Nevertheless a shadow fell even over the radiant exultation of those first weeks in Paris. From infancy to old age Juliette Adam has always been ambitious. It was no mere obscure existence in the great city that she had pictured in her youthful dreams. Hers was to be no diary of a nobody. Encouraged by her grandmother, she longed for fame. But alas! her hopes were dashed when she found herself lost in the vast crowds which thronged the boulevards, when she regarded the miles of well-filled shelves in the immense halls of the Imperial Library. It seemed as if the only homage Paris would ever render her would be the admiring glances of street arabs, who distinguished her as they had done another Juliette. The young Mme. Lamessine despaired of ever emerging from the mass, of ever carving for herself even the tiniest niche in the temple of literary renown. For it was to be a distinguished writer that she aspired. Already she had quite a hoard of youthful scribblings, infantile verses which her grandparents thought wonderful, romances over whose patriotic incidents the youthful authoress had wept bitter tears, a prize essay, written in competition with the pupils of the boys’ school opposite her Chauny home. During her life at Soissons, it was in study and in literary composition that Juliette had sought distraction from domestic unhappiness. Some of her verses, a poem entitled _Myosotis_, had actually been published and set to music by the cathedral organist. But it was after her return from Paris that she achieved a success which encouraged her to hope that, perhaps, after all she might not pass her life unnoticed. The popular novelist, Alphonse Karr, was then contributing to the _Siècle_ weekly articles on social subjects, entitled “Buzzings” (_Bourdonnements_). A girl friend of Juliette’s, Pauline Barbereux, used to bring her the _Siècle_ and together they read Karr’s articles. One of these was on the crinoline, then at the height of its vogue. After having thoroughly enjoyed himself at the expense of all its absurdities, Karr declared that there was not a single young and pretty woman in France with sufficient independence of mind not to wear it. “There is I,” cried Juliette. “And what if I wrote and told him so?” For though affecting the full skirt, pretty Mme. Lamessine had always stopped short of the crinoline. Pauline was delighted with the idea. So together they set to work to concoct the letter, which should, of course, be anonymous. The writer, therefore, was able to enlarge on the charms of this independent young female who refused to answer to the beck and call of fashion. “Yes, sir,” wrote Juliette, “there is a pretty woman of twenty who does not wear the crinoline, who has never worn it, there is one in France, in the provinces, and that one is I, Juliette.”[31]