On October 7, 1870, when the disaster of the Battle of Sedan, during the Franco-Prussian War, the leader Léon Gambetta had to flee Paris in a balloon that was surrounded and besieged by the Prussian army.

Portrait of Léon Gambetta by Léon Bonnat.

The victory in the Battle of Sedan between France and Otto von Bismarck, Chancellor of Prussia won easily against the bold declaration of war by impetuous Napoleon III (nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte).

Gambetta proclaiming the Republic of France, from the painting by Howard Pyle. 

Napoleon III was put in prison by Prussian troops. So Gambetta quickly requested the deposition of the Emperor Napoleon III, called Législatif Corps and the establishment of a republic in the Hôtel de Ville. Nevertheless, Prussian troops surrounded and blockaded Paris.

Seriously, Gambetta is epic, he flew a besieged Paris on a hot air balloon and gathered an army to fight off the invader.

Léon Gambetta in an act of great ability flees mounted on a balloon inflated with hot air and said: "l'indignation exclut calm him!"

From the air he invited other members of the Government of National Defense to flee Paris and setting up the rule in Tours ... William I of Prussia was crowned as Kaiser of the new German Empire and humiliates the French.

Leon Gambetta left Montmartre in a balloon to raise a resistance army in the provinces to relieve the beleaguered city of Paris, by Pat Nicolle.