Puisieux, Madeleine de (1720–1798)

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Puisieux, Madeleine de (1720–1798)

French novelist. Name variations: Madeleine d'Arsant de Puisieux; Marie Madeleine D'arsant. Born 1720 in Paris, France; died 1798.

Held reformist and anti-clerical ideas about education, religious intolerance, individual rights, and position of women; best known for Les caractères (1750–51), written while she was having an affair with Denis Diderot; other works include Conseils â une amie (1749), Le Plaisir et la volupté (1752), L'Education du Marquis de ∗∗∗ (1753), Alzarac (1762), Le marquis à la mode (1763), and Histoire de Mlle de Terville (1768); also may have written feminist essay attributed to her husband, Le Femme n'est pas inférieure à l'homme (1750); collection of poems, Une suite de poèmes (1746) remains in manuscript form in Bibliothèque Nationale.