It was during a picnic at Fontainebleau that Mme. Adam first heard Gambetta advocate the return of France to her old colonial traditions. It seemed to Juliette that by so doing he was postponing _la Revanche_. “For love of France,” she entreated, “do not think of these diversions.” Neither would she hear of an alliance with England. The Picard blood ran too strong in her veins.[303] Not until our entrance into this great war did she consistently display sympathy with great Britain.[304] Even during the Entente Cordiale she wondered whether England would not, after all, prove herself _perfide Albion_. Her grandmother had taught her to mistrust the English, hate the Prussians and love the Russians. As a young girl she detested the idea of fighting the Crimean War in alliance with England; and when peace came she rejoiced that now France could return to friendship with Russia and enmity with England.[305] So now, if France must seek for an ally, let her go to Russia, not to England. Bismarck was eager to avert any understanding between France and Russia. For that very reason, she said to Gambetta, we should seek it.[306] As to Gambetta’s real opinion of a Franco-Russian alliance there is considerable uncertainty. André Tardieu in his book _Nos Alliances_[307] quotes Gambetta as having said to a French Ambassador, Chaudordy, about to set out for Petrograd: _appuyés sur la Russie et sur l’Angleterre, nous serons inattaquables_. Mme. Adam tells of a mysterious journey she and her husband took with Gambetta to Geneva, where Princess Lise Troubetzkoi had arranged for him an interview with Gortschakoff.[308] The interview did not take place, however. And it is perfectly clear from Gambetta’s correspondence with Mme. Adam that then, for the time being, at any rate, he thought France should hold herself free from any alliances. “_La France_,” he wrote to Mme. Adam, “_doit se tenir à l’écart, elle doit, tout en faisant des vœux pour la paix, ne rien faire, ne rien dire, qui puisse de près ou de loin l’engager même en parole avec personne_.” “Europe,” he continued, “had stood by while France was conquered. Let Europe now arrange her own affairs. It was the turn of France to stand aloof, to concern herself entirely with her own resurrection, to put her own house in order. When the day of her power and her strength returned, then would be the time for her to make her voice heard, and, as the price of her support to say, ‛What will you give me?’ On that day,” wrote Gambetta, “we may receive attractive proposals from a quarter whence we least expect them.” What that quarter was Mme. Adam knew perfectly. Gambetta, it seemed to her, over-rated Bismarck’s power and influence. Her friend, she thought, was inclined to reduce the whole of French policy to the mere expectation of a day when from the Omnipotent, from the quarter “whence they were least expected,” France might receive propositions.[309]