Before her reluctant resignation from the Poet’s Union Juliette had begun to frequent a philosophical circle to which Dr. Bonnard introduced her. We have seen how from her tenderest childhood her father had made her acquainted with most of the numerous philosophical systems—the ideas of Cousin, Fourier, Comte, Proudhon, and others—which were at that time revolutionising human thought. With her natural quickness and keenness of intuition Juliette had comprehended their main principles. Consequently she was not the least confused by the learned discussions which took place in the salon of her new friends, M. and Mme. Fauvety. M. Charles Fauvety was founder and editor of a well-known publication, _La Revue Philosophique_. Among the chief contributors to this erudite magazine was the philosopher, M. Charles Renouvier, the author of a learned work, _Essais de Critique Générale_, in four volumes, which he was then preparing, and which was not completed until 1864. M. Renouvier possessed that inestimable gift of lucid exposition, which is so essentially French. Listening to, engaging in, and noting down his conversations with his editor, Juliette continued and carried to a point far advanced for one of her age and sex that philosophical education which her father had begun. It had long been her habit to keep a diary and to insert in it accounts of any discussion which interested her. And it is to this habit that we owe the reproduction in her _Souvenirs_ of those entrancing conversations which give us so vivid a picture of the intellectual life of the period. Throughout Juliette’s early womanhood and maturity there was no one who exercised a greater influence on French thought than Hippolyte Taine. His influence was at its zenith in the sixties; but already in this year, 1857, those who like Fauvety and Renouvier were gifted with prophetic insight could discern his coming greatness. The publication of Taine’s _Essais de Critique et d’Histoire_ was a great event in the circle of _La Revue Philosophique_. “These young men[34] are admirable,” cried Renouvier.[35] “And seldom has it been given to forerunners, such as I, to take so great a delight in their disciples. For I, in a way, hatched Taine.” “Taine,” said the editor of _La Revue Philosophique_, “will remain the hope or the anxiety of every philosophical system. He has taken a scourge in his hands. For the next half-century, he will enthrone himself on the judgment seat, and he will scathe every idea which wears out with use. I, as a philosopher, fear him and rely upon him alone.”