There lay upon the table, among the numerous letters of sympathy Mme. Adam had received, one from Émile de Girardin. In the days of Mme. d’Agoult’s salon they had been great friends; but they ceased to meet when Juliette married Adam. He, it will be remembered, could never forgive Girardin for having killed in a duel Armand Carrel, his friend and collaborator on the _National_. Now Girardin wrote: “Adam in his life would not permit me to love him, will you permit it now he is dead?” “What am I to do?” Mme. Adam asked Thiers. “Let him come,” was Thiers’ advice. “In your salon, Girardin will feel that he is absolved from the guilt of Carrel’s death.... Moreover, you owe it to Adam to fill that vacancy in our ranks which his loss has created.” Mme. Adam acted on her friend’s advice: she received Girardin, who became henceforth a constant habitué of her salon, and one of the most valuable assets of that Republican party from which hitherto he had held aloof. “Girardin is detested and at times is detestable,” wrote Mme. Adam, “but his friendship is the most faithful and courageous I have ever known.”[280] Many another recruit did Mme. Adam’s charming persuasiveness enlist on the side of the opposition. The republican leaders were constantly appealing to her to see what she could do with first one, then another. One evening Gambetta said to her: “You have brought us Girardin; you have removed Raoul Duval from hostile influences; you are preserving for us the loyalty of many wavering friends; you are enrolling so many recruits, that now I ask you to do a very difficult thing—to attract Gallifet to our group.”[281] Needless to say, Gallifet was won over. [Illustration: JULIETTE ADAM (JULIETTE LAMBERT), 1879] Throughout that critical summer Mme. Adam, despite her personal grief, followed in breathless expectation and with feverish interest every development of political affairs. The conservatives, dismayed by the large republican majority returned in 1876, persuaded MacMahon to dissolve the Chamber in the following June. They also brought pressure to bear upon the President so as to induce him to manipulate the new elections. But all these reactionary efforts availed nothing. “We went out 363, we shall return 400,” said Gambetta of the Republican deputies, and though this prediction was not entirely fulfilled the Republican majority remained a substantial one, only thirty-three seats were lost. On the night of the 14th of October, when the results of the election were coming in, Mme. Adam was at the office of _La République Française_ in the _salon des tapisseries_.[282] Through the open door she could hear Gambetta calling out the names of the elected. One of Gambetta’s secretaries, the brilliant Joseph Reinach, then a youth of twenty-one, now and again came into the salon and confirmed what she had overheard.