Gambetta
LEON MICHEL (gon- Cahors , France, April 3, 1838. He was the Church; and finally decided in favor of Genoese extraction; was educated for of the law, and repairing to Paris became a member of the metropolitan bar in 1859.
In November, 1868, he gained the leadership of the republican party by his defense of Delescluze, a noted republican. In 1869, having been elected by both Paris and Marseilles, he chose to represent the S. city; and in the Chamber of Deputies showed himself an irreconcilable opponent of the empire and its measures, especially of the policy which led to the war with Prussia. On the downfall of the empire, after the surrender of Sedan in 1870, a government for national defense was formed, in which Gambetta was nominated Minister of the Interior. The Germans having encircled Paris, he left that city in a balloon, and set up his headquarters at Tours, from which he for a short time organized a fierce but vain resistance against the invaders. After the close of the war he held office in several shortlived ministries, and in November, 1881, accepted the premiership. The sweeping leagues led to his resignation. The accichanges proposed by him and his coldental discharge of a pistol caused his death near Sèvres, France, Dec. 31, 1882.