: 'Makers of Modern
Europe-Gambetta.'
GAMBETTA, more than any other man, made the Third French Republic, brought it safely out of the stress and storm and peril of 1870, and guarded it until, at his death in 1882, it was established and secure. It was he who, after the great disaster of Sedan in the Franco-Prussian War, declared the Republic to replace the fallen Empire, and became Minister of the Interior in the Government of National Defence. Later, when the siege of Paris had begun, he escaped from the invested city in a balloon, and performed prodigies in raising armies to continue the war. All his efforts could not, of course, prevent a humiliating peace ; but he was returned to the assembly in July, 1871, and his groat influence helped enormously- when it was directed in support of the Government-to strengthen the Republic against its many enemies. His subsequent career was chequered and stormy; lie was twice imprisoned for political offences, and then again he led a Ministry until the year of his death ; but throughout his vicissitudes his influence, both in Franco and with foreign observers, remained of paramount importance, and none of his many errors can detract from his reputation as, in a sense, the father of modern France.