It was impossible that so terrific a disaster as _l’Année Terrible_ should leave any serious-minded French person the same as before the war. But it had not the same effect upon every one. While most of Mme. Adam’s circle embraced the policy of _la Revanche_, there were some who, like George Sand and Arlès Dufour, turned their hatred not so much against Germany as against war as a whole, and who found their internationalist principles strengthened by defeat. With such ideas Mme. Adam had not a particle of sympathy. They sundered her from many of her friends. They caused her to turn with more enthusiasm than ever to the one man who seemed capable of realising her hopes, to Gambetta, _l’Homme de la Revanche_. Indeed, Gambetta’s immense energy, his marvellous organising power, marked him as the one man in Europe capable of confronting and checkmating that _sauvage de génie_, Bismarck. But, as we have said, Mme. Adam’s hope in Gambetta as _l’Homme de la Revanche_ was doomed to disappointment. In order to see how her idol came to be dethroned from his pedestal, we must retrace our steps, returning to that critical year for the Republic, 1875. During the general election for the new Chamber, which took place after the Republic had been definitely established by the constitution of 1875, Gambetta resumed his provincial tours. The political bagman addressed immense audiences at Aix, at Arles, at Lyons. “I am rapidly spending the reserves of rest which I laid in at Bruyères,” he writes to Mme. Adam on the 17th of January. A few days later he is in Paris, then down in the south again at Marseilles, then up in the north at Lille, where he addresses four thousand persons. “_Enthousiasme indescriptible_,” he writes. “I made a speech with which I am much better contented than with my address at Aix. I explained to them what our next majority must be: republican, democratic, liberal, pacific. Those were the four heads of my sermon. I think I touched their hearts and converted many unbelievers, and some who were indifferent. The town is decorated with flags. The streets are crowded, despite the severe cold. I am delighted. I have ranged their ranks in something like order. All our friends are reconciled; and I count on having fourteen deputies out of the eighteen.”[292] The republican majority of the new chamber was largely owing to Gambetta’s colossal efforts.