New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1882-05-15
FRENCH POLITICAL TOPICS
EFFECTS OF GAMBETTNs LAST DEFEAT,

reaus of the Budget Committee has precluded In.
possibility Of Gambettst Administration for
whole year; and 1t will be very difficult for Gam
beta and HE followers to get up an agitation In
the country now, iDasrnuch they were Just a.
conservative in the bad sense Of the word as tina
present Government. Ali they can do within ths
present session is tc watch and wat. II NJ. ds
Freycinet and his colleagues are rash or retrograda
disposed to sacrifice public to private interest,",
Gambetta will find an opportunity TO assert himself
again. lie doubtless made q blunder In enter.
ing into partnership with the Besancon Hebrew.
Viel Picard, TO buy enough of shares Of the Peat
Journal and La France to assure himself control.
ling influence In the editorial rooms of those papers
| lie will shout In exhausted receiver il he al.
| tempts to make a noise in subyentoned papers. lie
| did not personally show himself in the fight
| over the elections. He felt beforehand that
| he was leading forlorn hope, and that If any
| advantage was to be gained it was in maKnga
feInt Of desstance. But he was so ILL advised a.
| to let two discIedited men, RouYier and Leon
| Renault, put themselves forward as his henchmen
| ROuyier is the husband OF Nine. Claude VigDon I
| gave yon sketch Of his last NOyeml err and
| told you how, from being ten years ago a CONNER
cal traveller on a meagre salary, he has through
| politics become very wealthy. Leon Renault is the
yeritable author of the Tunis expedition, and as a
|
mentary morality. He was Project of Police under
Theirs. Then lie got into the Assembly being
elected in 1876 and 1877 for the ACCOMPLISHMENT of
| Corbe in the Department of the Sene-et-Oise. BY
| profession be is an advocate, and was, with Cam
| beta and Laurier, secretary of the late VI.
| Cremeux. Renault a great veterinary
| surgeon, ard for many years the Director of the
| Horse Hospital of Abort. lie was also horse
dealer and terribly sharp man in his trade. Leon,
his son. nherits many of his proclivites, and has
keen scent for jobs and Bourse affairs. Gambetta
lost far more than he gained by his intimacy with
| this "smart" parsonage, who rejected last
August by the electors of Corbe but afterward got
into the Chamber Deputy for Grasse, near Cannes
He has clever style of business oratory, and would
be specious it not for the vulpine expression
of his physiognomy. The other ex-Ministers Of
Gambetta who were candidates for election in the
bureaus were NJ. Roynal, NJ. Waldeck- Rousseau and
Allan large, who held the Finance portfolio in tho
last Administration As matter of course and of
courtesy he would have been returned had it not
been for the great political significance given
to tho contest. Another Opportnnst who
was terribly mangled was NJ. Naquet the
apostle Of divOrceand the enterprising individual
who in the winter of 1870 bought for the National
Defence Government at Bordeaux a whole park Of
honeycombed artillery from an American Spectator
to whom they had been sold as old iron by the
United States Ordnance Department. Naquet
wrote up the Scrutin de Lste in the poitdire last
January, and was one of those Hebrews who by
insulting the Chan Der and ordering it to bow to
Gambetta determined a powerful reaction against
him. OF the two Gambettists who alone of thirty
were elected, one is CASTOR Thompson,
Deputy for Algeria and whilOm fighting editor"
of the Republique FrGncaisc The other is still
more obscure man.
Wilson, the son-in-law of NJ Grevy, was elected
by an overwhelming majority against NJ. Rlviere.
NJ. Lionvlle, and a NJ. Rousseau the Gambettist
candidates IN the Fifth Bureau. NJ. RIviere is
provincial advocate of some ability and Mayor OF
Tours In this capacity he did the honors OF that
city to Gambetta when he went there on four
days visit last summer. and at some banquets
lauded him of the most illustrious statesmen
and patriots that had ever dey oted himself to the
service of The French Nation NJ. Riviere was not
previously classed as IN Opportunist. But in July
1881 Gambetta's triumph in the Chamber on tho
Scrutin dc Iiste was fresh, and he had just re-
turned from Cahors, where he almost deed.
His laudations remembered at the elections.
and he set aside.
The budget election appears in the light OF subse-
| duent events TO have been not so much Gov.
| Ornamental victory as "a Gambettlst defeat.
| Gqmbetta after he was defeated last January ill.,
| Obliged the hope that he would break out again IN
the place where no had acquired prepOnderant In
| huence over the Legislature and the Government
namely the Budget Committee. This committee is
| n permanent organization. 1t was, previous 70
$40 presided oyer by a specialist who thoroughly
| understood financial questions and pulled rather
with the Ministry than against II. At the above
| mentioned date, Gambetta turned over new leaf.
| He found himself IN presence of Cabinet hostile
to the Republic. and by systematic harassng made
! its position untenable. MacMahOn was at tho
| Elysee, and shared in the annoyance to which his
| Ministers were thus subjected lie was obliged TO
| Il, ire -
| of universal suffrage at the end of 1877. Cams
| BETA, Allan large and some other Opportunlsts
| who were strongly entrenched IN the Budget Com
| mttee worried the Soldier President, who under
| stood free fight but did not know how to ex-
trcate himself from the net which the ways and
| Means Commissioners wove around him. lie was
| too stupid and wrong headed TO get the better OF
| them President Grevy is both shrewd and saga
cious He saw that Gambetta hoped TO regain the
| mower he had lost at the elections Tor the Bddget
| Committee and quickly took his measures to balk
| him. BY his urgent advice Leon Say Hld not nsn
his colOrs to his railway scheme, ana Deputies OPP
| posed TO the great monopoly OF the railway COM
| panies did not in voting against the Opportunss
bind themselves to accept the pudget pan I aMo
President of the Republic explained that al gov.
| eminent with this dsintcgrated Chamber wouia Oo
| impossible if Gambetta or some OF his Leading
| henchmen obtained footing III the ways anu
| Means Committee dissolution would therefore
| be inevitable; and what would be The upshotl NJ.
| Gambetta had a formidable political organization
| in the Provinces For the last three years he had
| lost opportunity to MI the Prefectures, SUD-
Procedures and other civil service posts with MS
|
speculating his return to Office and receiving his
| Instructions, had bought up and founded myriad
| of provincial journals. The Quartermaster-Gen-
erol of this organization was at the Rue de Suresne
| The reward on which the Hebrews in question
| counted would be found in the railways, which
Gambetta intended to take of the hands of tho
| companies now working them and to farm them
| out to new ones. He therefore would enter tho
electoral arena better armed for hard and decisive
| struggle than any other leader His organization
| would of itself die out were he beaten IN the
bureaus for it had been created with view TO OBJ
| tanning immediate results If this Government can
be carried on there will be no need 10 dissolve, and
the Opporunsts as q Gambettist force will have 10
remain nearly four years in the wilderness. il they
get in the meantime into Office II VIII be on anolnot
/ Ia I'm Man. will disappear. ana