Instead of confiding in Victor Hugo, her natural protector, she had recourse to former friends. There were many such, from Pradier, the sculptor, to Séchan, the scene-painter of the Opera and other theatres. Pradier replied with advice; he was not without just pretext for refusal, for, since her intrigue with Victor Hugo, Juliette no longer wrote to the father of her child except "_par accident et monosyllabes_" or else in a school-girl's handwriting, calculated to cover the pages in very few words. Séchan and a few others were less stingy; they sent small but quite insufficient contributions. She was therefore forced to take the big step of revealing the whole truth to the beloved.
The scene was stormy, although Victor Hugo did not hesitate for a moment before complying with an obligation that was also a satisfaction, since it secured his possession of Juliette. Fussy and meticulous though he was in the small circumstances of life, he knew how to be generous and even lavish in the great--but Juliette's petty deceptions had infused doubts in his mind; moreover, he was in love and therefore jealous. Towards the end of 1833 and in the early part of 1834, suspicion, anger, unjust recriminations and noisy quarrels became almost daily affairs. As invariably happens in these cases, friends, male and female, interfered. Juliette was slandered by Mademoiselle Ida Ferrier, her understudy in the rôle of Jane at the Porte St. Martin--who would, if rumour may be trusted, have gladly understudied her also in the heart of Victor Hugo--also by Mademoiselle Georges, who was getting on in years[13] and could not forgive the lovers for not acknowledging her sovereignty in the green-room and drawing-room as they admitted it upon the stage. To aspersions and reproaches Juliette opposed, not only indignation, but angry words, violent retorts, and sometimes even insulting epithets; or else she protested in innumerable letters and notes, rendered eloquent by their sincerity. She complained that she was "attacked without the means of defence, soiled without opportunity of cleansing herself, wounded without chance of healing"; she affirmed her intention of putting an end to the situation by suicide or final rupture. Generally Victor Hugo arrived in time to calm her frenzy with a caress or a soothing word, and then Juliette would try to resign herself and let hope spring uppermost once more. But Victor Hugo, under the influence of some new tittle-tattle, resumed his grand-inquisitorial manner, and the tone, words, reproaches and even threats appertaining to the part. The creditors continued to harry her without intermission; so in the end the couple passed from words to actions.
