The day I created my anonymous internet diary, the nom de plume “petite anglaise” instinctively sprang to mind, and felt so very right, so very natural, that I considered no other.

Ask any English girl who has ever lived in France, and I’m sure she’ll tell you she has been called a petite anglaise at some time or another. It is a name loaded with meaning: an affectionate tone implies that the anglaise in question is not just English, but cute and English; a hint of lasciviousness makes her sound sexy and taps into a commonly held view that English girls are rather easy. But there is another layer of meaning I’ve always found appealing: those two words summed up neatly everything I ever wanted my life to be: an English girl who has been translated into French, her life transposed into a French key.

I embraced everything French and even met my own Mr Frog through my friend Sarah, a Scots girl with a penchant for sex with strangers. At the time, we were both assistantes at the Sorbonne Nouvelle in Paris. Sarah placed an ad in a classifieds magazine.

“Jeune fille anglaise ouverte cherche amis français,” it read. She was overwhelmed by the volume of enthusiastic responses, ranging from the filthiest of indecent proposals to earnest letters from men claiming they sought only to practise their English.

Mr Frog was among them. When he turned up to meet her at the Café Charbon – I was chaperone – I was instantly attracted to him. Slim-built, with short, dark-blond hair, he was quietly charming, with a dry sense of humour that struck me as unusual in a Frenchman. He asked me out while Sarah was queuing for the toilet. I felt it would be a terrible waste if this boy were to wind up as another notch on her belt when I sensed he might be rather special.

We moved in together when my stint at the Sorbonne Nouvelle came to an end. With Mr Frog by my side, I laid the foundations for my French life. I was no longer just any petite anglaise. I was his. We were deliriously happy.

Seven years later, we lived in an apartment building on the avenue Simon Bolivar with one-year-old Tadpole, our daughter. It pained me to see how much Mr Frog had aged: long hours at work had leached the colour from his cheeks. The boy I’d fallen in love with had eyes that twinkled like the illuminations on the Eif-fel Tower, he kidded around, and never failed to see the funny side. The man I lived with now was a pale, grey-scale shadow of his former self.

We shared a home, slept side by side, and yet we were trapped in separate routines, a widening gulf between us. All that remained were echoes of how we used to be. Most nights he returned home hours after Tadpole’s bedtime; long after I had eaten, watched a film or retired to bed with my book.

In the mornings he either left before Tadpole awoke or languished in the bath, struggling to gather the strength he needed to face the office while I scurried around getting myself and Tadpole ready.

I worked as a secretary near the Opéra. One day, as I was scrolling through the on-screen headlines, an article about an internet diarist caught my attention. Belle de Jour, I read, was a high-class call girl who had won awards for her writing. I was fascinated – both by Belle and by the “blogging” phenomenon.

Anyone could create their own little outpost on the internet, according to the “how to” articles I found. Why not me too? In a few clicks I signed up for an account, named my blog and chose a rudimentary template. My alter ego was born.

I had unleashed a force which, within less than a year, would turn my life, and the lives of those dearest to me, inside out.

For a month or two I filled the blog with what I hoped were witty, arch observations about life in Paris. Mr Frog was first introduced in a Continued on page 2 post about how French women seem to be conditioned from an early age to accept adultery as a fact of married life. “Mr Frog works late every night,” I wrote in my closing sentence, “allegedly.”

His pseudonym wasn’t particularly inspired and it was a small leap to begin referring to our daughter as Tadpole. For months I stopped short of revealing much about myself. But one day the following autumn I finally stuck a toe across the line, writing: “Mr Frog won’t marry me . . .”

There was nothing in the substance of what I wrote that I hadn’t already discussed with him a hundred times in private, but here I was suddenly inviting comments from strangers on our personal life. Did I secretly hope to shame Mr Frog into popping the question?

“I hope you don’t mind what I wrote today,” I said when he arrived home that night.

“Mind what? I haven’t read it, I’m afraid. Work is so crazy at the moment . . . You go ahead and write whatever you want. It’s your blog.”

Spurred on by his benevolent indifference and the supportive e-mails and comments I was receiving in ever increasing numbers, I began pouring more of myself into petite anglaise, secure in the knowledge that no one actually knew who petite anglaise was.

Unflinching honesty became my calling card. I documented my dissatisfaction with my job, the guilt I felt when I admitted I had no desire to be a stay-at-home mum, and the feelings of jealousy which surfaced when Tadpole clamoured for her father, clearly her favourite parent.

And when I sounded off about the hours Mr Frog worked, or our dithering over whether or not to have another child, even my discontent with my relationship with Mr Frog occasionally escaped from between the lines, however much I tried to hold myself in check. The blog was an outlet; writing a strangely liberating experience. It was easy to forget that every time I vented my spleen, my words appeared across thousands of computer screens.

My online persona was wittier and sexier than I could ever hope to be. My readers seemed to assume I was elegant and poised, as though some of the glamour they associated with Paris had rubbed off on me, too. I wasn’t about to set anyone straight – I enjoyed projecting this new, improved version of myself; this person I longed to be. Being popular as petite anglaise online took some of the sting out of feeling so lonely and hollow, so taken for granted at home.

And, over time, it was as though petite anglaise really did begin to write a part of me back to life. The girl I used to be – who had reluctantly taken a back seat while I grappled with the realities of work and motherhood – grew stronger and more confident with every post. Petite anglaise leapt off the screen; she lived and breathed; she cast a shadow. Together we walked taller.

Mr Frog seldom took the time to look through this virtual window on to my soul. If some of my entries were pleas for attention or thinly veiled warnings, then they were futile, because no matter how many people read my words, the one person they were intended for didn’t appear to be paying attention.

“I teased Mr Frog the other day that I could be having a torrid extra-non-marital affair, writing about it in the public domain, and he would still be the last to know,” I wrote wryly in my comments box in December, six months after the blog’s inception. He didn’t react.

THE more I divulged of my life, the more other people seemed to feel compelled to reciprocate. I had a soft spot for a particular reader, James, an English guy who had left 40 or 50 intelligent, erudite comments over several months as Jim in Rennes.

He made the transition from comments to e-mail one day by asking me the quickest way to get from Montparnasse station to Charles de Gaulle airport. Then he made a cheeky request, asking me to name-drop his friend’s band in exchange for a ticket to see them play in Paris. I’d never done anything like that before, but I cast my reservations aside and decided to do what he asked. James would be in town with a few friends to see the concert, so it would be an opportunity to meet him.

A few days later he sent an e-mail that marked a turning point in our budding virtual friendship. Suddenly, he had decided to open up his life to me.

“Okay, petite, I know you didn’t ask for this,” the e-mail began, “but where would you go with the follow-ing? Happily married for 11 years (at least I thought so – never take anything for granted). Two delightful daughters, dream farmhouse in Breton countryside. Wife announces she’s leaving you. So far so normal, if a bombshell. Wife announces she and your best friend are together. Nothing ‘Our Tune’ didn’t cover. Accidentally find solace with distraught wife of (now ex) best friend. Develop intense relationship. Spend three years of wildly contrasting highs and lows, before finally splitting up. Remain great friends as she goes back to boyfriend from before her marriage; present (along with baby’s father) at birth of ex-girl-friend’s daughter. Firm friends with both her and boyfriend. Take stock of what the hell happened!”

He had lived through drama; he spoke of hard-won emotions and overpowering desire. His words thrilled me, but also unsettled me. Mr Frog and I seemed tame in comparison. What tantalising possibilities lay beyond my comfort zone?

The concert James had asked me to wasn’t a date, I told myself, but it was a night out. Dressed in jeans and a favourite tailored jacket over a scoop-neck T-shirt, I felt sexy but hoped it didn’t look like I was trying too hard.

James was tall – much taller than I expected. He wore indigo jeans and a brown corduroy jacket, and I caught a faint but pleasant hint of aftershave. He greeted me with grave blue eyes and a cautious half-smile.

“It’s funny,” he said quietly after introducing me to his friends, “but I don’t really feel like I’m meeting a stranger tonight, not after everything I’ve read. It’s only your face which isn’t familiar.”

We talked about my day at work and the band we were about to see, and I studiously avoided all mention of Mr Frog. While my mouth opened and closed mechanically, my body savoured the long-forgotten feeling of being physically drawn to someone. It was as if all my senses were amplified: when the sleeve of his corduroy jacket brushed my forearm, it gave me goosebumps.

I had no idea whether my excitement was reciprocated, but it was thrilling enough just then to be faced with concrete proof that I still had some capacity to feel so powerfully attracted to someone.

Late in the evening I found myself staring at his hands, which were resting on the table in front of me, long-fingered, elegant yet strong-looking. Maybe some hint of the longing I felt showed in my face, because James said in a strangled voice: “I’ve been trying to keep myself in check all evening, out of decency, out of respect for the fact that you’re in a relationship, but I’m sorry, I can’t not say this, I just can’t.”

“Go on,” I half whispered, wishing I had drunk less.

“Ever since I started reading petite anglaise, I’ve felt drawn to the girl who wrote it. I was seeing a French girl for a while, but my heart just wasn’t in it. I couldn’t get you out of my head. Even though you were in Paris, and with someone. And even though I had no idea what you actually looked like . . . And then you walked into the bar tonight, and – well, this is going to sound corny, but to hell with that – any doubts I had just vanished when I saw you.”

He had started falling for petite anglaise before we had even met? This was either utter madness, or the most romantic thing I’d ever heard.

I was exhilarated. Terrified. Thrilled that he wanted me as much as I now knew I wanted him. Panic-stricken at the thought of what could lie on the horizon. I heard my voice saying that I should really go home, persuading him to walk me to the taxi rank. “Of course. If that’s what you want,” he said sadly.

As we walked out I slipped an arm around James’s waist, my hand creeping inside his T-shirt. He looked at me questioningly. I couldn’t explain. At the corner of rue Oberkampf and avenue Parmen-tier we paused and he pulled me close. My hands inside his T-shirt gripped his back, and I clung to him as though I were drowning.

Stepping back, I hailed a taxi. For a few seconds I honestly didn’t know whether I planned to drag James inside with me. I clambered in alone, taking flight like a frightened child. IN all the years we’d lived together, I had never cheated on Mr Frog. The idea of sneaking behind his back to plot a secret meeting with another man would have been inconceivable to me a few days earlier. And yet, suddenly, I was telling myself that it would be wrong not to take things one step further, that I owed it to myself to explore “what if . . .”

Not only had I never cheated, but I’d never been wooed in the electronic age. The rules of courtship had changed, and over the next two or three days I took a crash course in deception. My inbox was awash with James’s messages, and I had to keep my wits about me, changing my password and signing out of e-mail every time I left the computer unattended.

My phone was set to silent mode, allowing a steady stream of incoming text messages to slip under the radar. I hadn’t really had much use for my mobile before: it had hibernated at the bottom of my bag gathering dust, its battery flat, useless in an emergency. Now its memory was filled with staccato text messages: short, sharp and dripping with innuendo.

A master plan developed: James would come up to Paris one afternoon from his home in Brittany; I would leave work early on the pretext that Tadpole’s nanny was ill; and we would meet at a hotel.

Much of that afternoon in the hotel remains an intense blur. My memory of what I said to Mr Frog a few nights later is much more vivid.

“I . . . I don’t know how to say this,” I said, my voice unsteady, my eyes downcast. “But I don’t think being together is making either of us happy any more. We don’t want the same things. We have the same fights over and over again. We never touch . . . When we’re not arguing, we barely speak. I’ve thought about this a lot, and I want to try living apart.”

Mr Frog’s features were frozen in a mask of shock. He clearly hadn’t seen this coming at all.

His eyes suddenly narrowed. “You’ve met someone, haven’t you?” he said flatly. There had to be a trigger, a catalyst and, unerringly, he had put his finger on the truth.

“There is someone,” I confessed, wincing as his face contorted into an ugly smile. I bit my lip. “But I think we both know this has been brewing for a long time.”

“So, that’s it. You’ve given up on us.” Mr Frog shrank away from me. He put his face in his hands for a moment, and I stared at his thinning hair, his exposed scalp, horrified at how vulnerable he looked.

He pulled himself upright, grabbed his cigarettes and backed away towards the door. “I’m going out. I have to be alone. I have to get away from here. From you.”

Mr Frog was gone for hours. For a while I was incapable of doing anything, but the urge to write something slowly overtook me. So while Mr Frog roamed around outside, I wrote a post on my blog.

In essence, it was a letter to him: an apology, and an obituary to our relationship. I wrote about the good times in our relationship and added: “I am profoundly sad and sorry that it has come to this. But I know, without the merest shadow of a doubt, that it is what is right.”

Emptying my head on to the blog was both exhausting and satisfying. But going public with news so raw was not something I wanted to rush into on the spur of the moment.

That I’d felt compelled to write the post at all brought home to me forcefully to what extent blogging had become almost a necessity. The more dramatic the events I lived through, the more keenly I felt the need to make sense of everything by distilling my tangled thoughts and emotions into neat sentences.

Not that my audience was inciden-tal: I wasn’t only writing for myself. I might not be ready to admit it yet – even to myself – but an unsavoury part of me secretly longed to see the ripples my cryptic announcement would send out across the internet.

I called my mother to tell her the news, reread my words calmly one more time and pressed “publish”. I turned off the comment function. Putting the dramatic news out there was one thing; allowing strangers to react to it publicly quite another. But many people were so saddened to read my words that they sent supportive messages by e-mail instead. They offered advice, a place to stay if I fancied getting away from it all, and one girl even offered to send me a care package of English food I’d written about missing on my blog.

People genuinely seemed to care about our wellbeing: over time they’d grown fond of Tadpole, Mr Frog and petite anglaise. But I felt twinges of shame as I read. I didn’t deserve these outpourings of cyber-sympathy. The victim here was Mr Frog, and since I hadn’t yet alluded to the reasons our time together had come to an end, my readers were making assumptions based on a woefully incomplete picture. How would they react, I fretted, when they knew the whole truth?

I was sneaking a look at the visitor traffic graphs in the morning when Mr Frog walked in. “What on earth is that?” he said, gesturing at the jagged peaks of green and purple, leaning closer to get a better look at the graph. “Quoi? You’ve had all those extra visitors since last night?”

I felt the colour rising to my cheeks. “Not extra visitors, no. I think it’s the usual suspects, but they’re checking in a few times a day to see if there’s any news.”

“Any news? You mean they already know . . . about us?”

He sat on the edge of the bed for a moment, his face incredulous. “What the hell have you written?”

“Don’t worry,” I said hastily, suddenly seeing it through his eyes. “It’s very dignified. In fact, I hope you’ll like it, when you can bear to read it. I wrote it for you . . .”

“You’re repackaging our life into some sort of soap opera, and you expect me to approve?” Mr Frog shook his head in disbelief.

“I’m going out to see a friend,” he said, pulling himself to his feet. “I don’t know when I’ll be back. But please think long and hard before you write anything else.”

After another hotel tryst with James, I wrote a post hinting at the sequence of events leading to the break-up, revealing that I had met the new man in my life via my blog. E-mails – from the supportive to the damning to the unambiguously insulting – soon clogged up my inbox.

“My God, Petite you cheated on Mr Frog?” exclaimed Fleur in disgust. “I’ve enjoyed your blog, but right now my esteem of you has dipped to an all-time low.”

But Anna Red Boat had also met her partner through her blog. “All sounds a bit familiar. The internet is quite far and away the most civilised place to meet a suitor these days.”

Those who had never been tempted to be unfaithful were quick to criticise; those who had been cuckolded themselves saw me as evil; those who had been through something similar urged me to follow my heart. As I read their comments, I heard my phone vibrating in my handbag. It was a text from James: “I think I’m in love with you.”

My breath caught in my throat. We’d written hundreds of e-mails, talked for hours on the phone but spent less than 24 hours in one another’s company. An unwelcome thought flickered across my mind, not for the first time.

I’d seen with my own eyes that in James’s phone, my number was programmed as that of petite anglaise. Was it really me James had fallen for, or was it my blog persona? I wasn’t even sure I knew any longer where one ended and the other began, so what chance did he have?

© Catherine Sanderson 2008

Extracted from Petite Anglaise by Catherine Sanderson, to be published by Penguin on February 28 at £12.99. Copies can be ordered for £11.69, including postage, from The Sunday Times BooksFirst on 0870 165 8585

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