Of that sparkling world Mme. Adam was one of the brightest adornments, one of the gayest _flashers_, as Fanny Burney would have said. Always perfectly gowned—_elle portrait admirablement la toilette_ was the opinion of every one—she never missed an important _séance_. After having dined at the Hôtel des Réservoirs in the evening, she would be at the Gare St. Lazare at nine the next morning; and surrounded by a coterie of eminent politicians, who were all in love with her, would make the journey to Versailles and take her accustomed place in a box of the theatre of the Château, which now served as a meeting-place for the Assembly. It had been built by Gabriel as an opera-house for Louis XIV. While what had been the stage, now shut off from the main building, had been converted into a lobby, a mahogany rostrum, approached by a double staircase of six steps, communicated to the theatre of that most autocratic of monarchs something of the air of a modern parliament house, and the constant movement among the seven hundred and twenty-eight representatives of the Republic, the perpetual lifting of the heavy red velvet _portières_ which led into the lobby, suggested a political instability quite out of harmony with the traditions of _le Grand Monarque_. Among the most striking figures in the Assembly hall were some of Juliette’s greatest friends. One might easily recognise the Orleanist Marquis de Lasteyrie by his green eye-shade, M. Jules Simon by his student’s stoop, M. Dufaure by his brown frock-coat, M. Littré by his blue velvet skull-cap, M. Garnier-Pagès by his famous _faux col_, and close by him that “Bull of Bashan of politics,” M. Gambetta,[264] by his leonine head and the half-recumbent attitude in which he listened attentively to every word of the debate. Gambetta’s first appearance at Versailles in July 1871 was a great political event. At a by-election he had been chosen by three departments, Bouches-du-Rhone, Var and Seine. “The day of his first speech,” writes Mme. Adam, “was a day of profound emotion for us, and of great curiosity for others, who flocked to see the _fou furieux_.” In those days Gambetta, though only three-and-thirty, was already threatened with that stoutness which, in a man of his stature, required all the dignity of his strong personality to carry off. He had not yet, moreover, been taken in hand by Adam’s tailor. His black frock-coat, white drill trousers and panama hat made him appear something of a Tartarin. The unsuitability of his attire would sometimes diminish the effect of his orations. On the July day when this political Bohemian, emerging from his five months’ retirement, suddenly burst upon the cultivated audience at Versailles, his power of utterance, his energy of thought, and above all his unexpected moderation carried every one away.