Juliette Adam
Encyclopedia
Verberie
Verberie is a village in northern France. It is designated municipally as a commune within the département of Oise.It lies southwest of Compiègne on the main road to Senlis and Paris. The railway station is on the line from Compiegne to Crépy-en-Valois. It has an average income of €20,442...
(Oise
Oise
Oise is a department in the north of France. It is named after the river Oise.-History:Oise is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on March 4, 1790...
) – 23 August 1936, Callian
Callian
Callian is the name of two communes in France:* Callian, Gers* Callian, VarCallian referred during British time, is present day Kalyan.* Kalyan, near Mumbai, India...
(Var), also known by her maiden name Juliette Lambert, was a French
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
author and feminist.
Biography
Juliette Adam gave an account of her childhood, rendered unhappy by the dissensions of her parents, in Le roman de mon enfance et de ma jeunesse (Eng. trans., London and New York, 1902). Her father is described in Paradoxes d'un docteur allemand (published 1860), which shows him to have been sympathetic to feminismFeminism
Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...
.
In 1852 she married a doctor named La Messine, and published in 1858 her Idées antiproudhoniennes sur l'amour, la femme et le mariage, in defense of Daniel Stern (pen name of Marie d'Agoult
Marie d'Agoult
Marie Catherine Sophie de Flavigny, Vicomtesse de Flavigny , was a French author, known also by her married name and title, Marie, Comtesse d'Agoult, and by her pen name, Daniel Stern....
) and George Sand
George Sand
Amantine Lucile Aurore Dupin, later Baroness Dudevant , best known by her pseudonym George Sand , was a French novelist and memoirist.-Life:...
.
After her first husband's death in 1867, she married Antoine Edmond Adam (1816–1877), prefect of police in 1870, who subsequently became life-senator
Senator for life
A senator for life is a member of the senate or equivalent upper chamber of a legislature who has life tenure. , 7 Italian Senators out of 322, 4 out of the 47 Burundian Senators and all members of the British House of Lords have lifetime tenure...
. She established a salon which was frequented by Gambetta
Gambetta
Gambetta may refer to:People*Léon Gambetta , French statesman.*Schubert Gambetta , Uruguayan footballer*Diego Gambetta, Italian sociologistOther uses*Gambetta...
and the other republican leaders against the conservative reaction of the 'seventies.In the same interest , she founded the Nouvelle Revue in 1879, which she edited for eight years, and retained influence its administration until 1899. She published writings by Paul Bourget
Paul Bourget
Paul Charles Joseph Bourget , was a French novelist and critic.-Biography:He was born in Amiens in the Somme département of Picardie, France. His father, a professor of mathematics, was later appointed to a post in the college at Clermont-Ferrand, where Bourget received his early education...
, Pierre Loti
Pierre Loti
Pierre Loti was a French novelist and naval officer.-Biography:Loti's education began in his birthplace, Rochefort, Charente-Maritime. At the age of seventeen he entered the naval school in Brest and studied at Le Borda. He gradually rose in his profession, attaining the rank of captain in 1906...
, and Guy de Maupassant
Guy de Maupassant
Henri René Albert Guy de Maupassant was a popular 19th-century French writer, considered one of the fathers of the modern short story and one of the form's finest exponents....
as well as Octave Mirbeau
Octave Mirbeau
Octave Mirbeau was a French journalist, art critic, travel writer, pamphleteer, novelist, and playwright, who achieved celebrity in Europe and great success among the public, while still appealing to the literary and artistic avant-garde...
's novel Le Calvaire.
She also became close friends with Yuliana Glinka
Yuliana Glinka
Yuliana Dmitrievna Glinka was a Russian occultist born to a prominent family in Orel, Russia.Her grandfather, Colonel Fyodor Nikolaevich Glinka was investigated as a leader of "a secret society of mystics" during Prince Alexander Nikolaevich Galitzine's investigation of masonic lodges following...
, who was devoted to theosophy
Theosophy
Theosophy, in its modern presentation, is a spiritual philosophy developed since the late 19th century. Its major themes were originally described mainly by Helena Blavatsky , co-founder of the Theosophical Society...
and the occult
Occult
The word occult comes from the Latin word occultus , referring to "knowledge of the hidden". In the medical sense it is used to refer to a structure or process that is hidden, e.g...
.
Adam wrote the notes on foreign politics, and was unremitting in her attacks on Bismarck and in her advocacy of a policy of revanche. She is generally credited with the authorship of papers on various European capitals signed "Paul Vasili," which were, in reality, the work of various writers. The most famous of her numerous novels is Païenne (1883). Her reminiscences, Mes premières armes littéraires et politiques (1904) and Mes sentiments et nos idées avant 1870 (1905), contain much interesting gossip about her distinguished contemporaries.
In 1882, she purchased the estate of an abbey in Gif-sur-Yvette
Gif-sur-Yvette
Gif-sur-Yvette is a commune in the south-western suburbs of Paris, France. It is located from the center of Paris.-Geography:The town is crossed by and named after the Yvette river.The total area is and is green spaces and woods.-Place names:...
(Essonne
Essonne
Essonne is a French department in the region of Île-de-France. It is named after the Essonne River.It was formed on 1 January 1968 when Seine-et-Oise was split into smaller departments.- History :...
) where she lived from 1904 until her death in 1936.
Selected works
- Idées antiproudhoniennes sur l’amour, la femme et le mariage, 1858
- Laide, 1878
- Grecque, 1879
- Païenne, 1883
- Mes angoisses et nos luttes, Paris, A. Lemerre, 1907
- L'Angleterre en Egypte, Paris, 1922