himself that he might do great things for France, for he believed
that he could count on the support of every true Republican. He
was mistaken. Three months after he accepted office, the Radicals
and the Conservatives combined for his overthrow. He was defeated in
the Chamber on a question of the _scrutin de liste_, and resigned.

Gambetta's disappointment was very great. He had counted on his
popularity, and had hoped to accomplish great things. He was a
man of loose morals and of declining health, for, unsuspected by
himself, a disorder from which he could never have recovered, was
undermining his strength; this made him irritable. On the 30th of
August, 1882, he was visiting, at a country house near Paris, a
lady of impaired reputation; there he was shot in the hand. The
wound brought on an illness, of which he died in December. It has
never been known whether the shot was fired by the woman, as was
generally suspected, or whether his own pistol, as he asserted,
was accidentally discharged.

He was buried at Pere la Chaise, without religious services; but
his coffin was followed by vast crowds, and all Frenchmen (even
his enemies, and they were many) felt that his country had lost
an honest patriot and a great man.

On the centennial anniversary of the opening act of the French
Revolution, a statue of Gambetta was unveiled in the Place du Carrousel,
the courtyard of French kings. No future king, if any such should
be, will dare to displace it. Gambetta's life was a sad one, and
his death was sadder still. With all his noble qualities,--and
there are few things nobler in history than the manner in which
he effaced himself to give place to his rival,--how great he might
have been, had he learned early to apply his power of self-restraint
to lesser things!

Gambetta wanted Paris to remain the city of cities, the centre of
art, fashion, and culture; and he took up the Emperor Napoleon's
policy of beautifying and improving it by costly public works.
"Je veux ma republique belle, bien paree" ("I want my republic
beautiful and well dressed") was a sentence which brought him into
trouble with the Radicals, who said he had no right to say "my
republic," as if he were looking forward to being its dictator.
He voted for the return of the Communists from New Caledonia, and
during the last two years of his life these returned exiles never
ceased to thwart him and revile him. Some one had prophesied to
him that this would be