The first number appeared, as announced, on the 1st of October, 1879. It received an excellent welcome.
The main object of the review was avowedly nationalist, to glorify France. “With all my heart and soul,” writes the editor,[353] “I am determined to make my review a credit to French letters, a reflection of republican disinterestedness, patriotism and dignity. What should I do ... did I not feel that I am about to create a work which shall be essentially republican and liberal?”
Disappointed by the Government’s abandonment of the policy of a territorial revanche, Mme. Adam set her heart on realising la revanche intellectuelle. The more she thought of gathering together all the talents, the more forcibly was she impressed by the intellectual vigour, the scientific, literary and artistic superiority of her country. “Notre France est grande,” she exclaims. “But every one plunders her, and no one dreams of making her wealth known. This is what I shall do.”
Gambetta, realising how far they had drifted apart, betrayed not a little anxiety as to the political line she was likely to follow.
“Shall you be as hostile to me as you are to my policy?” he asked.[354]
“The home truths that I can no longer tell you in my salon I shall certainly tell you in my review,” she replied.
“Why, this is practically a declaration of war,” he exclaimed.
“No, it is a proclamation of independence.”
In her opening address to her readers she did not fail to appear as la grande désabusée. Disappointed with party politics, she looked forward to a time when party strife should cease and politics rise into the serene air of social science. For the next twenty years of her life Juliette Adam, or Juliette Lamber, as she still signed herself, was to live her life in La Nouvelle Revue. Henceforth her editorial duties absorbed her too completely to permit of her taking notes of conversations and keeping the diary which she has reproduced in her Souvenirs.[355] The last of her seven volumes of reminiscences closes with the inauguration of La Nouvelle Revue.
Not content with a nominal editorship, Mme. Adam worked conscientiously in her office, herself reading most of the MSS. sent in. Methodically planning out her time, she rose early to read MSS., receive contributors, dictate to secretaries. She saw her milliner at breakfast, dispatching the meal and her orders together. To avoid wasting precious moments in trying on her own garments, she would criticise their fit on a dummy, another famous mannequin d’osier, moulded exactly to her shape. Then her work would be resumed until it was time for the afternoon drive and dinner, followed by a party or the play. The small hours of the morning often found her again at her desk.