The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1883-01-06 00:00:00

DEATH OF M. GAMBETTA.

M. Gambetta died on Sunday at midnight at Vile
d'Avray. He remained perfectly conbeious up to the
last. The death agony lasted two hours.
The death of M. Gambetta, though hardly unex-
expected, fell like a thunderbolt on the political
World of Paris, and among all classes created a sensa-
tion to which nothing is comparable since the decease
Ot M. Thiers. On Sunday he was reported to be
slightly better, and hopes were entertained that he
might yet rally. About nine in the evening, how-
isiter a change for the worst took place, and at five
bainutes before midnight he breathed his last, retain-
trig consciousness up to the moment of death. He
sUffered a good deal.

Gambetta died on the stroke of the New Year,
at midnight on Sunday. The wound inflicted on his
hand some weeks ago by the accidental discharge of a
/revolver, seems, by suddenly weakening his system, to
have produced a complication of disorders against
Which the science of the most eminent medical men in
Paris proved of no avail.—The Correspondent of the
Deily Telegraph, in describing the last hours of M.
Gambetta, says :
.“ The old year was just ending when he breathed
his last. Nothing had occurred during the day to lead
to the supposition that the end was so near. M.
Gambetta had passed a quiet night and had slept far
Into the morning. He was able to eat a boiled egg
and to walk from one bed to the other almost without
support. He declared that he felt scarcely any
Pain in the right side, and when Doctors Siredey
!knit Lannelongue returned to Ville d'Avray at five
In the afternoon they drew up a very satisfac-
tory bulletin. M. Gambetta was then left in
charge of the hospital surgeon who had watched him
all through his illness, and the two physicians tooktheir
departure for Paris. Later in the evening, however,
the patient became very feverish, and no time was lost
in summoning Doctors Siredey and Lannelongue to his
bedside. They at once perceived that the fever had
regained all the ground which it had previously seemed
to have lost. Tne inflammation had made great
Progress, and M. Gambetta soon experienced the
most terrible suffering, which he bore, how-
ever, with remarkable patience and fortitude. He
appeared to be perfectly aware that his condition was
most critical, and repeatedly pressing Dr. Lanne-
longue's hand he gratefully thanked him for the kind
attention he had shown him during his illness. Soon
It beeame evident that no further hope could be enter-
tained. M. Gainbetta's respiration grew more
laboured. Consumed by a violent thirst, he every
Moment asked for something to drink, and about eleven
he became unconscious, being unable to recognise
Spuller and Paul Bert, who had just arrived.
At half-past eleven the patient hardly breathed. He
Closed his eyes and it was at first thought that he was
asleep. Doctor Fienzal bent over him, and a few
Minutes later he opened his eyes. Then suddenly,
Without any convulsion or apparent suffering, he
ceased to breathe."

The post-mortem examination of M. Gambetta's
body was made on luesday morning, and the follow.
lug report issued :
"The exarnination, conducted with the utmost
care, and the detailed description ,of which will be
Published later on, has revealed an old inflsma-
tion of the intestine, which had resulted in a shrink.
lug of the end of the small bowel and of the
valvulet ; an extensive and deep infil-
tration of purulent matter, situated behind the
Colon; and in the coat of the abdomen a slight amount
of general peritonitis, which occurred during the last
few hours of life. The other organs showed no trace
of lesion. The wound was completely cicatrized.
t. Gambetta, in fact, died of perityphlitis and sup-
Purating pericolitis. Any recourse to surgery would
have been useless and dangerous; it would have had
no other result than to hasten the end."

Writing on Monday, the Correspondent of the
Standard says :—" M. Gambetta's suburban residence,
known as Jardies, is a cottage of antique construction,
standing in its own prettily timbered grounds, just
outside the Sévres railway station. I went over this
afternoon' as I felt sure that it would be the great point
attraction for thousands of the holiday people of
r ads, whose demeanour I was anxious to observe. The
Weather was beautiful and balmy as that of a day in an
ad Fenced spring. Crowds of passengers alighted at
the, Sevres Station, and directed their steps to the
uwelling where was lying, struck down in the very
tuidst of hie days, the most striking pereonage of the
third French Republic. On arrivirg at Jardies I
found a large crowd already filling the garden, and
eking their way into the houge. I so,m 1, •
the Public were being freely admitted to take a lat
glitnpse of the departed Statesman.
"Strange as it may appear to English feeling to
admit the motley crowd into the chamber of death
Within a few hours of the final scene the visitors to-
-411 to Ville D'Avray evidently considered it as quite a
tnatter of course, and would no doubt have con-
leted themselves deprived of their just rights had
"meY been refused admittance. I joined the throng
I:hich formed en queue, and by slow advances we
Lmeed through the low, small rooms of the ground
et, up the narrow old-fashioned staircase into
„6, chamber of death. Into this four visitors
were admitted at a time. The body of M.
`Tambetta lay to all appearance just as he had died, en
a simple French bedstead in the middle of a long
room of inconsiderable width and height. Upon high
pillows rests the head thrown back, and so affording a
full view of the fine head, with its delicately
Chiselled features. The hair is brushed back from
the brow, and the eyes are open. An expression of
tranquility is borne by every feature, and around
the mouth seems the beginning of a happy smile.
he grey hair and whiskers give at first the
impression of the corpse being that of a man at
least ten years older than M. Gambetta was, but on a
closer examination traces are still to be seen of the
fiery vehemence of youth. The coverlet of the bed is
completely hidden by beautiful wreathe and bouquets
Placed during this morning by bereaved friends. On
either side is a guardian attendant, and at the foot is
au artist making a drawing of the face. On leaving
thS room by a second door a book was presented to
each visitor to sign. The entries during to-day num-
bered some fifteen hundred."

~Writing on Tuesday night, the Correspondent of the
44114 News says :
A large number of M. Gambetta's friends and
political supporters went to-day to Ville d'Avray to
ake a last farewell of poor Gambetta. The eyes of
Itost men were filled with tears. I was among those
c`!ypo accomplished the sad pilgrimage, and at the
Lazare terminus, in the railway train, and at
4:16 Ltation we heard such phrases as these :
I conid not trust myself to go yesterday " ; or, "I
tag setting out when my heart failed me " ; or, "I
to accustom myself to the idea of Gambetta's
Feath before I could make up my mind to go and
at his corpse." There was a universal feeling
bcTrow. The bold action which M. Gambetta
took against the invasion, the Versailles Assembly,
und the May Government was often in strong and
short colloquial sentences alluded to. We found
the little park at the extremity of which the doubly
focelebrated villa stands animated as a fair. Country
s
and holiday-makera from Versailles and the
er neighbouring towns crowded the walks and
ePreed out over the green turf. M. Camescasse had
teat a detachment of police to keep order, that is to
81% not to let the throng get inconveniently near to
*e house. Registers were placed on tables in the park.
hose who liked might sign them.

Bir Charles Dilke, in addressing a public meeting at
Chelsea on Monday night, said—l cannot but remember
that we are all saddened to-night by the death of &great
ta,,an---the greatest of all Frenchmen of his time. (Ap.
"'arise.) It is only, I think, right that at the commence-
liclent of my remarks I, who had with him a private
tsn,tiraacy of many years standing, I, who have met
"'rao he chief of a commission on behalf of France,
NI presiding over a commission on behalf of Eng-
ana in negotiations between the two countries, should
FaY a public testimony to the mournfulness of Eng-
(and for his loss. I, personally, had cause to differ
tiom him during the course of comwercial negotia-
-1-1"8 on behalf of the interests of this country as
differed from him, I may say in passing, upon
YerY many questions which we discussed in private
44 to the affairs both of Europe and of France. But
Whether one differed from him, or whether one agreed
With him, all the English commissioners in Paris last
Year Were struck by his extreme courtesy and kind.
aese towards the representatives of this country ; and
lertainly there was no foreign people for whom he
'hadr a higher respect and regard than the inhabi-
'elite of England. All, I think, of whatever party,
tremendous
admired the magnitude of his courage, his
:!,emendous energy, his splendid oratory, and those
wno knew him in private, his unmatched gaiety
Sparkling wit. These have made him, I 'repeat,
he first Frenchman of his day, and, at one of the first
klublic meetings held in England since the news of his
ia,eath reached this country, I think it right to pay
"18 Public tribute to his memory.

• In notioing the death of M. Gambetta, The Times,
lu a leader, remarks
The death of M. Gambetta, in the prime of life,
°nu 'of those momentous events which . seem to
Cauge in a moment the destiny of !allons and
nt turn aside the course of the world's history.
the few pre•eminent statesmen in Europe he
Warl, at the time of his death, by no means the most
13ueverful or the most authoritative, but still perhaps
Most remarkable, because to him a larger share
uo the future seemed to belong. For nearly a year
ty! ulore his influence and authority with his coun•
....Plea seemed to have suffered something of In
The memory of his brief and ill-starred
"ra.inistration was still fresh, and he had scarcely
gutlived the ridicule which unsuccessful Ministers
r,:"ce to ehcounter in Paris. But the name
—* Gambettds was nevertheless a word of almost
Unabated power with the mass of the French
/Pls„eZl„le. He was still the embodiment of the Re.
it He was the man who had made it and
_ailed
, who had guided its destinies at many a
eslBlB, and whd' sooner or later, must have been
again to control its fortunes. His untimely
4aeath is nothing less than the sudden extinction of
f,Nuw.erful individual force, one of the most
.power-
`,..', indeed, of such forces hitherto operating .
I,o;:°Pe and preserving a doubtful equilibrium.
w'',B as powerful still exist, no doubt, both
ollthlu France and outside, but the sudden removal
144311. Gambetta at once disturbs the balance,
th unly experience can show in what way
equilibrium is to be restored. The future
2_4lr, of the French Republic is rendered as un•
I%._;ertatnas that of a ship suddenly taken aback by
heapricious and unexpected shift in the wind.
e, course of events in Europe is likely to be not less
Dr
e,ndly disturbed. If Prince Bismarck had never
from the comparative obscurity of the
14141 Ott Diet, U Louie Napoleon had died as Pre*.

dent of the French Republic, every one can see how
different would have been the history of the past
generation. The history of the coming generation
may he, we may almost say must be, as profoundly
modified by the removal of M. Ganabett.a. Whethez
the change is for good or for oyil it needs more than
human wisdom to say; but of its magnitude there can
be ho doubt whatever. . . .

The news of the death of M. Gambetta caused a
deep sensation in London, and although it had been
conjectured from the latest reports on the previous
night that the end was not distant, surprise appeared
to be the prevailing sentiment, mingled with much
regret. The news reached the French Embassy at an
early hour, creating a painful impression among the
personnel of the Embassy, including M. Tissot, the
Ambassador, who had been unwell for some days, and
who has not yet sufficiently recovered to attend to his
diplomatic duties. About the same time that the sad
intelligence reached the French Embassy a telegram
to the same purport was received at the Foreign
Office over the private wire, and this was immediately
sent to Earl Granville, Mr. Gladstone, and the other
heads of the Government. The Prince of Wales,
who has been assiduous in inquiring after the condition
of the deceased statesman throughout his fatal illness,
was made acquainted with the melancholy news by
Viscount Lyons.

BERLIN, Jan. 1.
Almost all the newspapers contain articles with
reference to M. Gambetta.
The National Gazette writes :
" Gormany has lost a great enemy. Gambetta knew
that his reputation in the future was bound up with
a war of revenge against Germany. His whole energy
was directed to preparing for such a war, and he may
be said to have constituted in himself a permanent
danger to the peace of Europe. At the turn of the
years 1882 and 1883 a great historical event has been
recorded in the death of the French statesman."

The Berliner Tageblatt remarks :
"M. Gambetta, the man of uncompromising re-
venge is dead. His decease affords to us a better
security for peace than alliances of any kind. Hie
was a grandly constituted character which com-
manded a certain respect even from his enemies;
but as he is no more among the living there is no
necessity to conceal the fact that the peace of Europe
appears now to be more lastingly secured than for a
long time past."

The follcwing brief account of the career of M.
Gambetta is adapted from various sources :
L6on Michael Gambetta, who has filled so large a
place in recent French history, and whose public life
is linnited to the short space of fourteen years, was
born at Cahors on April 3, 1838. His father, wh,,
still survives him, kept a grocer's shop. Giving his
son an education in the Lyceum at Montauban, the
highly-gifted youth passed in due course through the
school with honours. From thence he proceeded to
Paris, and there passed through his legal studies,
eventually attaining a doctorship in law. Attracted
to the exciting fields of political activity, M. Gambetta
entered eagerly into the strifts against the Bonapartist
Empire, engaged as an auxiliary in eltctiou contests,
and achieved distinction by pleading at the bar on
behalf of prosecuted journalists.

In 1869 there was a general election in France, and
M. Gambetta, who was among the most energetic oppo-
nents of the Empire—he called himself in those days
an "irreconcilable,"—stood for a constituency alike in
Paris and Marseilles. In both he was elected, so vast
as well as so sudden had been the growth of his in-
fluence; but, as his victory seemed more striking at
Marseilles, he preferred to sit for that city.
Though there was an apparent calm in French
politics in the earlier months of 1870, when M.
Gambetta took his seat in the Chamber, agitation
prevailed below the surface; and. the events which led
to the war with Iliermany are well remembered. The
terrible catastrophe which overthrew the Bonapartean
Empire in a day—the collapse at Sedan—brought in
its immediate train a revolution at Paris, when M.
Gambetta once more came to the front. He was a
member of the Provisional Government of September
4, and became Minister of the Interior, in which capa-
city he issued the decree summoning a Constituent As.
for the 18th of October. Butlong before that time
Paris was invested by the German army, and the Provi-
sional Government, which had sent a delegation to
Tours, was placed in a dilemma. In-such a crisis the
Government at Paris felt that the delegation at Tours
needed strengthening. Accordingly, M. Gambetta
was nominated as one of its members, and received
instructions to repair without delay to his post.
Although Paris was closely invested, Gambetta obeyed
his instructions literally and immediately, for placing
himself in a balloon, in which he successfully soared
above the investing army, made his way to Tours.
Tr en began that Dictatorship which lasted until
Paris had capitulated and the Nei( rill Assembly was
summoned to meet at Bordeaux in Lue early weeks of
1871. Gambetta at once assumed the functions of the
.?!.ini.d,c!s of the Interior, of Wa-, and of Finance.

Alluding to this period of M. Gambetta's career,
The Times, in its Memoir of the deceased statesman,
remarks :—" In his public harangues, both at Tours
and Bordeaux (whither the Provisional Government
repaired in December, being driven southward by the
German advance), be somehow always managed to
electrify his hearers. He spoke from balconies, railway
carriages, kerbatonc,, ; wher yr he went the people
demanded a speech of him, end his words never
failed to cheer, while they conquered for him a
wide popularity. Indeed, Gambehta so deluded
himself while infusing hope and combativeness into
others that when after a Sire months siege Paris
capitulated he still persisted in thinking that resist-
ance was possible, and rather than take any part in
the national surrender he gave in his resignation:
He was by that time fairly worn out and bad to go
to St. Sebastian to recruit his health. It was al-
leged that he went there so as to avoid taking
any side in the civil war between the Parliament of
Versailles and the Commune ; but after the Communist
Government had been at work a fortnight, and when
the impracticability of its aims was fully disclosed, he
took care to let it b 3 known that be was on the side of
the National Assembly."
At the Armistice Elections of 1871, M. Gambetta
was returned to the Assembly by nine constituencies,
and he chose to sit for Paris. One of the first im-
portant acts of M. Gambetta after the war was
a speech delivered at Ferte-sous-Jouarre at a banquet
commemorating the destruction of the Bastille. He
urged the necessity for a reorganization of the union of
the middle classes as well as the importance of secular
instruction and universal obligatory service in the
army; he further predicted the arrival of a policy of
concord, and conciliation to be crowned by a general
amnesty. These views were further developed in the
course of a tour in the south. During the years 1874
and 1875, M. Gambetta continued to exert consider-
able influence at elections, both for the Chamber and
the Senate, and was fully recognised as the leader of
the Republican Party. In the political controversies
which agitated France during the succeeding years
took a prominent part; and when, in January,
1879, M. Grevy became President of the Republic,
M. Gambetta was elected President of the Chamber,
and in the succeeding year was re-elected. On
the resignation of the Cabinet in November, 1881
M. Gambetta was summoned to the Elys6e, and
accepted the post of Prime Minister, In January,
1882, on the reassembling of the Chambers, M.
Gambetta brought forward his scrutin de liste measure,
and decided to stand or fall by the result; and on his
proposals being rejected by the Chamber he resigned.
Since that time he contented himself with occasional
remarks in the Chamber and with putting forward
his views in the journals.

In concluding its Memoir of M. Gambetta The
Times says—" In his latter years Gambetta had
become portly, gray-headed, a little unwieldly, and
averse from locomotion. While he lived at the
Palais Bourbon he loved to bathe in the Duc de
Morny's silver, parcel•gilt bath, and to have his
carriage escorted by a troop of Cuirassiers when he
went to pay official visite. He used to say that
Louis Philippe bad made himself cheap by too
much simplicity—a thing obnoxious to the French,
who love to get their money's worth 'when they see
their rulers moke a public appearance. It is well
known that M. Gambetta's personal ambition was to
succeed to M. Gr6vy—a legitimate object enough, see-
ing how he had worked for the Republic; but this
ambition, never openly avowed, serves to explain
why he took so little pains to remain in office when
he became Prime Minister last year. Had his
Cabinet lasted till 1884, it would by that time
have become unpopular, as all Cabinets must
become after a time in an agitated country where
factions are many. Gambetta's only hope of retain-
ing popularity as a Minister was by passing a scrutin
de liste Bill, which would have enabled him to manage
the constituencies by the caucus system. When this
chance was denied him it became his natural policy to
keep away from office altogether, so that he might
enter with renovated prestige into the presidential
campaign of 1885. Whether he would have become
President of the Republic had he lived it is
impossible to say, but this much may be affirmed
that among the Republicans who thwarted his designs,
alleging that he was no true Liberal, few could match
him for sincerity in his Republican convictions, fewer
still for courage and in. ustry, and none at all for
patience under reverses, and good. humoured magna-
nimity in the hour of triumph. Now that he is gone
many of his former opponents will acknowledge that he
was the most useful and devoted champion, if not
alwai s the discreetest, French Republicanism ever
had."

The Daily News says :—" 'What things depended on that
one malt; Be is as a ship suddenly shivered on sunk rocks;
much swims on the waste waters far from help.' In these
words Carlyle writes of the death of Mirabeau. who died
when he was still younger, though only by a year 6r two,
than M. Gambetta. The words which Carlyle employs will
apply in some degree to the death of M. Gambetta and to
the condition in which the unlooked.for event leaves France.
Much, indeed, in this instance as in that swims on the waste
waters far from help. The loss is one that passes all calcu-
lation. Perhaps the sudden removal of M. Gambetta may
lead to the contracting of the ambition of French statesmen
and the limiting of the national energies more strictly to the
work of national development at home. This would be but
poor consolation to a people who have but this moment
lost one of their great men, one of the great men of their
history. Vain indeed must any one be who thought of offer-
ing it as a consolation."
-

The Morning Post says :—" The foremost man in France
has passed away, leaving a void which there is none to fill.
The feeling created in Central Europe by his death will be
one of relief. What France has lost, or whether in truth she
has really lost, by the death of M. Gambetta can never be
determined with certainty. The Republic is deprived of one
of its grandtst pillars, but its stability will not on that
account be sensibly weakened N'or the moment only one
thought can occur to the mind of every Frenchman not
blinded by political rancour—namely, that France has lost a
son of whom she may well be proud, and whose nate must
ever occupy a prominent place in her history."

The Standard says :—"As far as can be judged, his death
Is an almost immeasurable loss to France. He had passed
through his wild period; he had got over the age of self-
assertion; he had gathered experience; he was reaching
political maturity, and had acquired that understanding of
men and things without which all the genius in the world
is unavailing in the sphere of practical statesmanship. For
many years regarded as the revolutionary champion of
France, he was gradually coming to be looked upon as the
sheet-anchor of order, and the futurd saviour of French
society. But all his experience, all his ripening wisdom,
all hie acquired apprehension of the national needs end

the national failings, will serve him no more- and his suc-
cessor, whoever he be, must begin where Gambetta began,
and pass through the same novitiate. Time seemed to have
trained and prepared him for a practical and useful career;
and, lust as he was fitted for the race, his place suddenly
becomes vacant. It may be, of course, that for his own fame
he may have been happy in the moment of his death. But
in such a trying hour as this men will not easily be persuaded
that his sudden loss is a gain to France or to Humanity."
The Morning Advertiser says :—" His great gifts, the
secrets of his triumphs, were a vast and almost tireless
energy, and an abounding and picturesque eloquence. But
he cannot be called a statesman. He was deficient in the
self-restraint, in the temper, and in the large knowledge and
cool judgment of politics, which are needed for a man who
would in ordinary times conduct the government of-France.
The more humdrum the course of her affairs the better for
France and for the Republic. The impetuous and imperious
native of the-South whom she has lost has done a work for
which she must ever hold him in high honour, but it is the
duller and colder genius of the North whose guidance she
. now needs."