[1] In July 1868, Barbet signed a manifesto of the Société de la revendication du droit des femmes, which called for gender equality and women's rights.

That same year, she attended the Brussels Congress of the International Workingmen's Association (IWA), as the treasurer for the Lyon delegation.

In October 1868, she attended the Bern Congress of the League of Peace and Freedom, where she represented the social democrats from Lyon.

She became close with the Alliance's leader Mikhail Bakunin, for whom she wrote articles on the abolition of inheritance and resistance to conscription.

There she joined a local revolutionary socialist group, publishing the bulletin of the Jura Federation and gave a number of radical speeches, notably calling for the death of Alexander II of Russia.