laborers united with the rabble of the streets in
hating the empire and in crying out for a republic.

Gambetta was precisely the man to voice the feelings of these people.
Whatever polish he acquired in after years was then quite lacking; and
the crudity of his manners actually helped him with the men whom he
harangued. A recent book by M. Francis Laur, an ardent admirer of
Gambetta, gives a picture of the man which may be nearly true of him in
his later life, but which is certainly too flattering when applied to
Gambetta in 1868, at the age of thirty.

How do we see Gambetta as he was at thirty? A man of powerful frame and
of intense vitality, with thick, clustering hair, which he shook as a
lion shakes its mane; olive-skinned, with eyes that darted fire, a
resonant, sonorous voice, and a personal magnetism which was instantly
felt by all who met him or who heard him speak. His manners were not
refined. He was fond of oil and garlic. His gestures were often more
frantic than impressive, so that his enemies called him "the furious
fool." He had a trick of spitting while he spoke. He was by no means
the sort of man whose habits had been formed in drawing-rooms or among
people of good breeding. Yet his oratory was, of its kind, superb.

In 1869 Gambetta was elected by the Red Republicans to the Corps
Legislatif. From the very first his vehemence and fire gained him a
ready hearing. The chamber itself was arranged like a great theater,
the members occupying the floor and the public the galleries. Each
orator in addressing the house mounted a sort of rostrum and from it
faced the whole assemblage, not noticing, as with us, the presiding
officer at all. The very nature of this arrangement stimulated
parliamentary speaking into eloquence and flamboyant oratory.

After Gambetta had spoken a few times he noticed in the gallery a tall,
graceful woman, dressed in some neutral color and wearing long black
gloves, which accentuated the beauty of her hands and arms. No one in
the whole assembly paid such close attention to the orator as did this
woman, whom he had never seen before and who appeared to be entirely
alone.

When it came to him to speak on another day he saw sitting in the same
place the same stately and yet lithe and sinuous figure. This was
repeated again and again, until at last whenever he came to a
peculiarly fervid burst of oratory he turned to this woman's face and
saw it lighted up by the same enthusiasm