Gambetta could never bring himself to consent to these humiliating conditions, and on the day on which the terms were ratified, he and his colleagues from these two sections of the country, left the assembly together. Just as they were passing out, the venerable Jean Kuss, mayor of Strasburg, staggered up to Gambetta, saying, "Let me grasp your patriot's hand. It is the last time I shall shake it. My heart is broken. Promise to redeem brave Strasburg." He fell to the floor, and died almost immediately. Gambetta retired to Spain, till recalled by the elections of the following July. He now began again his heroic labors, speaking all through France, teaching the people the true principles of a republic; not communism, not lawlessness, but order, prudence, and self-government. He urged free, obligatory education, and the scattering of books, libraries, and institutes everywhere. When Thiers was made the first President, Gambetta was his most important and truest ally, though the former had called him "a furious fool"; so ready was the Great Republican to forgive harshness. In 1877 he again saved his beloved Republic. The Monarchists had become restless, and finally displaced Thiers by Marshal MacMahon, a strong Romanist, and a man devoted to the Empire. It seemed evident that another coup d'etat was meditated. Gambetta stirred the country to action. He declared that the President must "submit or resign," and for those words he was sentenced to three months' imprisonment and a fine of four hundred dollars, which sentence was never executed. MacMahon seeing that the Republic was stronger than he had supposed, soon after resigned his position, and was succeeded by M. Grevy. Gambetta was made President of the Assembly, and doubtless, if he had lived, would have been made President of the Republic. There were not wanting those who claimed that he was ambitious for the supreme rule; but when death came from the accidental discharge of a pistol, producing a wound in the hand, all calumny was hushed, and France beheld her idol in his true light,--the incarnation of republicanism. Two hours before his death, at his plain home just out of Paris at Ville d'Avray, he said, "I am dying; there is no use in denying it; but I have suffered so much it will be a great deliverance." He longed to last till the New Year, but died five minutes before midnight, Dec. 31, 1882. The following day, fifteen thousand persons called to see the great statesman as he lay upon his single iron bedstead.