The success of De Girardin's newspaper had intensely embittered his competitors, who made it the object of venomous attack. The founder dipped his pen in gall and acid, and his sword in the blood of his enemies. He fought four duels, and having killed Armand Carrel, sheathed his rapier. But he did not lay aside his pen, which was even more dreaded. Dujarier proved an apt pupil, and by his command of irony and sarcasm at last attracted to himself as much hatred and jealousy as his senior. The special rival of his paper was the _Globe_, edited by Monsieur Granier de Cassagnac, a journalist of the type we now denominate yellow. He had at one time been on the staff of _La Presse_, to which he remained financially indebted. Dujarier came across the debit notes signed by him, and obtained a judgment against him. The exasperation of the _Globe_ knew no bounds. The editor may be conceived addressing to his satellites the reproaches used by Henry II.: "Of those that eat my bread, is there none that will rid me of this pestilent journalist?" The appeal was responded to by his wife's brother, Monsieur Jean Baptiste Rosemond de Beauvallon, a Creole from Guadeloupe, then in his twenty-fifth year. He was dramatic critic to the _Globe_, and in this capacity his acquaintance was sought by Lola. Dujarier naturally objected to this, and his interference was not forgiven by his journalist rival. The two men seemed doomed to cross each other's path. There was a certain Madame Albert, with whom Dujarier had been on terms of intimacy for some years. In December 1844 he ceased to visit her, probably for no other reason than that he had transferred his affections to Lola. As it happened, however, De Beauvallon made the lady's acquaintance at this moment, and she spitefully suggested that Dujarier had discontinued relations with her in order not to meet him. The Creole's score against the literary editor of _La Presse_ was now a high one, and he embraced his brother-in-law's quarrel with enthusiasm.
At the beginning of March (1845), Lola, despite her failure at the Opera, obtained an engagement at the Porte-St.-Martin Theatre for the musical comedy _La Biche au Bois_. While she was rehearsing, she and her lover received an invitation to supper at the Frères Provençaux, a fashionable restaurant in the Palais Royal. The party was to be composed of some of the liveliest men and women in Paris, and none of those invited were over thirty-five years of age. Lola was keen to accept, but Dujarier would not hear of her being seen in such a company. In spite of her protests he decided, however, to go himself. It was the evening of 11th March.