“If the time should ever come when I shall lose my political station, when I am beaten in the struggle, when I am deserted and alone, will you not then marry me when I ask you?”

And Leonie, with her arms about his neck, promised that she would.  Yet neither of them specified what sort of marriage this should be, nor did it seem at the moment as if the question could arise.

For Gambetta was very powerful.  He led his party to success in the election of 1877.  Again and again his triumphant oratory mastered the National Assembly of France.  In 1879 he was chosen to be president of the Chamber of Deputies.  He towered far above the president of the republic—­Jules Grevy, that hard-headed, close-fisted old peasant—­and his star had reached its zenith.

All this time he and Leonie Leon maintained their intimacy, though it was carefully concealed save from a very few.  She lived in a plain but pretty house on the Avenue Perrichont in the quiet quarter of Auteuil; but Gambetta never came there.  Where and when they met was a secret guarded very carefully by the few who were his close associates.  But meet they did continually, and their affection grew stronger every year.  Leonie thrilled at the victories of the man she loved; and he found joy in the hours that he spent with her.

Gambetta’s need of rest was very great, for he worked at the highest tension, like an engine which is using every pound of steam.  Bismarck, whose spies kept him well informed of everything that was happening in Paris, and who had no liking for Gambetta, since the latter always spoke of him as “the Ogre,” once said to a Frenchman named Cheberry: 

“He is the only one among you who thinks of revenge, and who is any sort of a menace to Germany.  But, fortunately, he won’t last much longer.  I am not speaking thoughtlessly.  I know from secret reports what sort of a life your great man leads, and I know his habits.  Why, his life is a life of continual overwork.  He rests neither night nor day.  All politicians who have led the same life have died young.  To he able to serve one’s country for a long time a statesman must marry an ugly woman, have children like the rest of the world, and a country place or a house to one’s self like any common peasant, where he can go and rest.”

The Iron Chancellor chuckled as he said this, and he was right.  And yet Gambetta’s end came not so much through overwork as by an accident.

It may be that the ambition of Mme. Leon stimulated him beyond his powers.  However this may be, early in 1882, when he was defeated in Parliament on a question which he considered vital, he immediately resigned and turned his back on public life.  His fickle friends soon deserted him.  His enemies jeered and hooted the mention of his name.

He had reached the time which with a sort of prophetic instinct he had foreseen nearly ten years before.  So he turned to the woman who had been faithful and loving to him; and he turned to her with a feeling of infinite peace.