[3] There she stayed with Zinaida Vengerova,[4] She was renamed Sophie in France and was sometimes called Sonia while the name Olga was attached to her full name.

An account cited that she was allowed to take the oath first, preceding Jeanne Chauvin by several days because the latter had actively campaigned for the legislative initiative that sought women to practice law in France.

[14] The members of the Paris Council did not want to give Chauvin the honor of being the first woman lawyer in the country.

[12] In several of her pleadings, Petit was joined by her husband, who also worked for the Office of the Minister at the Ministry of Trade, Industry, Post and Telecommunications.

[3] Petit helped integrate Russian intellectuals into the French political, literary, and cultural circles.

For instance, she played an important role in establishing the family of Zenaida Gippius and Dimitri Merejkovski in Paris.

[8] She also helped the existentialist philosopher Lev Shestov and his family as well as Ivan Bunin, who was the first Russian to be awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.