 She made her debut a year after studying, at a benefit concert for the family of a recently deceased bassoon player in her father's orchestra.She played a piece by the name of de Beriot's Seventh Air Varie, which according to sources, “she learned at the rate of one page per week, and which she had to repeat forty-seven times at one lesson before her teacher would allow her to leave.”

Camilla studied at the Paris Conservatory for three years, admitted in June 1849, and passing her final exam in July 1852.She was not accepted into the Conservatory right away.