These letters show how serviceable was Mme. Adam to her friend and to his party when conservative machinations were placing the Republic in great jeopardy. The year 1875 was a critical year for the Republic. That constitution, which was to set it on a permanent basis, was then being debated in the National Assembly. The President’s powers were being defined, also his relations to the legislative body, now consisting of a lower house, la chambre des députés, and an upper, the senate, of which Adam became a member. The lively discussion of all these matters, which took place in Mme. Adam’s salon, she reproduces in her _Souvenirs_. To the disappointment of republicans, it appeared throughout the three following years that this constitution had not placed the Republic out of danger. More than once the conservatives seemed on the point of substituting for it some kind of monarchical _régime_. The Republic’s greatest danger was in the spring and summer of 1877, when MacMahon, by what is known as his _coup d’état_ of _le seize Mai_, brought in a conservative ministry. At that time Mme. Adam was passing through the deep waters of personal bereavement. Edmond Adam died in May. But before his death he had been able to render valuable service to the republican cause by helping to unite the various sections of the republican party, _les vieilles barbes_ of 1848, the moderates who supported Thiers and the extremists who were led by Gambetta. The Adams brought about a meeting between Gambetta and Thiers. _Le fou furieux_ and _le vieillard sinistre_ found themselves called upon by the gravity of the political situation to sink their differences, and to unite their forces in opposition to MacMahon’s reactionary Government. This reconciliation practically assured the triumph of the republican cause. Adam had also been able to sell very advantageously a newspaper which Gambetta had recently founded, _La Petite République_. And the proceeds of this sale, so Gambetta himself admitted, furnished him with the sinews of war for his political campaign. On the evening of Adam’s funeral his friend the ex-President Thiers, who himself had but three months to live, dragged his fourscore years up Mme. Adam’s staircase. “It was his wish and it is mine,” she said to her visitor, “that I should continue his life in my own.” “I will help you in every way I can,” said Thiers.[279] Then he went on to impress upon her the importance of uniting their forces to win victory for the cause to which Adam had devoted his life.