Later when Paris was encircled by German troops, Gambetta fled Paris by means of a hot air balloon and he became the virtual dictator of the war effort which was carried on from the rural provinces.

( Leon Gambetta was one of the " non-monarchist " Republicans that were elected to the new National Assembly from Paris.

However, the old Marshal was dead set against Gambetta and chose, instead, moderate Armand Dufaure.

In the 1880s, there was a debate between those, such as Georges Clemenceau ( Radical ), Jean Jaurès ( Socialist ) and Maurice Barrès ( nationalist ), who argued that colonialism diverted France from the " blue line of the Vosges " ( referring to Alsace-Lorraine ), and the " colonial lobby ", such as Jules Ferry ( moderate republican ), Léon Gambetta ( republican ) and Eugène Etienne, the president of the parliamentary colonial group.

When news hit Paris of Emperor Napoleon's III capture, the French Second Empire was overthrown in a bloodless and successful coup d ' état which was launched by General Trochu, Jules Favre, and Léon Gambetta at Paris on 4 September.

Though Provence was generally conservative, it often elected reformist leaders ; Prime Minister Léon Gambetta was the son of a Marseille grocer, and future prime minister Georges Clemenceau was elected deputy from the Var in 1885.

After the capitulation of Paris in January 1871 he was sent down to Bordeaux to prevent the resistance of Léon Gambetta to the peace.

But at Bordeaux, Gambetta, who had issued a proclamation excluding from the elections those who had been officials under the Empire, was all-powerful.

Gambetta resigned, and the ministry of the Interior, though nominally given to Arago, was really in Simon's hands.

By a grave oversight, he neglected to inform Léon Gambetta that the Army of the East ( 80, 000 men ) was not included in the armistice, and it was thus obliged to retreat to neutral territory.

He was president of the chamber from 1881 -- replacing Léon Gambetta -- to March 1885, when he became prime minister upon the resignation of Jules Ferry ; but he resigned when, after the general elections of that year, he only just obtained a majority for the vote of credit for the Torigking expedition.

The law was supported by Gambetta and his friend, the criminologist Alexandre Lacassagne.

During the political crisis of the next few years he was recognized by the Opportunist Republicans as the successor of Jules Ferry and Gambetta, and at the crisis of 1899 on the fall of the Charles Dupuy cabinet he was asked by President Émile Loubet to form a government.

Meanwhile his independence and outspokenness had alienated him from many of his party, and throughout his life he was frequently in conffict with his political associates, from Léon Gambetta downwards.

He wrote articles on foreign affairs for the République Française and Paris, and in 1888 was elected conseiller général of his native département, standing as " un disciple fidèle de Léon Gambetta.

His first speech in the House was the occasion ( 21 May 1872 ) of violent attacks by Audiffret-Pasquier and Léon Gambetta.

At the crisis of 1870, which brought about the Empire's end, he became mayor of Montélimar, and thenceforward was a steady supporter of Léon Gambetta.

He offered his services to Gambetta and received the command of the Northern Army, but was recalled on 10 November and transferred to the Army of the Loire.

He was summoned by Gambetta to Bordeaux to lecture on history, and thence to Versailles to take his seat in the senate to which he had been chosen by the département of the Seine.

On 14 July 1879, another feast took place, with a semi-official aspect ; the events of the day included a reception in the Chamber of Deputies, organised and presided over by Léon Gambetta, a military review in Longchamp, and a Republican Feast in the Pré Catelan.

A delegation of Parisian diplomats arrived in Tours by train on 5 February to negotiate with Gambetta, and the following day Gambetta stepped down and surrendered control of the provincial armies to the Government of National Defence, which promptly ordered a ceasefire across France.

Holding office by sufferance of Léon Gambetta, he kept peace between the radicals and the reactionaries till the delay of urgent reforms lost him the support of all parties.

Gambetta proclaiming the Republic of France, from the painting by Howard Pyle.

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.

Léon Gambetta, wood-engraving by Richard Brend ' amour ( c. 1865 ).

On 24 June 1871, a letter was sent by Gambetta to his Parisian confidant, Dr. Édouard Fieuzal:

Léon Gambetta, by Alphonse Legros ( 1875 ).

Five artists, Jules Bastien-Lepage, a realist painter, Antonin Proust, defensor of the vanguard who Gambetta had named Minister of Beaux-Arts, Léon Bonnat, an academic painter, Alexandre Falguière, who did his mortuary mask, and his personal photographer Étienne Carjat all sat at his death-bed, making five widely different representations of him which were each published by the press the following day.

Gambetta rendered France three inestimable services: by preserving her self-respect through the gallantry of the resistance he organized during the Franco-Prussian War, by his tact in persuading extreme partisans to accept a moderate Republic, and by his energy in overcoming the usurpation attempted by the advisers of Marshal MacMahon.

That Gambetta after 1875 felt strongly that the 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.

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 ; nor did he attempt to form a ministry, but accepted the office of president of the chamber of deputies in January 1879.

* 19th century: Marie-Joseph Marquis de Lafayette, Benjamin Constant de Rebecque, François Guizot, Adolphe Thiers, Jules Grévy, Léon Gambetta

Two days later, on 4 September 1870, Leon Gambetta proclaimed a new republic in France.

At Tours, Gambetta received word from Paris on 30 January that the Government had surrendered.

There is no trace of the monastery, however its wine-cellars still exist, under the shops on the north side of the Rue Gambetta.

With the defeat of the machinations against the republic, Waldeck-Rousseau considered his task ended, and on 3 June 1902 he resigned office, having proved himself the " strongest personality in French politics since the death of Gambetta.

Gambetta had hoped for a republican majority in the general elections on 8 February 1871.

Gambetta returned to the political stage and won on three separate ballots.

During the 16 May 1877 crisis, Gambetta, in a speech at Lille on 15 August called on President MacMahon se soumettre ou se démettre, to submit to parliament's majority or to resign.

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.

** F Laur: articles on " Gambetta and Bismarck " in The Times of 17 and 19 August 1907, with the correspondence arising from them.

He was minister of foreign affairs during the brief Gambetta administration, and subsequently one of the vice-presidents of the chamber, serving on the budget commission and on a special industrial and agricultural inquiry.

It was on this occasion that Gambetta bestowed upon him the title of " Le Grand Français ".

He attracted the attention of Léon Gambetta by writing articles on Balkan politics for the Revue bleue, and joined the staff of the Republique française.

He published three volumes on Léon Gambetta three volumes in 1884 and also edited Gambetta's speeches.

On October 7 the bell which weighs is placed on a harnessed carriage of sixteen horses ; it is descended from the plain by the street Thiers, the alleys Leon Gambetta, it street Carpet-Green, it Belsunce course, Canebière, it street Paradise, it Pierre-Puget course.