French Statesman Leon Gambetta Flees Paris in a Balloon (1870)

Gambetta was a lawyer who gained recognition as an opponent of the Second Empire of Napoleon III and, in 1869, joined the parliamentary opposition. When Napoleon’s empire fell to the Germans, Gambetta organized a government of national defense to drive them out. With Paris under a grueling German siege, he made a spectacular escape to Tours in a balloon, where he continued fighting the Germans as minister of the interior and of war. Gambetta died shortly after being wounded in what accident? Discuss

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