Mme. Adam, although at this time of her life she was no admirer of Thiers, refrains from inveighing against the presidency of her husband’s friend. She felt under no such constraint, however, with regard to the chief ministers of his cabinet: Jules Favre, who continued Minister of Foreign Affairs, and Ernest Picard, Minister of the Interior. “_Deux clairvoyances, deux compétences rares ... comme insuffisance_,”[225] she writes. She knew them both well. They were both habitués of her salon. She could never forgive Favre for having negotiated the capitulation of Paris. And she is not alone in censoring the terms of that surrender. Neither our Ambassador in Paris, Lord Lyons, nor Labouchère,[226] had a high opinion of Favre’s diplomatic gifts. “He is too much led away by his feelings,” wrote Lord Lyons to Lord Granville.[227] “He is essentially an orator rather than a statesman,” was Labouchère’s opinion. “When he went to meet Bismarck at Ferrières he was fully prepared to agree to the fortresses in Alsace and Lorraine being rased; but, when he returned, the phrase _ni un pouce du territoire, ni une pierre des fortresses_ occurred to him, and he could not refrain from complicating the situation by publishing it.”[228] M. Gabriel Hanotaux[229] marvels to think how a man whose intelligence was so mediocre, whose character was so weak, could ever have risen to a position of such authority. The historian of contemporary France also shares Mme. Adam’s opinion of the Minister of the Interior, Picard. “_Bourgeois de Paris, homme gras et de teint fleuri, orateur élégant et fin, esprit sceptique et dépris, il savait trouver de mots heureux_,” is M. Hanotaux’s description of the new Home Secretary.[230] “_Il ne vise qu’aux mots d’esprit_,”[231] writes Mme. Adam. Jules Grévy, the eminent lawyer, who was now President of the New Chamber, had in the days of her matrimonial difficulties been Juliette’s guide, counsellor and friend, placing at her disposal all that _sagesse pondérée_, that _finesse matoise_,[232] with which this ideal _bourgeois_ was so plentifully endowed. When she had first met him in Mme. d’Agoult’s salon, Grévy, like herself, was a republican _abstentioniste_, detached from any participation in the hated imperial _régime_. Mme. Adam had never forgiven him for abandoning that position, for yielding to Ollivier’s persuasions and entering the Corps Legislatif as one of the famous “five,” the first republicans to take the oath of allegiance to the Empire. “For me, henceforth,” she said to Adam, “Grévy is no longer a man whose political honour is intact.”[233]