Mme. Adam, despite her respect for Thiers, deeply sympathised with Gambetta’s aims as he declared them in those celebrated orations. Merely to read Gambetta’s speeches was to lose their finest flavour. Unlike the speeches of our own Edmund Burke and John Bright, they will never be classics. His eloquence, for its full appreciation, so I have heard Mme. Adam say, required the magic of his presence, the thrill of his sonorous voice, the dramatic emphasis of his gestures, and the inspiration of his whole presence. On returning from Venice to Bruyères in the autumn of 1872, she and Adam read the first reports of these speeches in the newspapers. Vigilance and patience were the two qualities Gambetta most fervently enjoined on his compatriots. And vigilance for him involved two all-important reforms: the reorganisation of the army on the lines of universal military service, and compulsory education. _Chaque citoyen soldat et instruit_ was his device.[268] Indeed, it is largely to the Great Tribune that we owe that systematic teaching of patriotism in French schools which in the present war is bearing such rich fruit. “Every child in our elementary schools,” said Gambetta, “must be taught that a cause exists to which it must give everything, sacrifice everything, its life, its future, its family, and that this cause is France.” These words Mme. Adam and her husband read over and over again. “Yes,” exclaims Juliette, “we must sacrifice ourselves for France; we must keep nothing back, and we must also serve him who utters these patriotic words,[269] and who has never despaired of his country.” With Gambetta’s requirement that national education must be as secular as the state itself the Adams were also in agreement. While every religion should be assured of absolute liberty, Gambetta declared at Havre, “the state must not identify itself with any dogma or philosophy. If such questions are admitted to be within its competency, then it becomes at once arbitrary, persecuting, intolerant.” With the importance Gambetta attached to the army the Adams were in perfect sympathy. All three they shared the President’s emotion when, at the close of the Longchamps review in the summer of 1871, _le petit bourgeois_, descending from his seat, grasped the hands of Marshal MacMahon as he marched past at the head of the army he had reformed, and in a voice choked by a sob murmured “Thank you.” “Gambetta,” wrote Juliette, “rejoices at the success of the review. He adores the army.”[270]