New Orleans Republican. [volume] (New Orleans, La) 1867-1878, 1870-12-11
NEW ORLEANS REPUBLICAN, SUNDAY, DECEMBER Il, 1870
rHE DICTArOR OF FRANCE.

THE DICTATOR OF FRANCE.
A Splendid Tribute to Leon Gambetta--
What the Gseat Minister Has Done
I'm Two short Months--A Wonderful
Work.
From the London Spectator, November 19.
1t is quite natural that NJ. Leon Gambetta,
stOutish Marseillaise advocate Of thirty five,
with the look Of traffic manager, and Die
| tator of France outside of Paris, should
have some difficulty in obtaining recOgni-
ton even from those Englishmen who are
! favorable to the French cause. He is an
offense to all their instincts. That a man,
not being a prince by birth, shOIld bear
rule without ''legap title, without patent
from any king. or election by any assembly,
or sanction from any plebiscite, is to most
| Englishmen an annoyance; and that he
should be a lawyer and, according to
| English precedents young man, Is almost
an affrOnt. Englishmen groan, it is
true, under the sway of the old,
denOunce' the .electOrtral system as
have anything to do outside political or mil
itary business, select men under forty to do
it; but, nevertheless, ola men govern
| opinion in England as elsewhere, and the
| rise of a man, not yet worn out, to the high
est position is to them an Offense requiring
to be- excuscd. They follow middle class
premier with enthusiasm, and are delighted
because he has transferred to the sons OF
the PROFESSIONALISM monopoly of administra-
tive work; but still, in their hearts, they
| can not believe that man without birth,
or wealth, or long experience can be fitting
| ruler for a great nation, even i'll the thrOes
| ola revolution. Add to his want of blood
| OF position and of years the fact that he be-
longs to the race which gave Napoleon to
oy,1 rh,f ha &c fI.nx
southerncr, i, man Of specifically impulsive
| emotion and lyrical utterance and fiery tenn
| per. who, il he thinks a general traitor, says
so without inquiry, and it is easy to under
| stand why Englishmen can not appreciate or
A7en endure NJ. Leon Gambetta are inclined
TO defend Marshal Bazaine because he has
been denounced by that "young despOt,"
and are half pleased at reverses they yet
dislike because they prove that his southern
sanguineness of speech is so little justified
| by events. We have nothing to say, of
| course against their impression, based as it
| is on perfectly honest ignorance that there
| can be men, and considerable men, who are
not in the least like Englishmen. Ii NJ
Gambetta were an English1nan, and vet
wrote and spoke as lie does, the chances
| that he would be q fool III action would be
| overwhelming; but being what he is, an en-
| ergetic southerner, trained to write and
speak for a southern multitude, it may be
expedient, despite English impressions, to
look little deeper than his words to find
him. And so looking, We see, or think we
see. parsonage who is not the English idea
of NJ. Gambetta at all, but one entirely diff
| ferent.
Judging by visible facts alone, we discern
| in NJ. Gambetta man Of a type common
among Italian politicians and men of bust
| Eess-men who are specifically tussy and
| oaatOrical, or even vulgar, with nothing
! eyes and square brOws, but who have,
nevertheless, a faculty Of succeeding. of
choosing men, and of impressing themselves
| upon other men. That NJ. Gambetta pos
sesses this last faculty in an unusual de-
| gree is self-evideEt OF legal title to rule
France he has, in the English sense of
| legality, not shadow. OF moral title'to
| take his special position as Minister of both
War and the Interior he had only this-that
| General Trochu considered him, on the
| whole, as the tittest man for these Offices
| His colleagues i'll Tours might fairly have
been jealous of him as a recruit who had
superseded veterans: his subordinates in the
| War Department might reasonably have
distrusted him as civilian who never saw
a field piece.
He had Immediately and directly to rule
the most exactiug, self-opinionated and in
| dependent body OF men in the wOrld-the
| general officers of the Old French army
men who disliked him as q. Republican,
dreaded him as a Red and deteSted him as
a Pekin. Yet from the moment he dropped,
tired out with a journey by balloon, into
his chair in the old Archiepjscopal Palace
of Tours, and announced that he was III
vested with full powers to defend the coun-
| try. no one throRghO France has seriously
disputed his 0lthority. His colleagues
| have become his clerks, and have, as his
clerks. recognized the army intendence
| till complaints OF deficient supplies have
| all but disappeared. The treasury was
| empty; but he re-tilled it; tie arscnals We're
half empty. but one great army, perhaps
| two. have now artillery, horses. gunners
| and breech-loaders. The lean in England.
| the immense contract for arms with Amer
| lea. and the still greater contracts in France
| itself for artillery, provisions, carts and
| clothes, were all arranged by himself, are
| all "drawlng:' the actual cash. goods, tran
sport, munitions, which were not in being
| two months ago, are there to-day at General
d'Aurelles' disposal.
| These were acts within the competence
| of any energetic business man; but NJ.
| Gambetta had three questions to decide of
! infinitely greater Importance to the future
| of France and of the war, and he has. to all
| appearance, decided all successfully. First
of all, he had to determine by action and
! not by words, whether the Republicans or
the Reds were to conduct the war, whether
he would employ organization or anarchy
| DIS his grand weapon. Red in his energy
and his impulsiyeuess, NJ. Gambetta is Re
| publican in brain, by virtue of that COM
| mon sense which never, in the highest
whirlwind of his passion, leaves an Italian;
and he decided for the republic. Lyons,
Marseilles, Toulouse were in Instruction
for the red flag; to quarrel with it was, fee
bile men said, to introduce civil war: hut NJ.
Gambetta faced the danger, told the Lyon
| csc Reds, i'll so many words, that they were
wicked fools; risked actual war at Mar
seilles. where a well-neaning project, weak
ened by English ideas about bloodshed, had
made himself agent of the ultIas: and
within two months from his arrival com
PEELED every free city in France, Lyons and
MarseiIles included, to submit quietly to
his agents.
The respectables everywhere rose at his
summons, the anarchists have everywhere
been beaten, and the revolt of the Lyons
GarGes Mobiles on their march westward is
probably the last squirt OF resistance
which, since the tide of victory seems to
turn, has throughout France become impos-
sibie. The mutineers were treated as null-
tineers, enveloped by more faithful troops,
compelled to produce their ringleaders 10
see them shot, and to march on, in their
hearts recognizing, that the State was in
France supreme once more. The second
! task was still more ditfcult-to reatfirm
once for all the vital principle forgotten
for twenty years in France, that a general
is servant Of the State, as much bound to
obey its orders as the hunblest gendarme.
That task involved in the midst of a war a
quarrel with the men Of the sword. Under
the Emperor every French general has felt
himself an entity, parsonage. man with a
separate position i'll the great club which
kept the Emperor on his throne, and has re-
pudiated almost in words the notion of