Mme. Adam, throughout her long life, has ever been a fervent feminist, passionately interested in woman’s rôle and position in society. In her childhood’s desultory reading she had eagerly devoured a volume on the Fronde. It interested her because women played the principal part in it. And she was thinking of those _frondeuses_ when she led her schoolfellows round the playground behind the banner of the social democratic handkerchief. It was not unnatural, therefore, that Juliette should insinuate into this, her first contribution to the press, her own views on feminism, though they were expressed as far as possible in the style of Alphonse Karr. To the accompaniment of little Alice’s baby gurglings, she read the rough draft to Pauline, who, having declared it superb, dictated it solemnly while Juliette copied it on to magnificent paper. Then the wonderful document, “_the_ article,” as Pauline christened it, was re-read, folded carefully, put into an imposing envelope, signed with a beautiful seal, which was engraved with the writer’s Christian name. Thereupon, writes Juliette, we _repaired_ (no word less ceremonious could express such an act) with our precious packet to the post. Oh, that week, how interminable it seemed! Could it be possible that Alphonse Karr would reply to the letter? On the night before the _Siècle’s_ appearance Juliette dreamed of her poem, _Myosotis_. She interpreted that dream as a good sign. The 20th of February, 1856, dawned. Would Paris read that letter signed Juliette?... Pauline comes in breathless, pale with excitement. The _Siècle_ flutters in her hand. “Juliette,” she cries, “it is all there.” “All.” “And then,” writes Juliette,[32] “we take two chairs and we draw them close to one another. We unfold the paper, and each holding one corner, we read. Yes, the whole of my letter is there. I read it. Pauline reads it. Not a word has been changed. I burst into tears. Pauline weeps too. Baby Alice, playing on the carpet, when she sees us crying, begins to howl. Her godmother, Pauline, soothes and consoles her. I think of my grandmother ... and I cry: ‛Grandmother, I shall be a writer.’ “I send father my article and tell him how I came to write it.” This somewhat severe critic replied at length, and for the first time, it appeared, discerned in his daughter a promise of literary talent. For the rest of her time at Soissons Juliette read voraciously, desiring to prepare herself for Paris. Whirled suddenly into the great vortex of metropolitan life, as she expected to be, she could not hope to have any time for study. She must, therefore, work hard to fill up the gaps in her desultory education and to equip herself for the brilliant career awaiting her. Finally her hopes were realised. She found herself the mistress of a flat in Paris in the Rue de Rivoli, with a balcony looking on to the Louvre and close to the Museum of Antiquities, the temple of her gods. Her grandmother’s faith in her seemed to be justified.