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Updated: May 14, 2025
The very nature of this arrangement stimulated parliamentary speaking into eloquence and flamboyant oratory. After Gambetta had spoken a few times he noticed in the gallery a tall, graceful woman, dressed in some neutral color and wearing long black gloves, which accentuated the beauty of her hands and arms.
I have no knowledge of what passed between M. de Freycinet and M. Gambetta; but it is certain that for the last five months Gambetta has made no attempt to control me and my policy. He affects to show his sympathy and approval whenever he meets me, and notably so last Monday.
Gambetta was made minister of the interior, and remained for a while in Paris even after it had been blockaded. But his fiery spirit chafed under such conditions. He longed to go forth into the south of France and arouse his countrymen with a cry to arms against the invaders. Escaping in a balloon, he safely reached the city of Tours; and there he established what was practically a dictatorship.
If you went in when the company were at table in the dining room, the place rang again with their noisy altercations. The advocates discussed politics, literature and religion with such ardour that the air positively crackled. They were apparently practising to speak one day at the Bar or in the Chamber. It was from surroundings such as these that Gambetta emerged.
It was the arrival of Gambetta at the Ministry of the Interior, by way of the Avenue de Marigny, with an escort of red-shirted Francs-tireurs de la Presse. The future Dictator had seven companions with him, all huddled inside or on the roof of a four-wheel cab, which was drawn by two Breton nags.
The Palais de Justice was the seat of the Government of Leon Gambetta in the autumn of 1870, after the dictator had been obliged to retire in his balloon from Paris, and before the Assembly was constituted at Bordeaux. The Germans occupied Tours during that terrible winter; it is astonishing, the number of places the Germans occupied.
We too had our little republican demonstration, and on the 20th of September the prefect they had sent us from Paris, M. Valentin, came dashing in like a harlequin, after running the gauntlet of a thousand dangers, and ripped out of his sleeve his official voucher from Gambetta.
The Germans had heard of the removal of Crouzat's force to the Loire country, and by way of creating a diversion the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg was ordered to march on Beaugenoy, southwest of Orleans. Meantime, Gambetta and Freyoinet were vainly imploring D'Aurelle to advance. He made all sorts of excuses.
"By the way," he interrupted himself, "you are in the Gazette, this morning, as captain." Ralph bowed, and expressed his thanks. "No thanks are due at all, Captain Barclay," the old veteran said. "You have well earned your promotion; and Gambetta who speaks of you, I may say, in the highest terms tells me that he promised you the step, if you got in.
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. By HARRIET PRESCOTT SPOFFORD
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