JULIETTE ADAM (JULIETTE LAMBER), 1879
Throughout that critical summer Mme. Adam, despite her personal grief, followed in breathless expectation and with feverish interest every development of political affairs. The conservatives, dismayed by the large republican majority returned in 1876, persuaded MacMahon to dissolve the Chamber in the following June. They also brought pressure to bear upon the President so as to induce him to manipulate the new elections. But all these reactionary efforts availed nothing. “We went out 363, we shall return 400,” said Gambetta of the Republican deputies, and though this prediction was not entirely fulfilled the Republican majority remained a substantial one, only thirty-three seats were lost. On the night of the 14th of October, when the results of the election were coming in, Mme. Adam was at the office of La République Française in the salon des tapisseries.[282] Through the open door she could hear Gambetta calling out the names of the elected. One of Gambetta’s secretaries, the brilliant Joseph Reinach, then a youth of twenty-one, now and again came into the salon and confirmed what she had overheard.
Two months earlier, at the urgent request of Thiers and Gambetta, she had reopened her salon and resumed her Wednesday and Friday dinner-parties. Now for some days after this triumphant election she had received her friends every evening. Gambetta had declared his readiness to lead the 330 republican deputies into the very heart of the citadel. Somehow or other the conservative ministers must be got rid of. They on their part were trying to persuade MacMahon to carry out another coup d’état. Gambetta and some of his friends were resolved in such an event to appeal to force. A discussion on this subject took place in Mme. Adam’s salon.[283] There, one evening, Girardin announced: “Fortou is preparing his coup d’état.” Fortou was Minister of the Interior in the seize Mai Cabinet. “Voisin (Préfet de Police) has told me,” continued Girardin, “that at any moment he may receive orders to arrest us all. He will not do so; he will send in his resignation. But on the day of that resignation we may all be arrested. And no doubt they will select one of Mme. Adam’s evenings for the raid.”
“Very well,” replied the Admiral Jauréguiberry, “we must prepare to defend ourselves.”
“With arms?” inquired Girardin.
“Why, of course,” replied the Admiral briefly.
“I was disappointed,” writes Mme. Adam, “to discover the timidity of some who were present. I became furious and cried out: ‘After all, one risks nothing worse than death in defending oneself.’
“My two hands were seized by General Billot and shaken violently, with an exclamation of ‘Bravo, comrade!’ which made me very proud.”