Chapter VI: Part 6

Paul's father, meantime, had become despondent over his debts, small though they were, and died when his son was sixteen. The grandfather on the mother's side dying soon after, Frau Richter became entitled by will to his property. The remaining brothers and sisters at once went to law about the matter, preferring to spend the estate in the courts rather than have a favorite child enjoy it. Two years later, at eighteen, Paul started for college at Leipzig, hoping that in this cultured city he might teach while pursuing his own studies. Alas! scores had come with the same hope, and there was no work to be obtained. He found himself alone in a great city, poorly dressed, timid, sensitive, and without a hand to help. Many boys had brought letters of introduction to the professors, and thus of course received attention. He wrote to his mother, "The most renowned, whose esteem would be useful to me, are oppressed with business, surrounded by a multitude of respectable people, and by a swarm of envious flatterers. If one would speak to a professor without a special invitation, he incurs the suspicion of vanity. But do not give up your hopes. I will overcome all these difficulties. I shall receive some little help, and at length I shall not need it." All honor to the brave boy who could write so encouragingly in the midst of want and loneliness!

He longed to make the acquaintance of some learned people, but there was no opportunity. Finally, getting deeper and deeper into debt, he wrote to his mother, "As I have no longer any funds, I must continue to be trusted. But what can I at last expect? I must eat, and I cannot continue to be trusted. I cannot freeze, but where shall I get wood without money? I can no longer take care of my health, for I have warm food neither morning nor evening. It is now a long time since I asked you for twenty-six dollars; when they come, I shall scarcely be able to pay what I already owe. Perhaps the project I have in my head will enable me to earn for you and myself." Poor lad! how many hearts have ached from poverty just as did his. The mother was also in debt, but in some way she managed to obtain the money; for what will a mother not do for her child?

Paul worked on, but was soon in debt again. He could tell nobody but his devoted mother: "I will not ask you for money to pay my victualler," he wrote, "to whom I owe twenty-four dollars; nor my landlady to whom I am indebted ten; or even for other debts, that amount to six dollars. For these great sums I will ask no help, but for the following you must not deny me your assistance. I must every week pay the washerwoman, who does not trust. I must drink some milk every morning. I must have my boots soled by the cobbler, who does not trust; my torn cap must be repaired by the tailor, who does not trust; and I must give something to the maid-servant, who of course does not trust. Eight dollars of Saxon money will satisfy all, and then I shall need your help no longer."

He was keeping up courage, because he was writing a book! He told his mother, with his high dreams of young authorship, that he should bring home all his old shirts and stockings at vacation, for he should buy new ones then! It is well that all the mountains seem easy to climb in youth; when we are older, we come to know their actual height. The mother discouraged authorship, and hoped her boy would become a preacher; but his project was too dear to be given up. When his book of satirical essays, called "Eulogy of Stupidity," was finished, it was sent, with beating heart, to a publisher. In vain Paul awaited its return. He hoped it would be ready at Michaelmas fair, but the publisher "so long and so kindly patronized the book by letting it lie on his desk, that the fair was half over before the manuscript was returned." The boyish heart must have ached when the parcel came. He had not learned, what most authors are familiar with, the heart sickness from first rejected manuscripts. He had not learned, too, that fame is a hard ladder to climb, and that a "friend at court" is often worth as much, or more, than merit. Publishers are human, and cannot always see merit till fame is won.

For a whole year Paul tried in vain to find a publisher. Then he said to the manuscript, "Lie there in the corner together with school exercises, for thou art no better. I will forget, for the world would certainly have forgotten thee." Faint from lack of food, he says, "I undertook again a wearisome work, and created in six months a brand-new satire." This book was called the "Greenland Lawsuits," a queer title for a collection of essays on theology, family pride, women, fops, and the like.

Paul had now gained courage by failure. Instead of writing a letter, he went personally to every publisher in Leipzig, and offered his manuscript, and every publisher refused it. Finally he sent it to Voss of Berlin. On the last day of December, as he sat in his room, hungry, and shivering because there was no fire in the stove, there was a knock at the door, and a letter from Voss was handed in. He opened it hastily, and found an offer of seventy dollars for the "Greenland Lawsuits." Through his whole life he looked back to this as one of its supreme moments. It was not a great sum, only three dollars a week for the six months, but it was the first fruit of his brain given to the public. He was now nineteen. What little property the mother had possessed had wasted away in the lawsuits; one brother in his despair had drowned himself, and another had entered the army; but Paul still had hope in the future.

After a short vacation with his mother, he went back to Leipzig. The second volume of the "Greenland Lawsuits" was now published, and for this he received one hundred and twenty-six dollars,--nearly twice that given for the first volume. This did not take with the public, and the third volume was refused by every publisher. His money was gone. What could he do? He would try, as some other authors had done, the plan of writing letters to distinguished people, telling them his needs. He did so, but received no answers. Then, spurred on by necessity, he took the manuscript in his hand, and presented it himself at the doors of the learned; but he was either not listened to, or repulsed on every occasion. How one pities this lad of nineteen! How many wealthy men might have aided him, but they did not! He wrote a few essays for various periodicals, but these brought little money, and were seldom wanted. His high hopes for a literary career began to vanish.

It was evident that he must give up college life, for he could not get enough to eat. He had long discontinued his evening meal, making his supper of a few dried prunes. His boarding-mistress was asking daily for her dues. He could bear the privation and the disgrace no longer, and, packing his satchel, and borrowing a coat from a college boy, that he might not freeze, he stole away from Leipzig in the darkness of the twilight, and went home to his disconsolate mother. Is it any wonder that the poor are disconsolate? Is it any wonder that they regard the wealthy as usually cold and indifferent to their welfare? Alas! that so many of us have no wish to be our "brother's keeper."

Perhaps some of the professors and students wondered where the bright lad had gone; but the world forgets easily. Frau Richter received her college boy with a warm heart, but an empty purse. She was living with her two children in one room, supporting them as best she could by spinning, working far into the night. In this room, where cooking, washing, cleaning, and spinning were all carried on, Paul placed his little desk and began to write. Was the confusion trying to his thoughts? Ah! necessity knows no law. He says, "I was like a prisoner, without the prisoner's fare of bread and water, for I had only the latter; and if a gulden found its way into the house, the jubilee was such that the windows were nearly broken with joy." But with the strength of a noble and heroic nature, he adds, "What is poverty that a man should whine under it? It is but like the pain of piercing the ears of a maiden, and you hang precious jewels in the wound."

The family were so needy, however, that they must look somewhere for aid, and hesitatingly Paul applied to Vogel, the young pastor, who loaned them twenty-five gulden. Very soon the boarding-mistress from Leipzig appeared, having walked the whole way to Hof, and demanded her pay. In his distress Paul sent her to another friend, Otto, who became surety for the debt.

Richter now began to work harder than ever. His books of extracts were invaluable, as were his hand-books of comical matters, touching incidents, synonyms, etc. He made it a rule to write half a day, and take long walks in the afternoon in the open air, thinking out the plans for his books. Poor as he was, he was always cheerful, sustaining by his letters any who were downhearted. One of his best friends, Herman, who had become a physician through much struggle, died about this time, broken on the wheel of poverty. Despite his own starving condition, Paul sent him five dollars. Having an opportunity to teach French to the brother of a Leipzig friend, he accepted; but at the end of three years, through the disappointing character of the pupil, and the miserliness of the father, Paul returned to his mother, broken in health and dispirited. His heart ached for those who like himself were suffering, and now he made a resolution that changed for life the course of his writing. He would write satire no more. He said, "I will not pour into the cup of humanity a single drop of gall." Henceforward love, and hope, and tenderness, breathe upon his every page.

He now wrote ten essays on "What is Death?" asking the noble-hearted Herder to send them to Weiland for his magazine, lest they be overlooked in his mass of papers, if Richter, unaided, should venture to ask the favor. They were overlooked for months; but finally Herder procured the insertion of one essay in a different magazine, but Richter never received any pay for it. Three years had passed, and all this time the third volume of the "Greenland Lawsuits" had been journeying from one publishing house to another. At last it was accepted, but little money came from it.

Again he taught,--this time at Schwarzenbach, where he used to go to school. Here his tenderness, his tact, and good cheer won the hearts of the pupils. There was no memorizing of Latin dictionaries, but the exact work of all was kept in a "red book" for parents to see. He instructed them orally five hours a day, till they were eager for astronomy, history, and biography. For four years he taught, "his schoolroom being his Paradise," every Sunday walking to Hof to see his mother. Well might he say, "To the man who has had a mother all women are sacred for her sake."

Paul now determined to write a novel, and though he had little knowledge of any sphere of life save that in which poverty held sway, he would put his own heart into the work. The "Invisible Lodge" was written and sent to the Counsellor of the town, asking, if the work pleased him, that he would assist in its publication. At first Counsellor Moritz was annoyed at the request; but as he read he became deeply interested, and said, this is surely from Goethe, Herder, or Weiland. The book was soon published, and two hundred and twenty-six dollars paid for it! The moment Richter received the first instalment of seventy dollars, he hastened to Hof, and there, late at night, found his mother spinning by the light of the fire, and poured the whole of the gold into her lap. The surprise, joy, and thanksgiving of the poor woman can well be imagined. Her son immediately moved her into a small but more comfortable home.

The new novel began to be talked about and widely read. Fame was really coming. He began at once to work on "Hesperus," one of his most famous productions, though when published he received only two hundred dollars for the four volumes. Letters now came from scholars and famous people. One admirer sent fifty Prussian dollars. What joy must have swelled the heart of the poor schoolteacher! "Flower, Fruit, and Thorn Pieces" followed shortly after, and Richter was indeed famous. Learned ladies of Weimar wrote most enthusiastic thanks. With his reverence for woman, and delight in her intellectual equality with man, these letters were most inspiring. Request after request came for him to visit Weimar. Dare he go and meet such people as Goethe, and Schiller, and Herder, and Weiland, whom for twelve long years he had hoped sometime to look upon? At last he started, and upon reaching Weimar, was made the lion of the day. His warm heart, generous and unaffected nature, and brilliant and well-stored mind made him admired by all. Herder said: "Heaven has sent me a treasure in Richter. That I neither deserved nor expected. He is all heart, all soul; an harmonious tone in the great golden harp of humanity." Caroline Herder, his wife, a very gifted woman, was equally his friend and helper. Noble and intellectual women gathered about him to do him honor. Some fell in love with him; but he studied them closely as models for future characters in his books, giving only an ardent friendship in return. He was even invited to court, and gathered here the scenes for his greatest work, "Titan." How grand all this seemed to the poor man who had been hungering all his life for refined and intellectual companionship! So rejoiced was he that he wrote home, "I have lived twenty years in Weimar in a few days. I am happy, wholly happy, not merely beyond all expectation, but beyond all description."

He was now thirty-four. The poor, patient mother had just died, but not till she had heard the fame of her son spoken on every hand. After her death, Paul found a faded manuscript in which she had kept the record of those small gains in spinning into the midnight hours. He carried it next his heart, saying, "If all other manuscripts are destroyed, yet will I keep this, good mother." For weeks he was not able to write a letter, or mention the loss of his parent.

His youngest brother, Samuel, a talented boy, was now ready for college; so Jean Paul determined to make Leipzig his home while his brother pursued his course. What changes the last few years had wrought! Then he was stealing away from Leipzig in debt for his board, cold, hungry, and desolate; now he was coming, the brilliant author whom everybody delighted to honor. When we are in want, few are ready to help; when above want, the world stands ready to lavish all upon us. After spending some time in Leipzig, he visited Dresden to enjoy the culture of that artistic city. During this visit, Samuel, who had become dissipated, broke into his brother's desk, stole all his hard-earned money, and left the city. He led a wandering life thereafter, dying in a hospital in Silesia. Paul never saw him again, but sent him a yearly allowance, as soon as he learned his abiding-place. What a noble character!

He now returned to Weimar, dedicating his "Titan" to the four daughters of the Duke of Mecklenburg, one of whom became the mother of Emperor William, the famous and beautiful Louise of Prussia. He visited her later in Berlin, where he writes, "I have never been received in any city with such idolatry. I have a watch-chain of the hair of three sisters; and so much hair has been begged of me, that if I were to make it a traffic, I could live as well from the outside of my head as from what is inside of it."

In this city he met the woman who was to be hereafter the very centre of his life. He had had a passing fancy for several, but never for one that seemed fitted, all in all, to make his life complete. Caroline Myer, the daughter of one of the most distinguished Prussian officers, was a refined, intellectual, noble girl, with almost unlimited resources within herself, devoted to her family and to every good. Paul had met women who dressed more elegantly, who were more sparkling in conversation, who were more beautiful, but they did not satisfy his heart. In his thirty-eighth year he had found a character that seemed perfection. He wrote, "Caroline has exactly that inexpressible love for all beings that I have till now failed to find even in those who in everything else possess the splendor and purity of the diamond. She preserves in the full harmony of her love to me the middle and lower tones of sympathy for every joy and sorrow in others."

Her love for Richter was nearly adoration. Several months after their marriage she wrote her father, "Richter is the purest, the holiest, the most godlike man that lives. Could others be admitted, as I am, to his inmost emotions, how much more would they esteem him!" Richter also wrote to his best friend, Otto, "Marriage has made me love her more romantically, deeper, infinitely more than before." At the birth of their first child, he wrote again to Otto, "You will be as transported as I was when the nurse brought me, as out of a cloud, my second love, with the blue eyes wide open, a beautiful, high brow, kiss-lipped, heart-touching. God is near at the birth of every child."

On Caroline's first birthday after their marriage, he wrote, "I will be to thee father and mother! Thou shalt be the happiest of human beings, that I also may be happy."

"Titan," now ten years in progress, was published, and made a great sensation. The literary world was indignant at the fate of "Linda," his heroine, but all pronounced it a great book,--his masterpiece.

Soon after he removed to Bayreuth, and settled down to earnest work. Almost every day he might be seen walking out into the country, where he rented a room in a peasant's house for quiet and country air. Whenever the day was pleasant he worked out of doors. A son had now been born to him, and life seemed complete. Now he played with his home-treasures, and now talked at table about some matter of art or science that all might be instructed. He was especially fond of animals, having usually a mouse, a tame spider, a tree-frog, and dogs. So good was he to his canary birds that he never left the house without opening the door of their cage that they might fly about and not be lonely. Often when he wrote, they walked over his manuscript, scattering water from the vase and mingling it with his ink.

His son Max, a boy of sixteen, had entered school at Munich. He was a beautiful youth, conscientious, sensitive, devoted to study, and the idol of the household. At first he wept whole nights from homesickness, denying himself sufficient fire, food, and clothing, from a desire to save expense to his parents. He was a fine scholar, but distrusted his intellectual gifts. At the end of a year he came home, pale and worn, and died at the age of nineteen.

To Richter this was a death-blow. He went on writing, while the tears dropped upon his page. He could never bear the sight of a book his boy had touched, and the word "philology," his son's favorite study, cut him to the heart. At the end of three months he wrote to a friend, "My being has suffered not merely a wound, but a complete cutting off of all joy. My longing after him grows always more painful." Broken in health he visited Dresden; but the end was near. The sight of the left eye at first failed him, then the right, till he was left in complete darkness. He still hoped to finish his autobiography, and the "Immortality of the Soul," begun on the very day Max was buried; but this was denied him. Once only did his sorrows overpower him, when pitifully looking toward the window, he cried out as Ajax in the "Iliad":--

"Light! light only, then may the enemy come!"

The devoted wife and two daughters grew unspeakably dear to him. When tired with thinking, he would seat himself at the piano, and play till he, as well as those who heard him, would burst into tears. On the 14th of November, 1825, he sat in his chamber, his youngest child climbing on the back of his chair, and laying her face against her father's. It was only noon, but thinking it was night, Richter said, "It is time to go to rest." He was wheeled into his sleeping apartment, and some flowers laid on the bed beside him. "My beautiful flowers! My lovely flowers!" he said, as he folded his arms, and soon fell asleep. His wife sat beside him, her eyes fixed on the face of the man she loved. About six the doctor arrived. The breath came shorter, the face took on a heavenly expression, and grew cold as marble. The end had come. He was buried by torchlight, the unfinished manuscript of the "Immortality of the Soul" being borne upon his coffin, while the students sung Klopstock's hymn, "Thou shalt arise, my Soul." His more than one hundred volumes and his noble, generous life are his monuments. He said, "I shall die without having seen Switzerland or the ocean, but the ocean of eternity I shall not fail to see."

LEON GAMBETTA.

On January 6, 1883, Paris presented a sad and imposing spectacle. Her shops were closed; her public buildings and her homes were draped in black. Her streets were solid with hundreds of thousands, all dispirited, and many in tears. A large catafalque covered with black velvet upheld a coffin shrouded with the tricolor. From a vase at each corner rose burning perfume, whose vapor was like sweet incense. Six black horses drew the funeral car, and two hundred thousand persons followed in the procession, many bearing aloft wreaths of flowers, and shouting, "Vive la Republique! Vive la Gambetta!"

The maker of the Republic, the brilliant, eloquent leader of the French people, was dead; dead in the prime of his life at forty-five. The "Figaro" but voiced the feeling of the world when it said, "The Republic has lost its greatest man." America might well mourn him as a friend, for he made her his pattern for his beloved France. The "Pall-Mall Gazette" said, "He will live in French history among the most courageous"; and even Germany courted him as the bravest of the brave, while she breathed freer, saying in the "Berlin Press," "The death of Gambetta delivers the peace of Europe from great danger." The hand that would sometime doubtless have reached out to take back sobbing Alsace and Lorraine was palsied; the voice that swayed the multitude, now with its sweet persuasiveness, and now with its thunder like the rush of a swollen torrent, was hushed; the supreme will that held France like a willing child in its power, had yielded to the inevitable,--death.

Leon Gambetta was born at Cahors, April 2, 1838. His father was an Italian from Genoa, poor, and of good character; his mother, a French woman, singularly hopeful, energetic, and noble. They owned a little bazaar and grocery, and here, Onasie, the wife, day after day helped her husband to earn a comfortable living. When their only son was seven years old, he was sent to a Jesuits' preparatory school at Monfaucon, his parents hoping that he would become a priest. His mother had great pride in him, and faith in his future. She taught him how to read from the "National," a newspaper founded by Thiers, republican in its tendencies. She saw with delight that when very young he would learn the speeches of Thiers and Guizot, which he found in its columns, and declaim them as he roamed alone the narrow streets, and by the quaint old bridges and towers of Cahors. At Monfaucon, he gave his orations before the other children, the mother sending him the much-prized "National" whenever he obtained good marks, and the Jesuits, whether pleased or not, did not interfere with their boyish republican.

At eight years of age an unfortunate accident happened which bade fair to ruin his hopes. While watching a cutter drill the handle of a knife, the foil broke, and a piece entered the right eye, spoiling the sight. Twenty years afterward, when the left, through sympathy, seemed to be nearly destroyed, a glass eye was inserted, and the remaining one was saved.

When Leon was ten years old, the Revolution of 1848 deposed Louis Philippe, the Orleanist, and Louis Napoleon was made President of the Republic. Perhaps the people ought to have known that no presidency would long satisfy the ambition of a Bonaparte. He at once began to increase his power by winning the Catholic Church to his side. The Jesuits no longer allowed the boy Leon to talk republicanism; they saw that it was doomed. They scolded him, whipped him, took away the "National," and finally expelled him, writing to his parents, "You will never make a priest of him; he has an utterly undisciplinable character."

The father frowned when he returned home, and the neighbors prophesied that he would end his life in the Bastile for holding such radical opinions. The poor mother blamed herself for putting the "National" into his hands, and thus bringing all this trouble upon him. Ah, she wrought better than she knew! But for the "National," and Gambetta's unconquerable love for a republic, France might to-day be the plaything of an emperor.

Meantime Louis Napoleon was putting his friends into office, making tours about the country to win adherents, and securing the army and the police to his side. At seven o'clock, on the morning of December 2, 1851, the famous Coup d'etat came, and the unscrupulous President had made himself Emperor. Nearly two hundred and fifty deputies were arrested and imprisoned, and the Republicans who opposed the usurpation were quickly subdued by the army. Then the French were graciously permitted to say, by ballot, whether they were willing to accept the empire. There was, of course, but one judicious way to vote, and that was in the affirmative, and they thus voted.

Joseph Gambetta, the father, saw the political storm which was coming, and fearing for his outspoken son, locked him up in a lyceum at Cahors, till he was seventeen. Here he attracted the notice of his teachers by his fondness for reading, his great memory, and his love of history and politics. At sixteen he had read the Latin authors, and the economical works of Proudhon. When he came home, his father told him that he must now become a grocer, and succeed to the business. He obeyed, but his studious mind had no interest in the work. He recoiled from spending his powers in persuading the mayor's wife that a yard of Genoa velvet at twenty francs was cheaper than the same measure of the Lyon's article at thirteen. So tired and sick of the business did he become, that he begged his father to be allowed to keep the accounts, which he did in a neat, delicate hand.

His watchful mother saw that her boy's health was failing. He was restless and miserable. He longed to go to Paris to study law, and then teach in some provincial town. He planned ways of escape from the hated tasks, but he had no money, and no friends in the great city.

But his mother planned to some purpose. She said to M. Menier, the chocolate-maker, "I have a son of great promise, whom I want to send to Paris against his father's will to study law. He is a good lad, and no fool. But my husband, who wants him to continue his business here, will, I know, try to starve him into submission. What I am about to propose is that if I buy your chocolate at the rate you offer it, and buy it outright instead of taking it to sell on commission, will you say nothing if I enter it on the book at a higher price, and you pay the difference to my son?" Menier, interested to have the boy prosper, quickly agreed.

After a time, she called her son aside and, placing a bag of money in his hand, said, "This, my boy, is to pay your way for a year. A trunk full of clothes is ready for you. Try and come home somebody. Start soon, and take care to let nobody suspect you are going away. Do not say good-bye to a single soul. I want to avoid a scene between you and your father."

Ambition welled up again in his heart, and the bright expression came back into his face. The next morning he slipped away, and was soon at Paris. He drove to the Sorbonne, because he had heard that lectures were given there. The cab-driver recommended a cheap hotel close by, and, obtaining a room in the garret, the youth, not yet eighteen, began his studies. He rose early and worked hard, attending lectures at the medical school as well as at the law, buying his books at second-hand shops along the streets. Though poverty often pinched him as to food, and his clothes were poor, he did not mind it, but bent all his energies to his work. His mother wrote how angered the father was at his leaving, and would not allow his name to be mentioned in his presence. Poor Joseph! how limited was his horizon.

Leon's intelligence and originality won the esteem of the professors, and one of them said, "Your father acts stupidly. You have a true vocation. Follow it. But go to the bar, where your voice, which is one in a thousand, will carry you on, study and intelligence aiding. The lecture-room is a narrow theatre. If you like, I will write to your father to tell him what my opinion of you is."

Professor Valette wrote to Joseph Gambetta, "The best investment you ever made would be to spend what money you can afford to divert from your business in helping your son to become an advocate."

The letter caused a sensation in the Gambetta family. The mother took courage and urged the case of her darling child, while her sister, Jenny Massabie, talked ardently for her bright nephew. An allowance was finally made. In two years Leon had mastered the civil, criminal, military, forest, and maritime codes. Too young to be admitted to the bar to plead, for nearly a year he studied Paris, its treasures of art, and its varied life. It opened a new and grand world to him. Accidentally he made the acquaintance of the head usher at the Corps Legislatif, who said to the young student, "You are an excellent fellow, and I shall like to oblige you; so if the debates of the Corps Legislatif interest you, come there and ask for me, and I will find you a corner in the galleries where you can hear and see everything." Here Leon studied parliamentary usage, and saw the repression of thought under an empire. At the Cafe Procope, once the resort of Voltaire, Diderot, Rousseau, and other literary celebrities, the young man talked over the speeches he had heard, with his acquaintances, and told what he would do if he were in the House. An improbable thing it seemed that a poor and unknown lad would ever sit in the Corps Legislatif, as one of its members! He organized a club for reading and debating, and was of course made its head. It could not be other than republican in sentiment.

In 1860, at the age of twenty-two, Gambetta was admitted to the bar. The father was greatly opposed to his living in Paris, where he thought there was no chance for a lawyer who had neither money nor influential friends, and urged his returning to Cahors. Again his aunt Jenny, whom he always affectionately called "Tata," took his part. Having an income of five hundred dollars a year, she said to the father, "You do not see how you can help your son in Paris, it may be for long years; but next week I will go with him, and we shall stay together;" and then, turning to her nephew, she added, "And now, my boy, I will give you food and shelter, and you will do the rest by your work."

They took a small house in the Latin Quartier, very plain and comfortless. His first brief came after waiting eighteen months! Grepps, a deputy, being accused of conspiracy against the Government, Gambetta defended him so well that Cremieux, a prominent lawyer, asked him to become his secretary. The case was not reported in the papers, and was therefore known only by a limited circle. For six years the brilliant young scholar was virtually chained to his desk. The only recreation was an occasional gathering of a few newspaper men at his rooms, for whom his aunt cooked the supper, willing and glad to do the work, because she believed he would some day come to renown from his genius.

Finally his hour came. At the Coup d'etat, Dr. Baudin, a deputy, for defending the rights of the National Assembly, was shot on a barricade. On All-Soul's Day, 1868, the Republicans, to the number of a thousand, gathered at the grave in the cemetery of Montmartre, to lay flowers upon it and listen to addresses. The Emperor could not but see that such demonstrations would do harm to his throne. Dellschuzes, the leader, was therefore arrested, and chose the unknown lawyer, Gambetta, to defend him. He was a strong radical, and he asked only one favor of his lawyer, that he would "hit hard the Man of December," as those who hated the Coup d'etat of December 2, loved to call Louis Napoleon.

Gambetta was equal to the occasion. He likened the Emperor to Catiline, declaring that as a highwayman, he had taken France and felled her senseless. "For seventeen years," he said, "you have been masters of France, and you have never dared to celebrate the Second of December. It is we who take up the anniversary, which you no more dare face than a fear-haunted murderer can his victim's corpse." When finally, overcome with emotion, Gambetta sank into his seat at the close of his speech, the die was cast. He had become famous from one end of France to the other, and the Empire had received a blow from which it never recovered. That night at the clubs, and in the press offices, the name of Leon Gambetta was on every lip.

It is not strange that in the elections of the following year, he was asked to represent Belleville and Marseilles, and chose the latter, saying to his constituents that he was in "irreconcilable opposition to the Empire." He at once became the leader of a new party, the "Irreconcilables," and Napoleon's downfall became from that hour only a question of time. Gambetta spoke everywhere, and was soon conceded to be the finest orator in France. Worn in body, by the confinement of the secretaryship, and the political campaign, he repaired to Ems for a short time, where he met Bismarck. "He will go far," said the Man of Iron. "I pity the Emperor for having such an irreconcilable enemy." The "National," under Madam Gambetta's teaching in childhood, was bearing fruit.

Napoleon saw that something must be done to make his throne more stable in the hearts of his people. He attempted a more liberal policy, with Emile Ollivier at the head of affairs. But Gambetta was still irreconcilable, saying in one of his great speeches, "We accept you and your Constitutionalism as a bridge to the Republic, but nothing more." At last war was declared against Prussia, as much with the hope of promoting peace at home as to win honors in Germany. Everybody knows the rapid and crushing defeat of the French, and the fall of Napoleon at Sedan, September 2, when he wrote to King William of Prussia, "Not having been able to die at the head of my troops, I can only resign my sword into the hands of your Majesty."

When the news reached Paris on the following day, the people were frantic. Had the Emperor returned, a defeated man, he could never have reached the Tuileries alive. Crowds gathered in the streets, and forced their way into the hall of the Corps Legislatif. Then the eloquent leader of the Republican ranks, scarcely heard of two years before, ascended the Tribune, and declared that, "Louis Napoleon Bonaparte and his dynasty have forever ceased to reign over France." With Jules Favre, Ferry, Simon, and others, he hastened to the Hotel de Ville, writing on slips of paper, and throwing out to the multitude, the names of those who were to be the heads of the provisional government. Cool, fearless, heroic, Gambetta stood at the summit of power, and controlled the people. They believed in him because he believed in the Republic.

Meantime the German armies were marching on Paris. The people fortified their city, and prepared to die if need be, in their homes. Before Paris was cut off from the outside world by the siege, part of the governing force retired to Tours. It became necessary for Gambetta, in October, to visit this city for conference, and to accomplish this he started in a balloon, which was just grazed by the Prussian guns as he passed over the lines. It was a hazardous step; but the balloon landed in a forest near Amiens, and he was safe. When he arrived in Tours there was not a soldier in the place; in a month, by superhuman energy, and the most consummate skill and wisdom, he had raised three armies of eight hundred thousand men, provided by loan for their maintenance, and directed their military operations. One of the prominent officers on the German side says, "This colossal energy is the most remarkable event of modern history, and will carry down Gambetta's name to remote posterity."

He was now in reality the Dictator of France, at thirty-two years of age. He gave the fullest liberty to the press, had a pleasant "Bon jour, mon ami" for a workman, no matter how overwhelmed with cares he might be, and a self-possession, a quickness of decision, and an indomitable will that made him a master in every company and on every occasion. He electrified France by his speeches; he renewed her courage, and revived her patriotism. Even after the bloody defeat of Bazaine at Gravelotte, and his strange surrender of one hundred and seventy thousand men at Metz, Gambetta did not despair of France being able, at least, to demand an honorable peace.

But France had grown tired of battles. Paris had endured a siege of four months, and the people were nearly in a starving condition. The Communists, too, were demanding impossible things. Therefore, after seven months of war, the articles of peace were agreed upon, by which France gave to Germany fourteen hundred million dollars, to be paid in three years, and ceded to her the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine.

Gambetta could never bring himself to consent to these humiliating conditions, and on the day on which the terms were ratified, he and his colleagues from these two sections of the country, left the assembly together. Just as they were passing out, the venerable Jean Kuss, mayor of Strasburg, staggered up to Gambetta, saying, "Let me grasp your patriot's hand. It is the last time I shall shake it. My heart is broken. Promise to redeem brave Strasburg." He fell to the floor, and died almost immediately. Gambetta retired to Spain, till recalled by the elections of the following July.

He now began again his heroic labors, speaking all through France, teaching the people the true principles of a republic; not communism, not lawlessness, but order, prudence, and self-government. He urged free, obligatory education, and the scattering of books, libraries, and institutes everywhere. When Thiers was made the first President, Gambetta was his most important and truest ally, though the former had called him "a furious fool"; so ready was the Great Republican to forgive harshness.

In 1877 he again saved his beloved Republic. The Monarchists had become restless, and finally displaced Thiers by Marshal MacMahon, a strong Romanist, and a man devoted to the Empire. It seemed evident that another coup d'etat was meditated. Gambetta stirred the country to action. He declared that the President must "submit or resign," and for those words he was sentenced to three months' imprisonment and a fine of four hundred dollars, which sentence was never executed. MacMahon seeing that the Republic was stronger than he had supposed, soon after resigned his position, and was succeeded by M. Grevy. Gambetta was made President of the Assembly, and doubtless, if he had lived, would have been made President of the Republic.

There were not wanting those who claimed that he was ambitious for the supreme rule; but when death came from the accidental discharge of a pistol, producing a wound in the hand, all calumny was hushed, and France beheld her idol in his true light,--the incarnation of republicanism. Two hours before his death, at his plain home just out of Paris at Ville d'Avray, he said, "I am dying; there is no use in denying it; but I have suffered so much it will be a great deliverance." He longed to last till the New Year, but died five minutes before midnight, Dec. 31, 1882. The following day, fifteen thousand persons called to see the great statesman as he lay upon his single iron bedstead.

Afterward the body lay in state at the Palais Bourbon, the guard standing nearly to their knees in flowers. Over two thousand wreaths were given by friends. Alsace sent a magnificent crown of roses. No grander nor sadder funeral was ever seen in France. Paris was urgent that he be buried in Pere la Chaise, but his father would not consent; so the body was carried to Nice to lie beside his mother, who died a year before him, and his devoted aunt, who died five years previously. Every day Joseph Gambetta lays flowers upon the graves of his dear ones.

Circumstances helped to make the great orator, but he also made circumstances. True, his opportunity came at the trial, after the Baudin demonstration, but he was ready for the opportunity. He had studied the history of an empire under the Caesars, and he knew how republics are made and lost. When in the Corps Legislatif a leader was needed, he was ready, for he had carefully studied men. When at Tours he directed the military, he knew what he was doing, for he was conversant with the details of our civil war. When others were sauntering for pleasure along the Champs Elysees, he had been poring over books in an attic opposite the Sorbonne. He died early, but he accomplished more than most men who live to be twice forty-five. When, in the years to come, imperialists shall strive again to wrest the government from the hands of the people, the name of Leon Gambetta will be an inspiration, a talisman of victory for the Republic.

(From his Life, published by D. APPLETON & CO.)]

DAVID GLASGOW FARRAGUT.

The possibilities of American life are strikingly illustrated by the fact that the two names at the head of the army and navy, Grant and Farragut, represent self-made men. The latter was born on a farm near Knoxville, Tennessee, July 5, 1801. His mother, of Scotch descent, was a brave and energetic woman. Once when the father was absent in the Indian wars, the savages came to their plain home and demanded admittance. She barred the door as best she could, and sending her trembling children into the loft, guarded the entrance with an axe. The Indians thought discretion the better part of valor, and stole quietly away.

When David was seven years old, the family having moved to New Orleans, as the father had been appointed sailing master in the navy, the noble mother died of yellow fever, leaving five children, the youngest an infant. This was a most severe blow. Fortunately, soon after, an act of kindness brought its reward. The father of Commodore Porter having died at the Farragut house, the son determined to adopt one of the motherless children, if one was willing to leave his home. Little David was pleased with the uniform, and said promptly that he would go.

Saying good-bye forever to his father, he was taken to Washington, and after a few months spent in school, at the age of nine years and a half, was made a midshipman. And now began a life full of hardship, of adventure, and of brave deeds, which have added lustre to the American navy, and have made the name of Farragut immortal.

His first cruise was along the coast, in the _Essex_, after the war of 1812 with Great Britain had begun. They had captured the _Alert_ and other prizes, and their ship was crowded with prisoners. One night when the boy lay apparently asleep, the coxswain of the _Alert_ came to his hammock, pistol in hand. David lay motionless till he passed on, and then crept noiselessly to the cabin, and informed Captain Porter. Springing from his cot, he shouted, "Fire! fire!" The seamen rushed on deck, and the mutineers were in irons before they had recovered from their amazement. Evidently the boy had inherited some of his mother's fearlessness.

His second cruise was in the Pacific Ocean, where they encountered a fearful storm going round Cape Horn. An incident occurred at this time which showed the mettle of the lad. Though only twelve, he was ordered by Captain Porter to take a prize vessel to Valparaiso, the captured captain being required to navigate it. When David requested that the "maintopsail be filled away," the captain replied that he would shoot any man who dared to touch a rope without his orders, and then went below for his pistols. David called one of the crew, told him what had happened, and what he wanted done. "Aye, aye, sir!" responded the faithful sailor, as he began to execute the orders. The young midshipman at once sent word to the captain not to come on deck with his pistols unless he wished to go overboard. From that moment the boy was master of the vessel, and admired for his bravery.

The following year,--1814,--while the _Essex_ was off the coast of Chili, she was attacked by the British ships _Phoebe_ and _Cherub_. The battle lasted for two hours and a half, the _Phoebe_ throwing seven hundred eighteen-pound shots at the _Essex_.

"I shall never forget," Farragut said years after, "the horrid impression made upon me at the sight of the first man I had ever seen killed. It staggered and sickened me at first; but they soon began to fall so fast that it all appeared like a dream, and produced no effect upon my nerves.... Soon after this some gun-primers were wanted, and I was sent after them. In going below, while I was on the ward-room ladder, the captain of the gun directly opposite the hatchway was struck full in the face by an eighteen-pound shot, and fell back on me. We tumbled down the hatch together. I lay for some moments stunned by the blow, but soon recovered consciousness enough to rush up on deck. The captain seeing me covered with blood, asked if I was wounded; to which I replied, 'I believe not, sir.' 'Then,' said he, 'where are the primers?' This brought me completely to my senses, and I ran below again and carried the primers on deck."

When Porter had been forced to surrender, David went below to help the surgeon in dressing wounds. One brave young man, Lieutenant Cowell, said, "O, Davy, I fear it is all up with me!" He could have been saved, had his leg been amputated an hour sooner; but when it was proposed to drop another patient and attend to him, he said, "No, Doctor, none of that; fair play is a jewel. One man's life is as dear as another's; I would not cheat any poor fellow out of his turn."

Many brave men died, saying, "Don't give her up! Hurrah for liberty!" One young Scotchman, whose leg had been shot off, said to his comrades, "I left my own country and adopted the United States to fight for her. I hope I have this day proved myself worthy of the country of my adoption. I am no longer of any use to you or to her; so good-bye!" saying which he threw himself overboard.

When David was taken a prisoner on board the _Phoebe_, he could not refrain from tears at his mortification.

"Never mind, my little fellow," said the captain; "it will be your turn next, perhaps."

"I hope so," was the reply.

Soon David's pet pig "Murphy" was brought on board, and he immediately claimed it.

"But," said the English sailor, "you are a prisoner and your pig also."

"We always respect private property," the boy replied, seizing hold of "Murphy"; and after a vigorous fight, the pet was given to its owner.

On returning to Captain Porter's house at Chester, Pa., David was put at school for the summer, under a quaint instructor, one of Napoleon's celebrated Guard, who used no book, but taught the boys about plants and minerals, and how to climb and swim. In the fall he was placed on a receiving-ship, but gladly left the wild set of lads for a cruise in the Mediterranean. Here he had the opportunity of visiting Naples, Pompeii, and other places of interest, but he encountered much that was harsh and trying. Commodore C---- sometimes knocked down his own son, and his son's friend as well,--not a pleasant person to be governed by.

In 1817, Chaplain Folsom of their ship was appointed consul at Tunis. He loved David as a brother, and begged the privilege of keeping him for a time, "because," said he to the commodore, "he is entirely destitute of the aids of fortune and the influence of friends, other than those whom his character may attach to him." For nearly nine months he remained with the chaplain, studying French, Italian, English literature, and mathematics, and developing in manliness and refinement. The Danish consul showed great fondness for the frank, ardent boy, now sixteen, and invited him to his house at Carthage. Failing in his health, a horseback trip toward the interior of the country was recommended, and during the journey he received a sunstroke, and his eyes were permanently weakened. All his life, however, he had some one read to him, and thus mitigate his misfortune.

The time came to go back to duty on the ship, and Chaplain Folsom clasped the big boy to his bosom, fervently kissing him on each cheek, and giving him his parting blessing mingled with his tears. Forty years after, when the young midshipman had become the famous Admiral, he sent a token of respect and affection to his old friend.

For some years, having been appointed acting lieutenant, he cruised in the Gulf of Mexico, gaining knowledge which he was glad to use later, and in the West Indies, where for two years and a half, he says, "I never owned a bed, but lay down to rest wherever I found the most comfortable berth." Sometimes he and his seamen pursued pirates who infested the coast, cutting their way through thornbushes and cactus plants, with their cutlasses; then burning the houses of these robbers, and taking their plunder out of their caves. It was an exciting but wearing life.

After a visit to his old home at New Orleans,--his father had died, and his sister did not recognize him,--he contracted yellow fever, and lay ill for some time in a Washington hospital. Perhaps the sailor was tired of his roving and somewhat lonely life, and now married, at twenty-two, Miss Susan Marchant of Norfolk, Virginia.