Democratic Sentinel, Volume 6, Number 17, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 May 1882 — Sketch of Gambetta Out of Power. [ARTICLE]

Sketch of Gambetta Out of Power.

Coming from the Chamber I saw M. Gambetta on the bridge opposite the Palais Bourbon, urging his portly person against a wind which churned the Seine into a whirpool, and made most pedestrians clutch their hats despairingly. The great man has grown old with almost alarming rapidity, but not since his fall. On the contrary, it is only from the moment of his departure from power that his eyes have brightened and his step has grown comparatively light. His face is flushed, and his eyes are sunken, not as a reliable informant who was with me when he passed told me, because of dissipation, but because of overwork. Never man toiled as Gambetta toiled for twelve or fourteen weeks previous to his resignation. His doctor gave him the choice to die or to stop work, and before he was compelled to admit publicly that his physical energies were flagging came the political crisis which gave him repose. He went down to the Chamber on the day that I saw him with the air of a man who still had an important place there, and I observed that hats were doffed on all sides as he went along. 'Wicked De Blowitz, the Paris correspondent of the London Times, says that Gambetta still keeps the tri-colored cockade, which belongs to the Prime Minister’s equipage, upon his coachman’s hat, which if true, might be considered as an indication of great expectations. Gambetta is more frequently seen in public—at the theater, in society—now that the strain of his labor is relaxed. He is now visible in a box at the Francois, now heard of at a dinner party where the company is brilliant and gay. “He is not a man of the world,” once said General Galliffet of him; “he can not boast of tenue, but he can say a neat thing; from his corner of a sofa after dinner he sometimes sends forth a flight of witty and caustio sayings, sure to be long remembered. Every one who has heard him in the tribune knows what a remarkable faculty he possesses for crushing an adversary with a sharp retort, which stings for many days. —Paris Correspondence,