Throughout the election the Adams had rendered their illustrious friend invaluable service. Juliette, while she was at Bruyères, in letters which Gambetta described as _un vrai rapport de ministre plénipotentiaire_,[293] had kept him well informed of the state of parties in the south. Adam, a well-seasoned politician, had placed at his disposal all the wealth of his varied political experience. He had accompanied him on his electoral tours, and once, on the occasion of a great meeting at Auxerre, Juliette had joined the party. Whenever she was at Paris, Gambetta could always count on meeting in her salon people who would be useful to him. Every one of the triumphs of _ce grand entraineur des masses_ Juliette persuaded herself brought nearer the longed-for day when her brethren would be released from their chains and reunited to the motherland. [Illustration: THE DEVICE OF THE CRUSADERS WHO ARE LED BY MADAME ADAM AND OTHER EMINENT FRENCHWOMEN] Gambetta’s letters to Mme. Adam at this time show that he was firmly convinced of Bismarck’s intention to renew war. Party strife in France he believed was encouraging the Chancellor to become more and more insolent. “_Le désarroi de la lutte anarchique de tous les partis en France_,” he writes,[294] “_permet au plus terrible adversaire de Berlin de nous presser de plus près en attendant qu’il fasse un suprême effort pour arracher encore un lambeau de la patrie_.” Gambetta was filled with despair to think that under such desperate circumstances the French should have placed at their head _le plus imbécile des Français_. That at a moment when they needed a Richelieu, a Villars, a Mazarin, a Danton, or at least a Talleyrand, they should have unearthed the most insignificant of the Empire’s knights (_reîtres de l’empire_) and have confided to him the destinies of the nation. For Marshal MacMahon and his Government Gambetta has not a good word to say. And that, but for the intervention of Russia and England, France in 1875 would have again been at war with Germany, there now seems little doubt. In a remarkable letter to Mme. Adam, written on the 24th of October, 1874,[295] Gambetta, with a true statesman’s insight, puts his finger on the danger spot of Europe, wherein forty years ago lay the embryo of this present conflict. “The powerful German Empire,” he writes, “is suffocating in Central Europe. With all its nervous energy it is striving to break through to the North Sea. It must have shores, canals, straits, fleets, and a sea-going population. Its Baltic ports are too remote from the high seas. They are in constant danger of being choked up. The straits leading to them are narrow and dangerous. To create a great fleet on those desolate and sandy shores is out of the question. Bismarck realises that he cannot raise Germany to the rank of a first-rate Power without giving her a fleet as formidable as her army. This design is Holland’s death-sentence.”