Marie-Madeleine Bonafon

Barbara Abrams (Suffolk University)

Ed. by Jenny Mander, University of Cambridge
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.5.2.04: French Writing and Culture: Eighteenth-Century and the Enlightenment, 1700-1800.
Vol. editors: Edward Forman (University of Bristol), Jenny Mander (University of Cambridge), Síofra Pierse (University College Dublin), Tim Unwin (University of Bristol), David Williams (University of Sheffield)

Dates

Born 20 Oct 1716
Died c. 1770

Places

Born in France
Active in France

Activities

Primary

Novelist

Resources

Bonafon's Works

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Marie-Madeleine Bonafon was born on 20 October 1716 in Versailles, the daughter of Jean-Pierre de Bonafon,

écuyer

to Sieur d’Albert and Marie Le Noir. She was sometimes referred to as Marie-Madeleine Bonafous d’Albert. Bonafon was educated at the Abbaye de Pentemont. At twenty-three years of age, she moved to the Palace of Versailles to serve as

femme de chambre

[lady’s maid] to the Princesse Catherine-Eléonore de Mauntauban. In service there, Bonafon seems to have put her education to good use in writing novels pointedly criticizing the behaviour of those whom she served and observed. (While only the novel

Tanastès

is known to survive, several others are referred to in the legal briefs from her later arrest and incarceration.)

Bonafon’s early life would have given her

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2303 words

Citation: Abrams, Barbara. "Marie-Madeleine Bonafon". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 28 March 2023 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=14992, accessed 21 November 2024.]