But Adam was too much of a politician to entertain the idea of inaugurating a publication which should have a strong literary as well as political strain. After Adam’s death, however, George Sand’s words often recurred to his widow. She first communicated her idea to Flaubert. That consummate master of literary style had never made much money by his books. Mme. Adam, who had been his friend for years, was seriously distressed by his financial embarrassments, which he had vainly tried to conceal from her. His pride rendered him one of the most difficult people to help. But Mme. Adam, with his friends Taine, Tourguénieff, and others, succeeded in persuading Jules Ferry, then President of the Chamber, to appoint Flaubert librarian of the Arsenal Library. It was when he came to thank Mme. Adam for her kindness in this matter that she broached to him the subject of a magazine, in which he should be “the master of masters,” if he would agree to contribute one article a month.[349] “What!” he exclaimed in horror; “like that—by the yard, so much a line!” “No,” she replied, “so much the word, the letter! For anything by Flaubert is gold, it is rubies.” “That is enough,” he interrupted. “When I have completed my revision of _L’Education Sentimentale_, of which I am publishing a new edition, I will finish _Bouvard et Pecuchet_, and you shall have that.” “You will swear it?” “I swear it.” Flaubert was greatly taken with the idea of the new venture. He demanded a place in the review for his young disciple, Guy de Maupassant. Littré, too, approved of the enterprise. He agreed to write articles on philosophy. But Girardin was appalled at the capital such an undertaking would require. Mme. Adam was known to be wealthy, her husband having left her a considerable fortune. Nevertheless, so many other similar enterprises—_La Revue Nationale_, _La Revue Germanique_, _La Revue de Paris_—had foundered miserably, having failed to hold their own against the veteran _Revue des Deux Mondes_. Girardin had grave doubts as to the possibility of success. Nevertheless, he thought it an excellent idea to replace the waning influence of her salon by that of a review in which she could say anything and criticise everything. He advised her to found a company, in which she should take half the shares; and he himself promised to become a shareholder. Gambetta Mme. Adam found far from encouraging. “Whatever is this mad idea of founding a review?” he exclaimed. “Nothing is more serious,” she replied. “As republican politics seem to have resolved themselves into nothing more nor less than a distribution of rewards, my political salon has ceased to interest me. It is about to be transformed into a literary salon with the solid support of a review.”