Léon Gambetta (; 2 April 1838 – 31 December 1882) was a French lawyer and republican politician who proclaimed the
French Third Republic
The French Third Republic (, sometimes written as ) was the system of government adopted in France from 4 September 1870, when the Second French Empire collapsed during the Franco-Prussian War, until 10 July 1940, after the Fall of France durin ...
in 1870 and played a prominent role in its early government.
Early life and education
Born in
Cahors
Cahors (; ) is a Communes of France, commune in the western part of Southern France. It is the smallest prefecture among the 13 departments that constitute the Occitania (administrative region), Occitanie Region. The capital and main city of t ...
, Gambetta is said to have inherited his vigour and eloquence from his father, a
Genoese grocer who had married a Frenchwoman named Massabie. At the age of fifteen, Gambetta lost the sight of his right eye in an accident, and it eventually had to be removed. Despite this disability, he distinguished himself at school in Cahors. He then worked at his father's grocery shop in Cahors, the ''Bazar génois'' ("Genoese bazaar"), and in 1857 went to study at the
Faculty of Law of Paris
The Faculty of Law of Paris (), called from the late 1950s to 1970 the Faculty of Law and Economics of Paris, is the second-oldest faculty of law in the world and one of the four and eventually five faculties of the University of Paris ("the S ...
.
His temperament gave him great influence among the students of the ''
Quartier latin'', and he was soon known as an inveterate enemy of the imperial government.
Career
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
Marseille (; ; see #Name, below) is a city in southern France, the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Departments of France, department of Bouches-du-Rhône and of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur Regions of France, region. Situated in the ...
, defeating
Hippolyte Carnot for the former constituency and
Adolphe Thiers
Marie Joseph Louis Adolphe Thiers ( ; ; 15 April 17973 September 1877) was a French statesman and historian who served as President of France from 1871 to 1873. He was the second elected president and the first of the Third French Republic.
Thi ...
and
Ferdinand de Lesseps
Ferdinand Marie, Comte de Lesseps (; 19 November 1805 – 7 December 1894) was a French Orientalist diplomat and owner of Main Idea of the Suez Canal, which in 1869 joined the Mediterranean and Red Seas, substantially reducing sailing distan ...
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
The was a part of the French legislature during the French Revolution and beyond. It is also the generic French term used to refer to any legislative body.
History
Under Napoleon's Consulate, the Constitution of the Year VIII (1799) set up ...
. 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,
Émile 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)
It was also in 1869 that Gambetta was initiated into
Freemasonry
Freemasonry (sometimes spelled Free-Masonry) consists of fraternal groups that trace their origins to the medieval guilds of stonemasons. Freemasonry is the oldest secular fraternity in the world and among the oldest still-existing organizati ...
at "La Réforme" lodge in Paris, sponsored by
Louis-Antoine Garnier-Pagès. In this lodge he met
Gustave Naquet and
Maurice Rouvier.
Proclamation of the Republic

Gambetta opposed the declaration of the
Franco-Prussian War
The Franco-Prussian War or Franco-German War, often referred to in France as the War of 1870, was a conflict between the Second French Empire and the North German Confederation led by the Kingdom of Prussia. Lasting from 19 July 1870 to 28 Janua ...
. He did not, however, like some of his colleagues, refuse to vote for funds for the army.
[ On 2 September 1870, the French Army suffered a disastrous defeat at the ]Battle of Sedan
The Battle of Sedan was fought during the Franco-Prussian War from 1 to 2 September 1870. Resulting in the capture of Napoleon III, Emperor Napoleon III and over a hundred thousand troops, it effectively decided the war in favour of Prussia and ...
, in which the emperor Napoleon III
Napoleon III (Charles-Louis Napoléon Bonaparte; 20 April 18089 January 1873) was President of France from 1848 to 1852 and then Emperor of the French from 1852 until his deposition in 1870. He was the first president, second emperor, and last ...
surrendered and was taken prisoner. The news arrived in Paris on the night of 3 September, and early on 4 September large-scale protests began in the capital.
Parisians broke into the Palais Bourbon
The Palais Bourbon () is the meeting place of the National Assembly, the lower legislative chamber of the French Parliament. It is in the 7th arrondissement of Paris, on the Rive Gauche of the Seine across from the Place de la Concorde. The offi ...
, meeting place of the Chamber of Deputies
The chamber of deputies is the lower house in many bicameral legislatures and the sole house in some unicameral legislatures.
Description
Historically, French Chamber of Deputies was the lower house of the French Parliament during the Bourb ...
, interrupting a session and calling for a Republic. Later that day, from the Hôtel de Ville, Gambetta proclaimed the French Republic to a large crowd gathered in the Place de l'Hôtel-de-Ville:
Government of National Defense
Gambetta was one of the first members of the new Government of National Defense, becoming Minister of the Interior
An interior minister (sometimes called a minister of internal affairs or minister of home affairs) is a cabinet official position that is responsible for internal affairs, such as public security, civil registration and identification, emergency ...
. 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
Tours ( ; ) is the largest city in the region of Centre-Val de Loire, France. It is the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Departments of France, department of Indre-et-Loire. The Communes of France, commune of Tours had 136,463 inhabita ...
, but when this was seen to be ineffective, Gambetta himself left Paris 7 October with Eugène Spuller in a coal gas
Coal gas is a flammable gaseous fuel made from coal and supplied to the user via a piped distribution system. It is produced when coal is heated strongly in the absence of air. Town gas is a more general term referring to manufactured gaseous ...
-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 quickly organized an army, which might have relieved Paris if Metz
Metz ( , , , then ) is a city in northeast France located at the confluence of the Moselle (river), Moselle and the Seille (Moselle), Seille rivers. Metz is the Prefectures in France, prefecture of the Moselle (department), Moselle Departments ...
had held out, but Bazaine Bazaine is a surname. Notable people with the surname include:
* Adolphe Bazaine-Vasseur (1809–1893), French railway engineer
* François Achille Bazaine
François Achille Bazaine (13 February 181123 September 1888) was an officer of the Fren ...
's surrender brought the army of the Prussian prince Friederich Karl back into the field, and success was impossible. After the French defeat near Orléans
Orléans (,["Orleans"](_blank)
(US) and [Bordeaux
Bordeaux ( ; ; Gascon language, Gascon ; ) is a city on the river Garonne in the Gironde Departments of France, department, southwestern France. A port city, it is the capital of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, as well as the Prefectures in F ...]
.
Self-exile to San Sebastián
Gambetta had hoped for a republican majority in the general elections on 8 February 1871. These hopes vanished when the conservatives and Monarchists won nearly 2/3 of the six hundred Assembly seats. He had won elections in eight different ''départements'', but the ultimate victor was the Orléanist Adolphe Thiers
Marie Joseph Louis Adolphe Thiers ( ; ; 15 April 17973 September 1877) was a French statesman and historian who served as President of France from 1871 to 1873. He was the second elected president and the first of the Third French Republic.
Thi ...
, winner of twenty-three elections. Thiers's conservative and bourgeois intentions clashed with the growing expectations of political power by the lower classes. Hoping to continue his policy of "guerre à outrance" against the Prussian invaders, he tried in vain to rally the Assembly to the war cause. However, Thiers' peace treaty on 1 March 1871 ended the conflict. Gambetta, disgusted with the Assembly's unwillingness to fight, resigned and quit France for San Sebastián
San Sebastián, officially known by the bilingual name Donostia / San Sebastián (, ), is a city and municipality located in the Basque Autonomous Community, Spain. It lies on the coast of the Bay of Biscay, from the France–Spain border ...
in Spain.
Meanwhile, the Paris Commune
The Paris Commune (, ) was a French revolutionary government that seized power in Paris on 18 March 1871 and controlled parts of the city until 28 May 1871. During the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71, the French National Guard (France), Nation ...
had taken control of the city. Despite his earlier career, Gambetta voiced his opposition to the Commune in a letter to Antonin Proust, his former secretary while Minister of the Interior, in which he referred to the Commune as "''les horribles aventures dans lesquelles s'engage ce qui reste de cette malheureuse France''" or "the ghastly madness blighting what remains of our poor France".
Gambetta's stance has been explained by reference to his status as a republican lawyer, who fought from the bar instead of the barricade and also to his father having been a grocer in Marseille. As a small-scale producer during the decades of the Second Industrial Revolution
The Second Industrial Revolution, also known as the Technological Revolution, was a phase of rapid Discovery (observation), scientific discovery, standardisation, mass production and industrialisation from the late 19th century into the early ...
in France, Joseph Gambetta was nearly ruined by the competition of new chain-store food shops. This sort of "big business" made the hard-working middle-class - "petite bourgeoisie" - very resentful, not only of bourgeois industrial capitalism, but also of the working class, which now held the status of backbone of the French economy, rather than the class of small, independent shopkeepers. This resentment may have been passed down from father to son, and manifested itself in an unwillingness to support the lower-class Communards in their usurpation of what the "petite bourgeoisie" had won a certain hegemony over.
Return
On 24 June 1871, a letter was sent by Gambetta to his Parisian confidant, Dr. Édouard Fieuzal:
Gambetta returned to the political stage and won on three separate ballots. On 5 November 1871 he established a journal, '' La Republique française'', which soon became the most influential in France. His public speeches were more effective than those delivered in the Assembly, especially the one at Bordeaux
Bordeaux ( ; ; Gascon language, Gascon ; ) is a city on the river Garonne in the Gironde Departments of France, department, southwestern France. A port city, it is the capital of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, as well as the Prefectures in F ...
. His turn towards moderate republicanism first became apparent in Firminy, a small coal-mining town along the Loire
The Loire ( , , ; ; ; ; ) is the longest river in France and the 171st longest in the world. With a length of , it drains , more than a fifth of France's land, while its average discharge is only half that of the Rhône.
It rises in the so ...
River. There, he boldly proclaimed the radical republic he once supported to be "avoided like the plague" (''se tenir éloignés comme de la peste'') (Discours, III.5). From there, he went to Grenoble
Grenoble ( ; ; or ; or ) is the Prefectures in France, prefecture and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, largest city of the Isère Departments of France, department in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes Regions of France, region ...
. On 26 September 1872, he proclaimed the future of the Republic to be in the hands of "a new social level" (''une couche sociale nouvelle'') (Discours, III.101), ostensibly the petite bourgeoisie
''Petite bourgeoisie'' (, ; also anglicised as petty bourgeoisie) is a term that refers to a social class composed of small business owners, shopkeepers, small-scale merchants, semi- autonomous peasants, and artisans. They are named as s ...
to which his father belonged.
When Adolphe Thiers
Marie Joseph Louis Adolphe Thiers ( ; ; 15 April 17973 September 1877) was a French statesman and historian who served as President of France from 1871 to 1873. He was the second elected president and the first of the Third French Republic.
Thi ...
resigned in May 1873, and a Royalist, Marshal MacMahon, was placed at the head of the government, Gambetta urged his friends to a moderate course. By his tact, parliamentary dexterity and eloquence, he was instrumental in voting in the French Constitutional Laws of 1875
French may refer to:
* Something of, from, or related to France
** French language, which originated in France
** French people, a nation and ethnic group
** French cuisine, cooking traditions and practices
Arts and media
* The French (band), ...
in February 1875. He gave this policy the appropriate name of "opportunism," and became one of the leader of the "Opportunist Republicans
file:Theodoor Galle - Opportunity Seized, Opportunity Missed - WGA08445.jpg, 300px, ''Opportunity Seized, Opportunity Missed'', engraving by Theodoor Galle, 1605
Opportunism is the practice of taking advantage of attendant circumstance, circums ...
." On 4 May 1877, he denounced "clericalism" as the enemy. During the 16 May 1877 crisis
Sixteen or 16 may refer to:
*16 (number)
*one of the years 16 BC, AD 16, 1916, 2016
Films
* '' Pathinaaru'' or ''Sixteen'', a 2010 Tamil film
* ''Sixteen'' (1943 film), a 1943 Argentine film directed by Carlos Hugo Christensen
* ''Sixteen ...
, Gambetta, in a speech at Lille
Lille (, ; ; ; ; ) is a city in the northern part of France, within French Flanders. Positioned along the Deûle river, near France's border with Belgium, it is the capital of the Hauts-de-France Regions of France, region, the Prefectures in F ...
on 15 August called on President MacMahon ''se soumettre ou se démettre'', to submit to parliament's majority or to resign. Gambetta then campaigned to rouse the republican party throughout France, which culminated in a speech at Romans (18 September 1878) formulating its programme. MacMahon, unwilling both to resign and to provoke civil war, had no choice but to dismiss his advisers and form a moderate republican ministry under the premiership of Dufaure.
When the downfall of the Dufaure cabinet brought about MacMahon's resignation, Gambetta declined to become a candidate for the presidency, but supported Jules Grévy
François Judith Paul Grévy (15 August 1807 – 9 September 1891), known as Jules Grévy (), was a French people, French lawyer and politician who served as President of France from 1879 to 1887. He was a leader of the Opportunist Republicans, M ...
; nor did he attempt to form a ministry, but accepted the office of president of the chamber of deputies in January 1879. This position did not prevent his occasionally descending from the presidential chair to make speeches, one of which, advocating an amnesty to the ''communards'', was especially memorable. Although he directed the policy of the various ministries from behind the scenes, he evidently thought that the time was not ripe for asserting openly his direction of the policy of the Republic, and seemed inclined to observe a neutral attitude as far as possible. However, events hurried him on, and early in 1881 he headed off a movement for restoring ''scrutin de liste'', or the system by which deputies are returned by the entire department which they represent, so that each elector votes for several representatives at once, in place of ''scrutin d'arrondissement'', the system of small constituencies, giving one member to each district and one for vote to each elector. A bill to re-establish ''scrutin de liste'' was passed by the Assembly on 19 May 1881, but rejected by the Senate on 19 June.
This personal rebuff could not alter the fact that his name was on the lips of voters at the election. His supporters won a large majority, and Jules Ferry
Jules François Camille Ferry (; 5 April 183217 March 1893) was a French statesman and republican philosopher. He was one of the leaders of the Opportunist Republicans, Moderate Republicans and served as Prime Minister of France from 1880 to 18 ...
's cabinet quickly resigned. Gambetta was unwillingly asked by Grévy on 24 November 1881 to form a ministry, known as ''Le Grand Ministère''. Many suspected him of desiring a dictatorship; unjust attacks were directed against him from all sides, and his cabinet fell on 26 January 1882, after only sixty-six days. Had he remained in office, he would have cultivated the British alliance and cooperated with Britain in Egypt; and when the succeeding Freycinet government shrank from that enterprise only to see it undertaken with signal success by Britain alone, Gambetta's foresight was quickly justified.
On 31 December 1882, at his house in Ville d'Avray, near Sèvres
Sèvres (, ) is a French Communes of France, commune in the southwestern suburbs of Paris. It is located from the Kilometre zero, centre of Paris, in the Hauts-de-Seine department of the Île-de-France region. The commune, which had a populatio ...
, he died from intestine or stomach cancer. Even though he was wounded a month earlier from an accidental revolver discharge, the injury had not been life-threatening. Five artists, Jules Bastien-Lepage
Jules Bastien-Lepage (1 November 1848 – 10 December 1884) was a French painter closely associated with the beginning of naturalism, an artistic style that grew out of the Realist movement and paved the way for the development of impressioni ...
, a realist painter, Antonin Proust, defender of the vanguard who Gambetta had named Minister of Fine Arts, Léon Bonnat
Léon Joseph Florentin Bonnat (; 20 June 1833 – 8 September 1922) was a French painter, Grand Officer of the Légion d'honneur, art collector and professor at the Ecole des Beaux Arts.
Early life
Bonnat was born in Bayonne, but from 1846 to 1853 ...
, an academic painter, Alexandre Falguière, who did his mortuary mask, and his personal photographer Étienne Carjat
Étienne Carjat (; 28 March 1828 – 8 March 1906) was a French journalist, caricaturist and photographer. He co-founded the magazine ''Le Diogène'', and founded the review . He is best known for his numerous portraits and caricatures of po ...
all sat at his death-bed, making five widely different representations of him which were each published by the press the following day.[Michel Melot, "''L'icône démocratique – à propos des portraits de Gambetta''" in the review ''Médium'' n°12 (July–August–September 2007, dir. Régis Debray) (pp. 39–59)] His public funeral was on 6 January 1883.
Personal life
The love of his life was his connection with Léonie Léon, the full details of which were not known to the public until her death in 1906. She was the daughter of a creole French artillery officer. Gambetta fell in love with her in 1871. She became his mistress, and the liaison lasted until he died. Gambetta constantly urged her to marry him during this period, but she always refused, fearing to compromise his career; she remained, however, his confidante and intimate adviser in all his political plans. It seems she had just consented to become his wife, and the date of the marriage had been fixed, when the accident which caused his death occurred in her presence. Contradictory accounts of this fatal episode exist, but it was certainly accidental, and not suicide. Her influence on Gambetta was absorbing, both as lover and as politician, and the correspondence which has been published shows how much he depended upon her.
However, some of her later recollections are untrustworthy. For example, she claimed that a meeting took place in 1878 between Gambetta and Bismarck. That Gambetta after 1875 felt strongly that relations between France and Germany might be improved, and that he made it his object, by travelling incognito, to become better acquainted with Germany and the adjoining states, may be accepted, but M. Laur appears to have exaggerated the extent to which any actual negotiations took place. On the other hand, the increased knowledge of Gambetta's attitude towards European politics which later information has supplied confirms the view that when he died, France had prematurely lost a clear thinker whom she could ill spare. In April 1905 a monument by Dalou to his memory at Bordeaux was unveiled by President Loubet.
Legacy
Gambetta proclamation of the Republic and call for a Levée en masse
''Levée en masse'' ( or, in English, ''mass levy'') is a French term used for a policy of mass national conscription, often in the face of invasion.
The concept originated during the French Revolutionary Wars, particularly for the period fo ...
left a lasting impact on Germany in the decades following. Future Field Marshall Colmar Freiherr von der Goltz wrote in 1877:
In October 1918, when Germany was on the verge of defeat during the First World War
World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...
, industrialist Walther Rathenau
Walther Rathenau (; 29 September 1867 – 24 June 1922) was a German industrialist, writer and politician who served as foreign minister of Germany from February 1922 until his assassination in June 1922.
Rathenau was one of Germany's leading ...
called for a German ''Levée en masse'' to reverse the deteriorating situation. Conservative Revolutionary Edgar Jung was also inspired by Gambetta. Adolf Hitler
Adolf Hitler (20 April 1889 – 30 April 1945) was an Austrian-born German politician who was the dictator of Nazi Germany from 1933 until Death of Adolf Hitler, his suicide in 1945. Adolf Hitler's rise to power, He rose to power as the lea ...
favorably contrasted Gambetta's actions with that of the post-revolutionary leaders of the Weimar Republic
The Weimar Republic, officially known as the German Reich, was the German Reich, German state from 1918 to 1933, during which it was a constitutional republic for the first time in history; hence it is also referred to, and unofficially proclai ...
:
A tall was planned in 1884 and erected in 1888 in the central space of the Louvre Palace
The Louvre Palace (, ), often referred to simply as the Louvre, is an iconic French palace located on the Right Bank of the Seine in Paris, occupying a vast expanse of land between the Tuileries Gardens and the church of Saint-Germain l'Auxe ...
, now Cour Napoléon. That initiative carried heavy political symbolism, since Gambetta was widely viewed as the founder of the Third Republic, and his outsized celebration in the middle of Napoleon III's Louvre expansion thus affirmed the final victory of republicanism
Republicanism is a political ideology that encompasses a range of ideas from civic virtue, political participation, harms of corruption, positives of mixed constitution, rule of law, and others. Historically, it emphasizes the idea of self ...
over monarchism
Monarchism is the advocacy of the system of monarchy or monarchical rule. A monarchist is an individual who supports this form of government independently of any specific monarch, whereas one who supports a particular monarch is a royalist. ...
nearly a century after the French Revolution – in the same vein, the Gambetta monument visually overpowered Napoleon
Napoleon Bonaparte (born Napoleone di Buonaparte; 15 August 1769 – 5 May 1821), later known by his regnal name Napoleon I, was a French general and statesman who rose to prominence during the French Revolution and led Military career ...
's comparatively diminutive Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel
The Arc de Triomphe du Carrousel () () is a triumphal arch in Paris, located in the Place du Carrousel. It is an example of Neoclassical architecture, Neoclassical architecture in the Corinthian order. It was built between 1806 and 1808 to commemo ...
. Most of the monument's sculptures were in bronze and in 1941 were melted for military use by German occupying forces. What remained of the Gambetta Monument was dismantled in 1954.
A stone urn containing Gambetta's heart was placed in 1920 in the monumental staircase leading to the crypt of the Panthéon
The Panthéon (, ), is a monument in the 5th arrondissement of Paris, France. It stands in the Latin Quarter, Paris, Latin Quarter (Quartier latin), atop the , in the centre of the , which was named after it. The edifice was built between 1758 ...
in Paris. The Russian red quartzite
Quartzite is a hard, non- foliated metamorphic rock that was originally pure quartz sandstone.Essentials of Geology, 3rd Edition, Stephen Marshak, p 182 Sandstone is converted into quartzite through heating and pressure usually related to tecton ...
stone that was used for the urn was part of the same shipment that was used for Napoleon's tomb at Les Invalides
The Hôtel des Invalides (; ), commonly called (; ), is a complex of buildings in the 7th arrondissement of Paris, France, containing museums and monuments, all relating to the military history of France, as well as a hospital and an old soldi ...
.
Gambetta's Ministry, 14 November 1881 – 26 January 1882
*Léon Gambetta – President of the Council and Minister of Foreign Affairs
In many countries, the ministry of foreign affairs (abbreviated as MFA or MOFA) is the highest government department exclusively or primarily responsible for the state's foreign policy and foreign relations, relations, diplomacy, bilateralism, ...
* Jean-Baptiste Campenon – Minister of War
A ministry of defence or defense (see American and British English spelling differences#-ce.2C -se, spelling differences), also known as a department of defence or defense, is the part of a government responsible for matters of defence and Mi ...
*Pierre Waldeck-Rousseau
Pierre Marie René Ernest Waldeck-Rousseau (; 2 December 184610 August 1904) was a French Republicanism, Republican politician who served for three years as the Prime Minister of France.
Early life
Pierre Waldeck-Rousseau was born in Nantes, ...
– Minister of the Interior
An interior minister (sometimes called a minister of internal affairs or minister of home affairs) is a cabinet official position that is responsible for internal affairs, such as public security, civil registration and identification, emergency ...
* François Allain-Targé – Minister of Finance
A ministry of finance is a ministry or other government agency in charge of government finance, fiscal policy, and financial regulation. It is headed by a finance minister, an executive or cabinet position .
A ministry of finance's portfolio ...
* Jules Cazot – Minister of Justice
A justice ministry, ministry of justice, or department of justice, is a ministry or other government agency in charge of the administration of justice. The ministry or department is often headed by a minister of justice (minister for justice in a ...
* Maurice Rouvier – Minister of the Colonies and of Commerce
* Auguste Gougeard – Minister of Marine
*Paul Bert
Paul Bert (17 October 1833 – 11 November 1886) was a French zoologist, physiologist and politician. He is sometimes given the nickname "Father of Aviation Medicine".
Life
Bert was born at Auxerre ( Yonne). He studied law, earning a doctorate ...
– Minister of Public Instruction and Worship
* Antonin Proust – Minister of the Arts
* Paul Devès – Minister of Agriculture
* David Raynal – Minister of Public Works
* Adolphe Cochery – Minister of Posts and Telegraphs
See also
* List of works by Alexandre Falguière
References
Sources and further reading
* Bury, J. P. T. ''Gambetta and the Making of the Third Republic'' (Longman, 1973).
* Bury, J. P. T. "Gambetta and the Revolution of 4 September 1870." ''Cambridge Historical Journal'' 4#3 (1934): 263–282
online
* Everdell, William R. ''The End of Kings: A History of Republics and Republicans.'' Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2000.
* Foley, Susan, and Charles Sowerwine. ''A Political Romance: Léon Gambetta, Léonie Léon and the Making of the French Republic, 1872–82'' (Springer, 2012).
* Foley, Susan. "'Your letter is divine, irresistible, infernally seductive': Léon Gambetta, Léonie Léon, and Nineteenth-Century Epistolary Culture." ''French Historical Studies'' 30.2 (2007): 237–26
online
* Lehning, James R. "Gossiping about Gambetta: Contested Memories in the Early Third Republic." ''French Historical Studies'' (1993): 237–25
online
* Marzials, Frank Thomas. ''Life of Léon Gambetta'' (WH Allen, 1890
online
Primary sources
* Gambetta, Léon, and Violette M. Montagu. ''Gambetta: Life and Letters'' (T. Fisher Unwin, 1910).
* Gambetta. ''Discours et plaidoyers politiques de M. Gambetta'', published by J. Reinach in 11 vols. (Paris, 1881–1886)
* Gambetta. ''Dépêches, circulaires, décrets...'' in 2 vols. (Paris, 1886–1891)
* F Laur ''Le Coeur de Gambetta'' (1907, Eng. trans., 1908) contains the correspondence with Léonie Leon
Caricatures et Caricature
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gambetta, Leon
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