Léon Gambetta’s Flight from Paris
If you ever have a thirst for some high-stakes, life and death history, but carried out in the most bizarre ways, look no further than France.
Today is October 7th, 2017, and on this date, 147 years back, in 1870, French Statesman Léon Gambetta fled from a besieged Paris in a hot air balloon.
During the Franco-Prussian war, the French were being routed and by September the Prussians had laid siege to Paris. Completely surrounded and cut off, Parisians resorted to using hot air balloons and homing pigeons as their only means of communicating with the rest of France. A balloon postal service was implemented, with regular delivery schedules, and a 20 centime rate for postage.
Over the course of the siege, 66 balloons were flown. Only 8 were lost, 5 captured by the Prussians and 3 lost at sea. One balloon inadvertently set a world record for manned balloon flight distance when it travelled to Norway. In all, an estimated 2.5 million letters were flown out of the besieged city by balloon.
Léon Gambetta, who was serving the French government as Minister of the Interior during the siege, also took flight.
Despite Gembetta’s urging that the government should be relocated, the other officials refused to leave Paris out of fear of another revolution occurring in the city.
(Since the French Revolution in 1789, numerous small revolts and civil wars occurred until Napoleon gained power in 1799. After Napoleon’s fall, France once again fell to political instability for the better part of the 19th century, and would not be stabilized until the formation of the Third Republic after the close of the Franco-Prussian War.)
Gambetta believed that the government must be moved to another city in order to function effectively. Despite the naysaying of other officials, and general skepticism, he used one of the mail balloons to deliver himself to Tours where the interim government was to be seated. In doing so, he was one of a very few people to successfully escape the besieged city without issue.
It was all for nought, however, as the Prussians were too powerful, and France agreed to their terms for peace within months. Gambetta chose to exile himself to San Sebastián, Spain following the first elections of the new post-War government, since he would have been part of the minority party had he stayed.
Thanks for reading and be sure to check back tomorrow for a tale of many fires.
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