the 9th, issued proclamations appealing to the patriotism of the inhabitants in terms so earnest and irresistible as to produce a profound impression throughout the departments. Combining in his own direction the cumbrous functions of three ministries-Interior, War, and Finance his energy presided in all branches of the public service, in the Cabinet and on the battle-field; now at Orleans, Lille, or Lyons; again at Tours, or, after December 7th, at Bordeaux-wherever there were measures to be concerted, discouragement to be dispelled, disorders to be repressed, armies to be organized, or even military operations to be planned. Thus Gambetta, vigorously seconded by M. de Freycinet, maintained his authority for a period of nearly four months, in the midst of the situation here briefly sketched. In a word, he was dictator by force of circumstances. True, this dictatorship has been rudely criticised by some, and sneered at as the dictature de l'incapacité; but such harsh reflections on the "inutility and impotence of the dictator's impetuous efforts" did not find utterance until near the end. Among the acts and speeches pertaining to that period, French biographers cite the decree for the mobilization of the National Guards, at the expense of the respective departments; the proclamation containing the announcement to France of the surrender of Metz, and the denunciation of Bazaine as a traitor-the loan of 250,000,000 francs negotiated with British capitalists; the dissolution of the Councils-General elected under pressure of the imperial administration; the successive organization of the two Armies of the Loire under Generals Aurelle de Paladines and Chanzy; the organization of the Army of the North, commanded in turn by Generals Bourbaki and Faidherbe; the disastrous issue of the campaign of the east (under Bourbaki), hastened by the armistice, and the removal from office of such members (even life-members) of the magistracy as had taken part in the mixed committees in 1852. After the surrender of Paris, which he spoke of as an act of culpable haste, he issued the convocation of electors for the National Assembly, but stipulating the ineligibility of such persons as had been candidates for or had held office under the empire. The Central Government, however, annulled that stipulation, and, on Gambetta's refusal to comply, dispatched one of its members, Jules Simon, to Bordeaux, with orders to execute the decree as at first drawn up. On this, M. Gambetta resigned all his functions, and withdrew from a government with which he was now in open disagreement. The elections of February 8, 1871, afforded abundant proof of the continued prestige of his name. He was spontaneously proposed as candidate in a number of departments, and elected in nine, among these being that of Bas-Rhin, for which he chose to sit, as a protest against all measures entailing the dismemberment of France, although the cession of that province to the German Em

pire would deprive him of his seat in the Chamber. At the complementary elections of July 2d, he was returned by three departments, and gave his option this time for Paris. He took his place at the Extreme Left, became a member, and was chosen President of the Union Républicaine. During the turbulent period of the Commune, and before the July elections, M. Gambetta had spent a brief vacation at San Sebastian, in Spain. After his return he was for a long time seldom seen at the Chamber, the Extreme Right being then in majority. And later, when he again took part in the debates, his attitude was uniformly conciliatory, spite of incessant and petulant attacks on the part of his colleagues of September 4th, and to which he had decided never to reply. On more than one occasion he prevailed upon his party to sustain the government of Thiers, notwithstanding the latter had frequently assailed him in parliamentary discourses; but once he left Thiers to support the candidature of M. Barodet against that of M. de Rémusat. In 1871 and 1872 it was usual to see Gambetta's name associated with the preparation of a government party in the republic, with its Whigs under Gambetta and its Tories under Thiers. The year 1872 was marked by two notable speeches from the leader of the Left. In one of these, on the anniversary of the taking of the Bastile (July 14th), he dwelt on the necessity of reconstituting the union of the middle classes, of adopting secular and compulsory instruction, universal military service, and a policy of conciliation, crowned by an amnesty without restriction. In the other, delivered at a private reunion, he referred to the advent of a new social stratum, by no means inferior to its predecessors." The theme of this latter speech and its tone of hostility to the existing administration alarmed the public mind in the south, and provoked the open resentment of the Government. His most important speech in 1873 was one against the Septennate (November 19th). On June 9, 1874, he interpellated the De Fourtou Ministry concerning Bonapartist intrigues, and M. Rouher, in the course of his reply, having touched upon the revolution of September 4th, Gambetta retorted: "There are certain men to whom I deny the right and privilege to arraign the revolution of September 4th-I mean the wretches who have been the ruin of France." On being called to order, he added, "My expression undoubtedly implies more than an outrage-it implies a brand of dishonor, and I maintain it."

66

In the course of the winter of 1874-75, for the most part occupied in the task of effecting a union between the several subdivisions of the Left and the Right Center, with a view to the adoption of the constitutional laws, M. Gambetta delivered one of his most effective and most finished speeches (February 12, 1875). From that day forward the so-called policy of "opportunism" has been the distinctive policy of the entire Left, save the

66

small groups of Intransigeants, then headed by Louis Blanc and Alfred Naquet. Throughout the remainder of 1875, Gambetta was the most formidable adversary of the Buffet Cabinet, though without any departure from those principles of conciliation embodied in his own maxim, Moderation is the true course in politics." In the ensuing senatorial elections, his influence preponderated, as usual; and in those for the Chamber he busied himself, besides his own candidatures (Paris, Lille, Marseilles, Bordeaux, and Avignon), in suggesting or ratifying the choice of other candidates in the several departments.

In an address to his constituents of Belleville he found occasion to explain the philosophy of his political creed: "I deny the absolute in all things, so you may well imagine that I will not admit it in politics. I am of a school that believes only in relation, analysis, and observation, the examination of facts, the comparison and combination of ideas; a school that takes into account mediums, races, tendencies, prejudices, and antagonisms. Politics are not, nor can they be, always the same." As the acknowledged leader of the Republican majority in the new Chamber he again essayed, but in vain, to accomplish the unification of the Left; and combated clericalism, denouncing pulpit interference in electoral concerns.

The position of President of the Budget Committee (April 5, 1876) offered him an opportunity for the introduction of needed reforms. But the preparation of his vast financial schemes for the future, and in which he revealed surprising skill, did not prevent him from following up the politique opportuniste, on which he had staked his name and parliamentary success. Thus he supported M. Margue's proposition of amnesty by categories against M. Raspail, the advocate of universal amnesty; adopted the bill for reducing the period of service in the army to two years; protested energetically against the attacks leveled at him from the rostrum and through the press by a certain group of Intransigeants; and reiterated his decisions in favor of amnesty by categories, stigmatizing "those disreputable men who had sought to turn the Commune's despair to their own advantage." On January 28, 1877, he was re-elected President of the Budget Committee.

M. Jules Simon, appointed Premier and Minister of the Interior in December, 1876, was early assailed by the Bonapartists and the prelates; but Gambetta's preponderant influence was such that he obtained the passage by the Chamber of a resolution requesting the Government "to use all the legal means at its disposal to repress the anti-patriotic agitation." Some time afterward, in a famous speech before his Belleville constituents, he exclaimed, at the close of a vehement tirade against the Church party, and referring to the concluding words of his address to the House in behalf of Jules Simon: "Yesterday we said, 'Clericalism

there is the enemy!' to-morrow we must be able to say, 'Clericalism-behold the vanquished!'" Yet the Premier had another enemy behind the Churchmen. M. Simon was the genuine representative of Thiers in the Government, and MacMahon regarded his presence in the Council as a check upon his own movements, and the Marshal-President preferred to be surrounded by men willing to adopt his mode of thinking. More than all this, there existed a strong personal animosity between the two men, which was not likely to be diminished by the recollection of the disparaging if not contemptuous terms in which Simon had spoken of MacMahon, when the reelection of the latter had been proposed. On May 16th the Premier received a note of dismissal from the President, who assigned as the reason for such a sudden determination the attitude of the Cabinet in the debate on the press law the day previous, when, by the immense majority of 398 to 56, the House resolved to abrogate the law passed by the reactionary Assembly of 1875. Gambetta protested, and the resolution was adopted that "the Chamber, considering that it is of importance in the present crisis, and with a view to the fulfillment of the mission which it has received from the country, to remember that the preponderance of the parliamentary power, exercising itself through the ministerial responsibility, is the first condition of the government of the country by the country, declares that confidence of the majority can not be obtained except for a Cabinet free in its action, and resolved to govern according to those republican principles which alone can guarantee order and prosperity at home and peace abroad."

M. Gambetta thenceforward concentrated all his forces on the one grand object of forcing the Marshal-President to resign, and triumphed in the end, though he himself did not pass unscathed through the struggle. The time had come to precipitate the overthrow of an administration now grown obnoxious to all parties, save the two which were themselves most obnoxious to the majority of the French people and to republicanism. Division had been extinguished in the republican ranks, and Gambetta held the command more firmly than ever. To add to the unpopularity of the Government, Jules Simon and his ministers had been succeeded by the Broglie-De Fourtou Cabinet, called by Gambetta a “government of priests. In the ensuing electoral campaign, the ubiquitous orator kept the public mind vividly impressed with the real interests at stake, reiterating at every stage of the crisis his protest against personal régime. "When France makes her sovereign voice heard," he cried, in his speech of August 15th, at Lille, and pointedly alluding to the Marshal-President, "he must quit or submit (il faudra se soumettre ou se démettre)." For his temerity he was sentenced to three months' imprisonment, and fined two thousand francs; but the event proved the

words to have been prophetic, and showed how well the speaker knew the power behind him. Another prosecution incurred by similar language, in a later speech to the electors of the twentieth arrondissement of Paris, seemed but to goad him to the attack, which he only relinquished as victor. A brief but fierce conflict between the President and the Chamber; the downfall of the Broglie-De Fourtou and the accession of the Dufaure or Parliamentary Ministry (December); Gambetta's visit to Italy and his conferences with Italian statesmen, keenly piquing public curiosity; his angry encounter with De Fourtou, and the resulting duel (November 18, 1878), and Gambetta's refusal of a proffered portfolio-such were about the only remaining events of importance relating to our subject, until the resignation of President MacMahon (January 5, 1879). On January 30th, Gambetta accepted the presidency of the Legislative Assembly under the Grévy administration, having been elected by an almost unanimous vote to that position, which he quitted for that of Premier on November 14, 1881. The history of his public life since January, 1878, including his triumphant support of the plenary amnesty bill, carried (June 21, 1880) by 333 against 140 votes, as the result of the first oration he had delivered from the tribune of the Palais-Bourbon since the somber days of the revolution of September 4, 1870; the defeat of his cherished electoral reform bill for the scrutin de liste, etc., is in form and in fact the history of the Corps Législatif itself, and reference therefor may be made to the article FRANCE, in our volumes for 1878, '79, '80, and the present one.

GARFIELD, JAMES ABRAM, twentieth President of the United States, born at Orange, Cuyahoga County, Ohio, November 19, 1831; died at Long Branch, New Jersey, September 19, 1881. (For particulars of his life down to his election to the office of President, see 66 Annual Cyclopædia" for 1880.) In the interval between his election and his inauguration on the 4th of March, with the exception of a brief visit to Washington on private business in November, he continued to reside at Mentor, Ohio, where he was visited by many public men, some of whom came on his special invitation. The composition of his Cabinet, and his general purposes in regard to public appointments, were the subject of constant speculation, and in consulting the political leaders of his party he manifested a desire to unite them all in support of his Administration. It was early understood that Senator Blaine, of Maine, who had been one of the chief competitors for the nomination at Chicago, was to be Secretary of State. Among those summoned to Mentor for consultation was Senator Conkling, who had led the delegates in the convention pledged to the nomination of General Grant; and it was given out that Secretary Sherman, who had been the other leading candidate for the nomination, could retain his

place at the head of the Treasury, if he desired to do so. The President-elect took leave of his friends and neighbors on the last day of February, and arrived at the capital on the 1st of March. The inauguration on the 4th was attended with unusual civic, military, and social display, and there was a general feeling of hopefulness and confidence in the new Administration. The Senate met in special session, and on the 5th the Cabinet appointments were submitted and promptly confirmed. Mr. Blaine appeared at the head of the list, as was expected; Secretary Sherman had preferred a re-election to the Senate; and the influence of Mr. Conkling was not noticeable in the make-up of the Cabinet. The Senate was in session until the 20th of May, but the time was mostly taken up with a controversy over its organization, and it was not until May 4th that executive sittings were held to act on other nominations. On the 22d of March several names were sent in for offices in the State of New York, including those of district attorneys and marshals, and the Collector of the Port of Buffalo. The appointees were supposed to be entirely acceptable to the Senators from that State. On the day following Judge William H. Robertson was named as Collector of the Port of New York, the incumbent of the office, E. A. Merritt, being appointed consul-general at London. These appointments were known to be displeasing to Senator Conkling, and provoked considerable discussion. When the Senate finally went into executive session, Mr. Conkling declared his opposition to the appointment of Mr. Robertson, claiming that he had a right to be consulted in the matter, and that the selection of a conspicuous political enemy of his for so important an office in his own State was an insult, and in violation of pledges given him by the President. Finding that the New York Senators were determined, if possible, to defeat the confirmation of Robertson and Merritt, the President withdrew all the other appointments for that State in order that their cases might be acted on alone. Seeing that they could not prevent the confirmation, Senators Conkling and Platt both resigned on the 16th of May, and returned to New York to seek a vindication of their course by an immediate reelection. Robertson and Merritt were then confirmed, and the other New York appointments renewed, a change being made in that for Collector of Buffalo. Out of this controversy grew considerable factional excitement between what were known as the "Stalwart" and the "Administration" wings of the Republican party.

On the morning of July 2d, the President set out from the Executive Mansion with Secretary Blaine for the Baltimore and Potomac Railroad station, where he was to join several members of the Cabinet for a trip to New York and New England, including visits to Williams College and the White Mountains.

The two entered the station arm in arm, and while they were passing through the ladies' waiting-room two pistol-shots were heard in quick succession, one of which took effect in the President's back. He sank to the floor, bleeding profusely, and for a moment was unconscious, and then was affected with vomiting. To get him out of the confusion he was carried to the offices of the company, on the second floor. Several physicians were summoned, and, after a superficial examination of the wound, the President was taken back to the Executive Mansion. His wife was summoned from Long Branch, whence she was to have joined him on his Eastern trip. Among the physicians first summoned was D. W. Bliss, an old friend of Garfield, for whom Secretary Lincoln had sent his carriage, and, at the request of the President, he took charge of the case. With the acquiescence of Mrs. Garfield, he selected Drs. J. K. Barnes, Surgeon-General of the Army, J. J. Woodward, also of the army, and Robert Reyburn, as his assistants. The result of their first careful examination was the opinion that the bullet had penetrated or grazed the liver, and had lodged in the front wall of the abdomen. They believed that the injury was not necessarily fatal, but concluded that it was not advisable to attempt the removal of the bullet. On the evening of July 3d it was decided to call in Drs. D. Hayes Agnew, of Philadelphia, and Frank H. Hamilton, of New York, for consultation and advice. They approved of what had been done, acquiesced in the opinion of the other physicians as to the course of the bullet, the inadvisability of attempting to extract it, and the chance of recovery.

The person who had fired the pistol at the railroad-station had been promptly seized and taken into custody. He proved to be Charles J. Guiteau, who had been a persistent but unsuccessful applicant for an appointment, first as minister to Austria, and then as consulgeneral to Paris. He describes himself as a lawyer, a politician, and a theologian, and is reported to have said, on being taken into custody: "All right, I did it, and will go to jail for it. I am a Stalwart, and Arthur will be President." A letter was found on his person in which the death of the President was spoken of as a "sad necessity" that would "unite the Republican party and save the republic." Guiteau was lodged in the District of Columbia jail, to await the result of the President's wound.

The news of the attempted assassination created intense excitement throughout the country, and it was considered in some quarters as an indirect result of the political system that encouraged unregulated office-seeking and occasioned many disappointments, and to the quarrel between the so-called "Stalwarts" and Administration Republicans, which had originated in the controversy over appointments in the State of New York. There was an al

most universal outbreak of sorrow and indignation at the crime, and sympathy for the sufferer and his family, and this found expression in the action of numerous public bodies and political assemblies, of both parties and in all sections of the country. It extended to foreign lands, and brought forth many official and unofficial expressions of sympathy. After the first shock had passed, the announcement that the wound was not necessarily fatal, and that there was a chance of recovery, gave rise to a hopeful feeling, which increased with daily reports of favorable progress. As early as the 10th of July Governor Foster, of Ohio, suggested to the Governors of all the States the appointment of a general day of thanksgiving for the President's escape from death, and the prospect of his speedy recovery. In several States this suggestion was acted on. The favorable reports continued for some days, and the President's recovery was confidently predicted by the surgeons in attendance. They concluded that no important organ had been injured, and that the bullet was likely to become encysted and harmless, or might possibly declare its presence in a way that would admit of its successful removal. The first check in the favorable symptoms was on the 18th of July, and was followed by an apparent resumption of progress. The first serious relapse occurred on the 23d of July, being attended with chills and more or less of fever. The bullet had entered between the eleventh and twelfth ribs about four inches to the right of the spinal column, the assassin standing about six feet behind and a little to the right of his victim, and the bones had been somewhat splintered. The diagnosis assumed that there had been a deflection which sent the bullet downward and to the right. The probing and treatment of the wound had followed this supposed course, where there was by this time a channel several inches in depth. The unfavorable symptoms were caused by obstruction in the flow of pus, and on the morning of the 24th an incision was made by Dr. Agnew to give a freer passage from the supposed track of the wound. This was followed by relief and a resumption of hopeful reports. On the 28th there was a slight recurrence of fever, and day by day thereafter there was more or less of febrile rise in the temperature and pulse, attended with abnormal respiration.

The heat of the season aggravated the difficulty of dealing with the case, and artificial means of cooling the atmosphere of the Executive Mansion were resorted to. Large quantities of ice were placed in the cellar, over which air was passed and then admitted to the sick-room by means of an apparatus specially devised for the purpose. The case was also believed to be more or less complicated by malarial influences prevailing in and about the White House. Besides the physicians already mentioned, there were in constant attendance on the President his intimate friends Colonel