The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-12-07
THE DICTATOR OF FRANCE.

months-A Wonderful werk.
Froa the London Spectator, November 10.
1t is quite natural that NJ. Leon Gambetta
stoutish Marseillaise advocate Of thirty ve-
with the look of traffic manager. and Die
tator of France outside of Paris should have
some difficulty in obtaining recognition even
from those Englishmen who are favorable
TO the French cause. He is an offense to
all their instincts. That a man, not being
prince by birth, should bear rule without
legal" title, without patent from any king,
or election by any assembly, or sanction from
any plebiscite, is to most Englishnen an an
noyanCe; and that he should be lawyer aud,
according to English precedents, young
man, is almost an affront. Englishmen groan,
it is true, under the sway of the old, de-
nounce the electoral system as fatal to young
ability, and, whenever they have anything to
do outside political or military business,
select men under forty to do it; but never
theless
OLD MEN GOVERN OPINION
in England as elsewhere, and the rise of
man not yet wern out to the highest position
is to them an offense requiring to be excused.
They follow q middle class premier with en-
tbusiasm, and are delighted because he has
transferred to the sons of the professionals
monopoly of administrative work: bat still in
their hearts they cannot believe that man
without birth, or wealth, or long experience
can be fitting ruler for great nation even
In the throes of revolution. Add to his
want of blood, of position, and of years,
the fact that he belongs to the race which
gave Napoleon to France, and that he is still
essentially a southerner, a man of superfcially
impulsive emotion and lyrical utterance and
fiery temper, who, if he thinks general a
traitor, says so without inquiry, and it is easy
to understand why Englishmen cannot appre-
clate or even endure M. Leon Gambetta are
inclined to defend Marshal Bazaine because
he has been denounced by that
''YoUNG DEsPoT,"
and are half pleased at reverses they vet dis
like 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 a
perfectly honest ignorance tnat there can
be men, and considerable mon, who are
not in the least like Englishmen. If NJ
Gambetta were an Englishman, and yet he
wrote and spoke as he does, the chances that
he would be a fool in action would be over
whelming; but being what he is, an ener-
getic southerner, trained to write and speak
for southern multitude, it may be expedi-
ent despite English impressions, to look a
little deeper than his words find him. And
80 looking we see, or think we see, q person.
age who is not the English idea of M. Gam
beta at all, but one entirely different. Judg-
ing by visible facts alone, we discern in NJ
Gambetta
MAN OF TYPE
common among Italian politicians and men
Of businessmen who are specifically fussy
and oratorical, or even vulgar, with nothing
about them indicating power except steady
eyes and square brows; but who have never
theless faculty of succeeding, of choosing
men, and of impressing themselves upon
other men. That NJ Gambetta possesses
this last faculty in an unusual degree is self
evident 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 fittest man for
these offices. His colleagues in Tours might
fairly have been jealous of him as a recruit
who had superseded veterans, his subord-
mates In the War Department might reason
ably have distrusted him as
CIVILIAN WHO NEVER SAW FIELD PIECE.
He had Immediately and directly to rule
the most exacting, self-opinionated, and in
dependent body of men in the world-the
general officers of the old French army-men
who disliked him as a Republican dreaded
him as Red, and detested him as a PeAin
Yet from the moment he dropped, tired out
with journey by balloon, into his chair in
the old Archiepiscopal Palace of Tours, and
announced that he was invested with full
powers to defend the country, no one
throughout France has seriously disputed his
authority. His colleagues have become his
clerks, and have as his clerks reorganized the
army intendence till complaints of de-
hcient supplies have all but disap-
peared. The treasury was empty, but he
reflled it. The arsenals were half empty,
but one great army, perhaps two, have
now artillery, horses, gunners, and breech-
Joaders. The loan in England, the immense
contract for arms with America, and the still
greater contracts in France itself for artillery.
provisions, carts, and clothes, were ali
arranged by himself, are all "drawing'-the
actual cash, goods, transport, munitions.
which were not in being two months ago, are
there to-day at General d'AurelIes' 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 as his grand
weapon. Red in his energy and his impul-
siveness, M. Gambetta is Republican by
brain, by virtue of that common sense which
never in the highest whirlwind of his passion
quite leaves an Italian; and he decided for the
republic Lyons, Marseilles, Toulouse were
in insurrection for the Red flag; to quarrel
with it was, feeble men said, to introduce
civil war; but M. Gambetta faced the danger
told the Lyonese Reds in 30 many words that
they were wicked fools, risked actual war at
MaraAillAR UhaFa a wall