Amélie Bosquet (1815–1904)

Amélie Bosquet was born in Rouen, the daughter of Geneviève Fessard and Jean-Jacques Bosquet, an unmarried couple. In 1829, her mother married Pierre Goujon, who adopted Amélie and her sister under the legal surname Bosquet-Fessard-Goujon. Amélie was educated in a convent, and made her debut as a writer at age 19 in 1834, publishing a series of Norman legends and stories in the Revue de Rouen. Following the death of her mother in 1862, she went to Paris to seek her fortune as a writer. She corresponded with and then met Gustave Flaubert, who greatly esteemed her work. Under the pseudonym of "Emile Bosquet," she wrote historical novels, including Une passion en province and Louise Meunier. In 1867, she published Une femme bien élevée (A Well-Bred Woman), in which she portrayed the struggles of nuns. Another of her novels, published in Le Temps, Jacqueline Vardon, took the name of her paternal grandmother as its title. Her most important work, which went through many editions into the 20th century, was La Normandie romanesque et merveilleuse (Romantic and Marvellous Normandy, 1845), a thoroughly-researched reference guide to the traditions, legends and popular superstitions of her native province. Later, in collaboration with Raymond Bordeaux, she wrote La Normandie illustrée: Monuments sites et costumes (1852-54), containing lithographs by Pierre Henri Charpentier. In 1892, through the art scholar and critic Alfred Darcel, she donated to the Rouen library a collection of drawings of great French writers including George Sand, Sainte-Beuve, and Flaubert. Amélie Bosquet was a feminist and a champion of the rights of women. She published her memoirs, Une écolière sous la Restauration (A student under the Restoration), in 1897.