link= Hugh Chisholm |pages=435–436|short=1}}
The 1911 ''Britannica'' gives the following references:
* ] ''Gambetta and the Making of the Third Republic'' (Longman, 1973).
* By Gambetta
* Bury, J. P. T. "Gambetta and the Revolution of 4 September 1870." ''Cambridge Historical Journal'' 4#3 (1934): 263–282. .
**''Discours et plaidoyers politiques'', published by J Reinach in 11 vols. (Paris, 1881-1886)
* ] ''The End of Kings: A History of Republics and Republicans.'' Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000. {{ISBN|978-0226224824}}
** ''Dépêches, circulaires, décrets…'' in 2 vols. (Paris, 1886-1891)
* Foley, Susan, and Charles Sowerwine. ''A Political Romance: Léon Gambetta, Léonie Léon and the Making of the French Republic, 1872–82'' (Springer, 2012).
* Biographies:
* Foley, Susan. "'Your letter is divine, irresistible, infernally seductive': Léon Gambetta, Léonie Léon, and Nineteenth-Century Epistolary Culture." ''French Historical Studies'' 30.2 (2007): 237–267 .
** ], ''Léon Gambetta'' (1884), ''Gambetta orateur'' (1884) and ''Le Ministère Gambetta, histoire et doctrine'' (1884)
* Lehning, James R. "Gossiping about Gambetta: Contested Memories in the Early Third Republic." ''French Historical Studies'' (1993): 237–254 .
** Neucastel, ''Gambetta, sa vie, et ses idées politiques'' (1885)
* Marzials, Frank Thomas. ''Life of Léon Gambetta'' (WH Allen, 1890) .
** J Hanlon, ''Gambetta'' (London, 1881)

** Dr Laborde, ''Léon Gambetta biographie psychologique'' (1898)
===Primary sources===
** PB Gheusi, ''Gambetta, Life and Letters'' (Eng. trans. by VM Montagu, 1910)
* Gambetta, Léon, and Violette M. Montagu. ''Gambetta: Life and Letters'' (T. Fisher Unwin, 1910).
* Other:
* Gambetta. ''Discours et plaidoyers politiques de M. Gambetta'', published by J. Reinach in 11 vols. (Paris, 1881–1886)
** ], ''Histoire de la France contemporaine'' (1903)
* Gambetta. ''Dépêches, circulaires, décrets...'' in 2 vols. (Paris, 1886–1891)
** F Laur ''Le Creur de Gambetta'' (1907, Eng. trans., 1908) contains the correspondence with Léonie Leon
** F Laur: articles on "Gambetta and Bismarck" in ''The Times'' of August 17 and 19, 1907, with the correspondence arising from them. * F Laur ''Le Coeur de Gambetta'' (1907, Eng. trans., 1908) contains the correspondence with Léonie Leon
* Caricatures et Caricature

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Latest revision as of 17:13, 7 October 2024

French politician (1838–1882) For other uses, see Léon Gambetta (disambiguation).

Léon Gambetta
Gambetta photographed by Étienne Carjat
Prime Minister of France
In office
14 November 1881 – 30 January 1882
PresidentJules Grévy
Preceded byJules Ferry
Succeeded byCharles de Freycinet
President of the Chamber of Deputies
In office
31 January 1879 – 27 October 1881
Preceded byJules Grévy
Succeeded byHenri Brisson
Minister of the Interior
In office
4 September 1870 – 6 February 1871
Prime MinisterLouis-Jules Trochu
Preceded byHenri Chevreau
Succeeded byEmmanuel Arago
Member of the Chamber of Deputies
In office
8 June 1869 – 31 December 1882
ConstituencyBouches-du-Rhône (1869–71)
Bas-Rhin (1871)
Seine (1871–76)
Paris (1876–82)
Personal details
Born(1838-04-02)2 April 1838
Cahors, France
Died31 December 1882(1882-12-31) (aged 44)
Sèvres, France
Political partyModerate Republican
(1863–1869)
Republican far-left
(1869–1871)
Republican Union
(1871–1882)
Alma materUniversity of Paris
ProfessionLawyer
Signature
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Léon Gambetta (French: [leɔ̃ ɡɑ̃bɛta]; 2 April 1838 – 31 December 1882) was a French lawyer and republican politician who proclaimed the French Third Republic in 1870 and played a prominent role in its early government.

Early life and education

Born in Cahors, Gambetta is said to have inherited his vigour and eloquence from his father, a Genoese grocer who had married a Frenchwoman named Massabie. At the age of fifteen, Gambetta lost the sight of his right eye in an accident, and it eventually had to be removed. Despite this disability, he distinguished himself at school in Cahors. He then worked at his father's grocery shop in Cahors, the Bazar génois ("Genoese bazaar"), and in 1857 went to study at the Faculty of Law of Paris. His temperament gave him great influence among the students of the Quartier latin, and he was soon known as an inveterate enemy of the imperial government.

Career

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Carte de visite of Léon Gambetta by Lége, Paris.

Gambetta was called to the bar in 1859. He was admitted to the Conférence Molé in 1861 and wrote to his father, "It is no mere lawyers club, but a veritable political assembly with a left, a right, a center; legislative proposals are the sole subject of discussion. It is there that are formed all the political men of France; it is a veritable training ground for the tribune." Gambetta, like many other French orators, learned the art of public speaking at the Molé.

However, although he contributed to a Liberal review edited by Challemel-Lacour, Gambetta did not make much of an impression until, on 17 November 1868, he was selected to defend the journalist Delescluze. Delescluze was being prosecuted for having promoted a monument to the representative Baudin, who had been killed while resisting the coup d'état of 1851, and Gambetta seized his opportunity to attack both the coup d'état and the government with a vigour which made him immediately famous.

In May 1869, he was elected to the Assembly, both by a district in Paris and another in Marseille, defeating Hippolyte Carnot for the former constituency and Adolphe Thiers and Ferdinand de Lesseps for the latter. He chose to sit for Marseille, and lost no opportunity of attacking the Empire in the Assembly. Early in his political career, Gambetta was influenced by Le Programme de Belleville, the seventeen statutes that defined the radical program in French politics throughout the Third Republic.

This made him the leading defender of the lower classes in the Corps Législatif. On 17 January 1870, he spoke out against naming a new Imperial Lord Privy Seal, putting him into direct conflict with the regime's de facto prime minister, Émile Ollivier. (see Reinach, J., Discours et plaidoyers politiques de M. Gambetta, I.102 – 113) His powerful oratory caused a complete breakdown of order in the Corps. The Monarchist Right continually tried to interrupt his speech, only to have Gambetta's supporters on the Left attack them. The disagreement reached a high point when M. le Président Schneider asked him to bring his supporters back into order. Gambetta responded, thundering, "l'indignation exclut le calme!" ("indignation excludes calm!") (Reinach, Discours et plaidoyers politiques de M. Gambetta, I.112)

It was also in 1869 that Gambetta was initiated into Freemasonry at "La Réforme" lodge in Paris, sponsored by Louis-Antoine Garnier-Pagès. In this lodge he met Gustave Naquet and Maurice Rouvier.

Proclamation of the Republic

Gambetta proclaiming the French Republic from the Hôtel de Ville, in a painting by Howard Pyle

Gambetta opposed the declaration of the Franco-Prussian War. He did not, however, like some of his colleagues, refuse to vote for funds for the army. On 2 September 1870, the French Army suffered a disastrous defeat at the Battle of Sedan, in which the emperor Napoleon III surrendered and was taken prisoner. The news arrived in Paris on the night of 3 September, and early on 4 September large-scale protests began in the capital.

Parisians broke into the Palais Bourbon, meeting place of the Chamber of Deputies, interrupting a session and calling for a Republic. Later that day, from the Hôtel de Ville, Gambetta proclaimed the French Republic to a large crowd gathered in the Place de l'Hôtel-de-Ville:

Frenchmen! The people has forestalled the Chamber which was wavering.

To save the Nation in danger, it has asked for the Republic.

It has put its representatives not in power, but in peril.

The Republic was victorious against the invasion of 1792: the Republic is proclaimed.

The Revolution has been carried in the name of the right of public safety.

Citizens, watch over the City which is entrusted to you, tomorrow, along with the army, you shall avenge the Nation!

Government of National Defense

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Gambetta was one of the first members of the new Government of National Defense, becoming Minister of the Interior. He advised his colleagues to leave Paris and run the government from some provincial city.

Departure of Léon Gambetta and Eugène Spuller aboard the Armand-Barbès, 1870

This advice was rejected because of fear of another revolution in Paris, and a delegation to organize resistance in the provinces was dispatched to Tours, but when this was seen to be ineffective, Gambetta himself left Paris 7 October with Eugène Spuller in a coal gas-filled balloon—the "Armand-Barbès"—and upon arriving at Tours took control as minister of the interior and of war. Aided by Freycinet, a young officer of engineers, as his assistant secretary of war, he quickly organized an army, which might have relieved Paris if Metz had held out, but Bazaine's surrender brought the army of the Prussian prince Friederich Karl back into the field, and success was impossible. After the French defeat near Orléans early in December the seat of government was transferred to Bordeaux.

Self-exile to San Sebastián

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Gambetta had hoped for a republican majority in the general elections on 8 February 1871. These hopes vanished when the conservatives and Monarchists won nearly 2/3 of the six hundred Assembly seats. He had won elections in eight different départements, but the ultimate victor was the Orléanist Adolphe Thiers, winner of twenty-three elections. Thiers's conservative and bourgeois intentions clashed with the growing expectations of political power by the lower classes. Hoping to continue his policy of "guerre à outrance" against the Prussian invaders, he tried in vain to rally the Assembly to the war cause. However, Thiers' peace treaty on 1 March 1871 ended the conflict. Gambetta, disgusted with the Assembly's unwillingness to fight, resigned and quit France for San Sebastián in Spain.

Meanwhile, the Paris Commune had taken control of the city. Despite his earlier career, Gambetta voiced his opposition to the Commune in a letter to Antonin Proust, his former secretary while Minister of the Interior, in which he referred to the Commune as "les horribles aventures dans lesquelles s'engage ce qui reste de cette malheureuse France - the ghastly madness blighting what remains of our poor France".

Gambetta's stance has been explained by reference to his status as a republican lawyer, who fought from the bar instead of the barricade and also to his father having been a grocer in Marseille. As a small-scale producer during the decades of the Second Industrial Revolution in France, Joseph Gambetta was nearly ruined by the competition of new chain-store food shops. This sort of "big business" made the hard-working middle-class - "petite bourgeoisie" - very resentful, not only of bourgeois industrial capitalism, but also of the working class, which now held the status of backbone of the French economy, rather than the class of small, independent shopkeepers. This resentment may have been passed down from father to son, and manifested itself in an unwillingness to support the lower-class Communards in their usurpation of what the "petite bourgeoisie" had won a certain hegemony over.

Return

Photo of Gambetta by Nadar, 1871
Léon Gambetta, by Alphonse Legros (1875).
Maison des Jardies, the place where Gambetta died in Sèvres.

On 24 June 1871, a letter was sent by Gambetta to his Parisian confidant, Dr. Édouard Fieuzal:

Je veux déjouer l'intrigue de parti de ceux qui vont répétant que je refuse toute candidature à Paris. Non. J'accepte au contraire avec fierté et reconnaissance les suffrages de la démocratie Parisienne si elle veut m'honorer de son choix. Je suis prêt.

There is no truth in the rumours being spread that I am refusing to stand for election in Paris. No. I accept, to the contrary, with pride and gratitude the Parisians' votes, if they would do me the honor of choosing me. I am prepared. (Lettres de Gambetta, no. 122)

Gambetta returned to the political stage and won on three separate ballots. On 5 November 1871 he established a journal, La Republique française, which soon became the most influential in France. His public speeches were more effective than those delivered in the Assembly, especially the one at Bordeaux. His turn towards moderate republicanism first became apparent in Firminy, a small coal-mining town along the Loire River. There, he boldly proclaimed the radical republic he once supported to be "avoided like the plague" (se tenir éloignés comme de la peste) (Discours, III.5). From there, he went to Grenoble. On 26 September 1872, he proclaimed the future of the Republic to be in the hands of "a new social level" (une couche sociale nouvelle) (Discours, III.101), ostensibly the petite bourgeoisie to which his father belonged.

When Adolphe Thiers resigned in May 1873, and a Royalist, Marshal MacMahon, was placed at the head of the government, Gambetta urged his friends to a moderate course. By his tact, parliamentary dexterity and eloquence, he was instrumental in voting in the French Constitutional Laws of 1875 in February 1875. He gave this policy the appropriate name of "opportunism," and became one of the leader of the "Opportunist Republicans." On 4 May 1877, he denounced "clericalism" as the enemy. During the 16 May 1877 crisis, Gambetta, in a speech at Lille on 15 August called on President MacMahon se soumettre ou se démettre, to submit to parliament's majority or to resign. Gambetta then campaigned to rouse the republican party throughout France, which culminated in a speech at Romans (18 September 1878) formulating its programme. MacMahon, unwilling both to resign and to provoke civil war, had no choice but to dismiss his advisers and form a moderate republican ministry under the premiership of Dufaure.

When the downfall of the Dufaure cabinet brought about MacMahon's resignation, Gambetta declined to become a candidate for the presidency, but supported Jules Grévy; nor did he attempt to form a ministry, but accepted the office of president of the chamber of deputies in January 1879. This position did not prevent his occasionally descending from the presidential chair to make speeches, one of which, advocating an amnesty to the communards, was especially memorable. Although he directed the policy of the various ministries from behind the scenes, he evidently thought that the time was not ripe for asserting openly his direction of the policy of the Republic, and seemed inclined to observe a neutral attitude as far as possible. However, events hurried him on, and early in 1881 he headed off a movement for restoring scrutin de liste, or the system by which deputies are returned by the entire department which they represent, so that each elector votes for several representatives at once, in place of scrutin d'arrondissement, the system of small constituencies, giving one member to each district and one for vote to each elector. A bill to re-establish scrutin de liste was passed by the Assembly on 19 May 1881, but rejected by the Senate on 19 June.

This personal rebuff could not alter the fact that his name was on the lips of voters at the election. His supporters won a large majority, and Jules Ferry's cabinet quickly resigned. Gambetta was unwillingly asked by Grévy on 24 November 1881 to form a ministry, known as Le Grand Ministère. Many suspected him of desiring a dictatorship; unjust attacks were directed against him from all sides, and his cabinet fell on 26 January 1882, after only sixty-six days. Had he remained in office, he would have cultivated the British alliance and cooperated with Britain in Egypt; and when the succeeding Freycinet government shrank from that enterprise only to see it undertaken with signal success by Britain alone, Gambetta's foresight was quickly justified.

On 31 December 1882, at his house in Ville d'Avray, near Sèvres, he died from intestine or stomach cancer. Even though he was wounded a month earlier from an accidental revolver discharge, the injury had not been life-threatening. Five artists, Jules Bastien-Lepage, a realist painter, Antonin Proust, defender of the vanguard who Gambetta had named Minister of Fine Arts, Léon Bonnat, an academic painter, Alexandre Falguière, who did his mortuary mask, and his personal photographer Étienne Carjat all sat at his death-bed, making five widely different representations of him which were each published by the press the following day. His public funeral was on 6 January 1883.

Personal life

Léonie Léon in 1875

The love of his life was his connection with Léonie Léon, the full details of which were not known to the public until her death in 1906. She was the daughter of a creole French artillery officer. Gambetta fell in love with her in 1871. She became his mistress, and the liaison lasted until he died. Gambetta constantly urged her to marry him during this period, but she always refused, fearing to compromise his career; she remained, however, his confidante and intimate adviser in all his political plans. It seems she had just consented to become his wife, and the date of the marriage had been fixed, when the accident which caused his death occurred in her presence. Contradictory accounts of this fatal episode exist, but it was certainly accidental, and not suicide. Her influence on Gambetta was absorbing, both as lover and as politician, and the correspondence which has been published shows how much he depended upon her.

However, some of her later recollections are untrustworthy. For example, she claimed that a meeting took place in 1878 between Gambetta and Bismarck. That Gambetta after 1875 felt strongly that relations between France and Germany might be improved, and that he made it his object, by travelling incognito, to become better acquainted with Germany and the adjoining states, may be accepted, but M. Laur appears to have exaggerated the extent to which any actual negotiations took place. On the other hand, the increased knowledge of Gambetta's attitude towards European politics which later information has supplied confirms the view that when he died, France had prematurely lost a clear thinker whom she could ill spare. In April 1905 a monument by Dalou to his memory at Bordeaux was unveiled by President Loubet.

Legacy

Gambetta monument at the Louvre, c.1900
Urn containing the heart of Gambetta at the Panthéon

Gambetta rendered France three inestimable services: by preserving her self-respect through the gallantry of the resistance he organized during the Franco-Prussian War, by his tact in persuading extreme partisans to accept a moderate Republic, and by his energy in overcoming the usurpation attempted by the advisers of Marshal MacMahon. His death at forty-four cut short a career which had given promise of still greater things, for he had real statesmanship in his conceptions of the future of his country, and he had an eloquence which would have been potent in the education of his supporters.

Gambetta proclamation of the Republic and call for a Levée en masse left a lasting impact on Germany in the decades following. Future Field Marshall Colmar Freiherr von der Goltz wrote in 1877:

Should it come to pass that...our German fatherland suffers a defeat like that of the French at Sedan, I would wish a man emerges who knows how to inspire the sort of absolute resistance Gambetta tried to organize.

In October 1918, when Germany was on the verge of defeat during the First World War, industrialist Walther Rathenau called for a German Levée en masse to reverse the deteriorating situation. Conservative Revolutionary Edgar Jung was also inspired by Gambetta. Adolf Hitler favorably contrasted Gambetta's actions with that of the post-revolutionary leaders of the Weimar Republic:

With the collapse of France at Sedan, the people rose in revolution to save the fallen tricolor! The war continued with new energy! The revolutionaries bravely fought countless battles. The will to defend the state created the French Republic in 1870. It was a symbol not of dishonor nut of the upstanding will to preserve the nation. French national honor was revived by the Third Republic. What a contrast to our republic!

A tall monument to Léon Gambetta [fr] was planned in 1884 and erected in 1888 in the central space of the Louvre Palace, now Cour Napoléon. That initiative carried heavy political symbolism, since Gambetta was widely viewed as the founder of the Third Republic, and his outsized celebration in the middle of Napoleon III's Louvre expansion thus affirmed the final victory of republicanism over monarchism nearly a century after the French Revolution – in the same vein, the Gambetta monument visually overpowered Napoleon's comparatively diminutive Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel. Most of the monument's sculptures were in bronze and in 1941 were melted for military use by German occupying forces. What remained of the Gambetta Monument was dismantled in 1954.

A stone urn containing Gambetta's heart was placed in 1920 in the monumental staircase leading to the crypt of the Panthéon in Paris. The Russian red quartzite stone that was used for the urn was part of the same shipment that was used for Napoleon's tomb at Les Invalides.

Gambetta's Ministry, 14 November 1881 – 26 January 1882

See also

References

  1. Laborde, Jean Baptiste Vincent (1898). Léon Gambetta, Biographie psychologique: le cerveau, la parole, la fonction et l'organo. Histoire authentique de la maladie et de la mort. Paris: Schleicher frères. p. 11.
  2. ^ "Léon Gambetta". Larousse (in French). Retrieved 29 May 2021.
  3. Nord, Philip G. (1995), The Republican Moment: Struggles for Democracy in Nineteenth-century France, Harvard University Press, p. 123, ISBN 978-0-674-76271-8
  4. Fraser's Magazine (1881), "Léon Michael Gambetta", The Eclectic Magazine of Foreign Literature, Science, and Art, Leavitt, Trow, & Company, p. 348
  5. Dictionnaire Universelle de la Franc-Maçonnerie - Jode and Cara (Larousse - 2011)
  6. Fortescue, William (2017). The Third Republic in France, 1870-1940. Routledge. pp. 5–7. ISBN 9781351540001.
  7. Thomson, David (1968). France: Empire and Republic, 1850–1940: Historical Documents. Springer. p. 54. ISBN 9781349005789.
  8. Gambetta, L., Lettres de Gambetta, no. 118 (a Antonin Proust, 24 Mars 1871.
  9. Joly, M., "Le Barreau de Paris"; Debré, J.-L., Les Républiques des Avocats.
  10. Nord, P., Paris Shopkeepers and the Politics of Resentment
  11. "The French Amnesty Bill" (PDF). The New York Times. 5 July 1880.
  12. Lannelongue, Blessure et maladie de M. Gambetta, G. Masson, Paris, 1883
  13. Michel Melot, "L'icône démocratique – à propos des portraits de Gambetta" in the review Médium n°12 (July–August–September 2007, dir. Régis Debray) (pp. 39–59)
  14. Schivelbusch, Wolfgang (2003). Culture of Defeat. Metropolitian Books. pp. 8–9, 210–211.
  15. Jacques Touret; Andrey Bulakh (2016), "The Russian contribution to the edification of the Napoleon tombstone in Paris" (PDF), Vestnik of St Petersburg University, Series 15, archived from the original (PDF) on 22 March 2023, retrieved 23 May 2021

Sources and further reading

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh (1911). "Gambetta, Léon". Encyclopædia Britannica. Vol. 11 (11th ed.). pp. 435–436.

  • Bury, J. P. T. Gambetta and the Making of the Third Republic (Longman, 1973).
  • Bury, J. P. T. "Gambetta and the Revolution of 4 September 1870." Cambridge Historical Journal 4#3 (1934): 263–282. online.
  • Everdell, William R. The End of Kings: A History of Republics and Republicans. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000. ISBN 978-0226224824
  • Foley, Susan, and Charles Sowerwine. A Political Romance: Léon Gambetta, Léonie Léon and the Making of the French Republic, 1872–82 (Springer, 2012).
  • Foley, Susan. "'Your letter is divine, irresistible, infernally seductive': Léon Gambetta, Léonie Léon, and Nineteenth-Century Epistolary Culture." French Historical Studies 30.2 (2007): 237–267 online.
  • Lehning, James R. "Gossiping about Gambetta: Contested Memories in the Early Third Republic." French Historical Studies (1993): 237–254 online.
  • Marzials, Frank Thomas. Life of Léon Gambetta (WH Allen, 1890) online.

Primary sources

  • Gambetta, Léon, and Violette M. Montagu. Gambetta: Life and Letters (T. Fisher Unwin, 1910).
  • Gambetta. Discours et plaidoyers politiques de M. Gambetta, published by J. Reinach in 11 vols. (Paris, 1881–1886)
  • Gambetta. Dépêches, circulaires, décrets... in 2 vols. (Paris, 1886–1891)
  • F Laur Le Coeur de Gambetta (1907, Eng. trans., 1908) contains the correspondence with Léonie Leon
  • Caricatures de Léon Gambetta Caricatures et Caricature
Political offices
Preceded byHenri Chevreau Minister of the Interior
1870–1871 		Succeeded byEmmanuel Arago
Preceded byJules Grévy President of the Chamber of Deputies
1879–1881 		Succeeded byHenri Brisson
Preceded byJules Ferry Prime Minister of France
1881–1882 		Succeeded byCharles de Freycinet
Preceded byJules Barthélemy-Saint-Hilaire Minister of Foreign Affairs
1881–1882
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