page_title: Léon Gambetta
section_title: Career
hierarchical_section_title: Léon Gambetta / Career
caption_attribution_description: English: Léon Gambetta proclaiming the Republic of France.
context_page_description: Léon Gambetta was a French statesman, prominent during and after the Franco-Prussian War.
context_section_description: Gambetta was called to the bar in 1859. 
  He was admitted to the Conférence Molé in 1861 and wrote to his father, "It is no mere lawyers club, but a veritable political assembly with a left, a right, a center; legislative proposals are the sole subject of discussion. It is there that are formed all the political men of France; it is a veritable training ground for the tribune."
  Gambetta, like many other French orators, learned the art of public speaking at the Molé.
  However, although he contributed to a Liberal review edited by Challemel-Lacour, Gambetta did not make much of an impression until, on 17 November 1868, he was selected to defend the journalist Delescluze. Delescluze was being prosecuted for having promoted a monument to the representative Baudin, who had been killed while resisting the coup d'état of 1851, and Gambetta seized his opportunity to attack both the coup d'état and the government with a vigour which made him immediately famous.
  In May 1869, he was elected to the Assembly, both by a district in Paris and another in Marseille, defeating Hippolyte Carnot for the former constituency and Adolphe Thiers and Ferdinand de Lesseps for the latter. He chose to sit for Marseille, and lost no opportunity of attacking the Empire in the Assembly. Early in his political career, Gambetta was influenced by Le Programme de Belleville, the seventeen statutes that defined the radical program in French politics throughout the Third Republic. This made him the leading defender of the lower classes in the Corps Législatif. On 17 January 1870, he spoke out against naming a new Imperial Lord Privy Seal, putting him into direct conflict with the regime's de facto prime minister, Emile Ollivier. (see Reinach, J., Discours et plaidoyers politiques de M. Gambetta, I.102 – 113) His powerful oratory caused a complete breakdown of order in the Corps. The Monarchist Right continually tried to interrupt his speech, only to have Gambetta's supporters on the Left attack them. The disagreement reached a high point when M. le Président Schneider asked him to bring his supporters back into order. Gambetta responded, thundering, "l'indignation exclut le calme!" ("indignation excludes calm!") (Reinach, Discours et plaidoyers politiques de M. Gambetta, I.112)
  At first Gambetta was opposed to the war with Prussia. He did not, like some of his colleagues, refuse to vote for funds for the army, but took a patriotic line and accepted that the war had been forced on France. When the news of the disaster at Sedan reached Paris, Gambetta called for strong measures. He proclaimed the deposition of the emperor at the corps législatif, and the establishment of a republic at the Hôtel de Ville. He was one of the first members of the new Government of National Defense, becoming Minister of the Interior. He advised his colleagues to leave Paris and run the government from some provincial city.
  This advice was rejected because of fear of another revolution in Paris, and a delegation to organize resistance in the provinces was dispatched to Tours, but when this was seen to be ineffective, Gambetta himself left Paris 7 October in a coal gas-filled balloon—the "Armand-Barbès"—and upon arriving at Tours took control as minister of the interior and of war. Aided by Freycinet, a young officer of engineers, as his assistant secretary of war, he displayed prodigious energy and intelligence. He quickly organized an army, which might have relieved Paris if Metz had held out, but Bazaine's surrender brought the army of the Prussian crown prince into the field, and success was impossible. After the French defeat near Orléans early in December the seat of government was transferred to Bordeaux.
caption: Gambetta proclaiming the Republic of France, from the painting by Howard Pyle.
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