Though for the moment her hopes were all dashed to the ground, Juliette was unconquered. Her courage has ever been roused by opposition. And M. Lévy’s impertinence had provided her with a further incentive to succeed: she desired ardently to prove him in the wrong. So she continued her search for a publisher; and always it was the leaders of the publishing world whom she visited. No less than eight did she approach, not omitting even Proudhon’s own publisher. He was extremely polite, but he said: “You will understand, madame, that such things are not done.” At that time Hetzel, one of the most literary of Paris publishers, was in exile at Brussels. Juliette wrote to him. He replied:[46] “Either your book is very bad or you use a coloured handkerchief, and possibly you take snuff. I can’t believe a woman, who is probably ugly and certainly middle-aged, can have any right to defend against Proudhon the youth of George Sand and Daniel Stern or their position in the world. You would expose them to ridicule, and they would never forgive you. For doubtless Proudhon would reply to you.” Here was a dilemma. What was Juliette to do? Evidently none of the recognised publishers would even read her MS., for they all either found her too pretty or suspected her of being plain. On the ground floor of her house in the Rue de Rivoli was a bookseller, Taride by name, of whom Juliette was an excellent customer. She took him into her confidence. Would he publish her book if she stood all the expense? “Why not, madame?” he replied. “We neither of us run any risk, for we are both unknown, and if we fail, no one will hear of it.” Consequently, Juliette put down eight hundred francs, and the book appeared, in defiance of the bookseller’s advice, in the summer, on the 15th of August, when, as the saying went, there was not “a cat in Paris.” But the impatient young authoress, whose hopes had been so long delayed, refused to wait until the autumn. On the 19th of the month Juliette installed herself in the bookseller’s back shop, and inscribed on the fly-leaves of fifty copies suitable dedications to the most important figures in the world of journalism and letters: George Sand, Daniel Stern, Littré, Émile de Girardin, Prosper Mérimée, Edmond About, Octave Feuillet, Jules Grévy, Hippolyte Carnot and others. Then dispatching an errand-boy with the celebrities’ copies, she herself took a cab and delivered the books at the newspaper offices. This done, her next concern was to go down to Chauny and put a volume into her father’s hands. What would he say to her impudence in attacking so great a philosopher, to her _Idées Anti-Proudhoniennes_? And, indeed, the title was a shock to him. He took the little volume in his hand, turned it round and round. “What if it’s bad?” he began. “But if it’s good?” interposed Juliette. “Ah, at your age, even if you have half a success, you are distinguished for life.”[47]