CHAPTER XVII
VIEWS ON FOREIGN POLITICS
1878-1917
“La Politique extérieure qui a toujours été la grande préoccupation, le grand apprentissage de ma vie.”—Mme. Edmond Adam, Souvenirs, VII. 218.
A fortnight after the appearance of the first number of La Nouvelle Revue, on the 17th of December, 1879, Émile de Girardin gave a dinner-party; un dîner de gala it was called by Mme. Adam, who was one of the guests. Among other distinguished persons present were Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone and Gambetta.[356] At dessert the talk fell on the new review; and Mr. Gladstone asked the editress what were its objects.
“I have three,” she replied: “to oppose Bismarck, to demand the restoration of Alsace-Lorraine, and to lift from the minds of our young writers the shadow of depression cast by national defeat by giving them fame ten years earlier than they would otherwise have acquired it.”
“And you expect to accomplish your three objects?” Mr. Gladstone inquired.
“Perhaps not all of them,” replied Mme. Adam. “But of one thing I am certain: that I shall see Bismarck’s fall during the existence of the review.”
“Gambetta, who was listening,” adds Mme. Adam, “smiled defiantly at these words. Gambetta, qui écoutait, eut un sourire et un regard de défi.” He may have smiled. But it is more than probable that his defiant air existed alone in his friend’s imagination. For, as she herself has frankly confessed elsewhere, Gambetta was never malicious.[357]
“What are you yourself going to write in your review?” Gambetta asked. “Doubtless you will appropriate foreign politics.”[358] Gambetta was right. And by no means the least valuable and striking contributions to the review were those fortnightly letters on foreign politics—Lettres sur La Politique Extérieure, which for twenty years Mme. Adam never ceased to contribute, and which she continued to write for some months after the magazine had passed out of her hands. Her last letter appeared in June 1900. In 1916 she collected all her articles bearing on Bismarck and his policy and published them in a volume entitled L’Heure Vengeresse des Crimes Bismarckiens. Her articles on the Emperor William II have likewise been collected and published in book form under the title of Guillaume II. (1890-1899).