As a newspaper correspondent I was freely admitted into every polling station. It was not until two o'clock in the afternoon that I reached Belleville, the reputed storm-centre. I had been warned that it would be dangerous to venture into that district in the handsome carriage provided for me by my friend. Yet when I climbed the steep hill leading to the polling station where the Maire presided, I found everything perfectly quiet. On entering the ballot-room, however, I was received in a somewhat curious fashion by the Maire. "So you have come at last to poor calumniated Belleville," he said. "You are the first journalist who has been here to-day, and yet for a week past every journal in Paris has declared that we were going to break out into a revolution. If they really believed it, why did they not come and see how we behaved ourselves? I call it infamous." The worthy Maire would hardly be pacified by the thought that I, at least, had not been guilty of staying away. But one could sympathise with his feelings, for in this spot, regarding which the wildest stories were current in the Parisian Press, dulness reigned supreme, and the polling station itself was as solemn and as silent as a Quakers' meeting house. It was different at night, when the first news of the result of the election poured into Paris from the provinces, and it was seen that Gambetta had been a true prophet, after all, and that Clericalism, and all the other reactionary forces, had indeed been vanquished. Between ten o'clock and midnight the long line of the boulevards was crowded with the gayest multitude of men, women, and children that I ever met. They cheered, they shouted, they sang for joy. The Republic had triumphed, and France was saved. This was the burden of their song. Never did I see a more good-natured crowd; but things would have been different if that historic election had resulted otherwise. Paris was delighted and good-humoured because she had won. Five years after that great victory for Gambetta and the Republic I found myself again in Paris on a cold January day. All the town was once more in the streets, but there was no gladness on the faces of the people who crowded the Place de la Concorde and the long avenue of the Rue de Rivoli. They had gathered together to witness the funeral of the hero of the fight of 1877. Gambetta, wounded, whether by accident or design none can tell, by his dearest friend, had died at the very zenith of his fame, and all France was prepared to render homage to one of her greatest sons. His body lay in state in the palace of the Chamber of Deputies, and I was fortunate enough to find myself standing at the foot of the coffin at the same moment as Victor Hugo. The great poet had his two grandchildren clinging to his hands, and as he stood there, explaining to the children something of Gambetta's story and achievements, I could not help feeling that there was a fine opening for a historical painter.