if to say:  ‘Good!  Now you will listen.’  He then, in a thin, piping, but distinctly audible voice, began a sharp practical address.  Everyone listened with the utmost attention; none dared to interrupt him.  He spoke for five minutes, nervously pounding the air from time to time, and sometimes howling his words at the listeners in a manner that made them cringe.  He counselled moderation, accord, decency, but above all, instant action.  ’The settlement of the Alsace-Lorraine question,’ said he, ’will virtually decide whether we have peace or continued war with Prussia.’  Then, with an imperious gesture of command, he turned away.  ‘Come,’ he said, ‘let us to our committee-rooms, and let us say what we think.’”

Two hours later, the committee appointed to recommend a chief of the executive power announced that its choice had fallen on this orator, M. Thiers.  At once he was proclaimed head of the French Republic, but not before he had hurried out of the theatre.  Then the session closed, and a quarter of an hour after, Lord Lyons, the English ambassador, had waited on M. Thiers to inform him that Her Majesty’s Government recognized the French Republic.

From that moment, for more than two years, M. Thiers was the supreme ruler of France.  His work was visible in every department of administration.  Ministers, while his power lasted, simply obeyed his commands.

There were some amusing, gossipy stories told in Bordeaux of Thiers’ entrance into possession of Gambetta’s bachelor quarters at the Prefecture.  “Pah! what a smell of tobacco!” he is said to have cried, as he strutted into his deposed rival’s study.  All his family joined him in bewailing the condition of the house; and until it could be cleansed and purified they were glad to accept an invitation to take refuge in the archbishop’s palace.  In a few days all was put to rights, and a guard of honor was set to keep off intruders on the chief’s privacy.  On the first day of this arrangement, M. Thiers addressed some question to the sentinel.  The man was for a moment embarrassed how to answer him.  M. Thiers was for the time the chief executive officer of the Republic, but he was not formally its president.  The soldier’s answer, “Oui, mon Executif,” caused much amusement.

At this time there was no suspicion in men’s minds that it was the intention of M. Thiers to form a permanent republic.  The feeling of the country was Royalist.  The difficulty was what royalty?  It seemed to all men, and very probably to Thiers himself, that that question would be answered in favor of Henri V., the Comte de Chambord.

Gambetta, resigning his power without a word, retired to San Sebastian, just over the Spanish frontier.  There he lived in two small rooms over a crockery-shop.  “He is jaded for want of sleep,” writes a friend, “and distressed by money matters.”  Much of his time he spent in fishing, no doubt meditating deeply on things present, past, and future.