[1] During this period, Luxembourg and its majority Catholic population were ruled by the Protestant Dutch King-Grand Duke William II, and by an anti-church government.

On 27 March 1863 he was appointed titular bishop of Halicarnassos by Pope Pius IX, and made Apostolic Vicar of Luxembourg.

When his successor, Jean Joseph Koppes, was appointed in 1883 by Pope Leo XIII, Nicolas Adames retired to the Redemptorist monastery on the Place du Théâtre.

For the second centenary of the election of Mary the Comforter in 1866 the shrine image was ceremonially crowned, at the wish of the Pope, by Cardinal Karl von Reisach and 7 other bishops on 2 July 1866.

Nicolas Adames took an oath in case Luxembourg remained unharmed in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 and retained its internationally recognised neutrality.

Elements of Adames's administration of his new bishopric still exist today, such as the Kirchlicher Anzeiger für die Diözese Luxemburg.