ABSTRACT

Bom May 7, 1748, in Montauban, to Anne-Olympe Muisset and, ostensibly, her husband Pierre Gouze, Marie Gouze was, in fact, the illegitimate daughO ter of Voltaire’s nemesis, the poet Jean-Jacques Le Franc de Pompignan.1 Growing up in Montauban, she spoke Occitan, the dialect of her region, and received a mediocre education, as evidenced by the rough signature on her marriage certificate to Louis-Yves Aubry, in 1765. This mismatched marriage was short-lived; Aubry died approximately a year later, shortly after the birth of their son, Pierre. Nevertheless, the bitter experience left deep scars. For the remainder of her life, Marie refused to remarry, preferring, instead, the more independent status of concubine. She also rejected her married name, taking back her maiden name with a slightly different spelling, to which she added “de”—not an uncommon practice at that time-and adopting her mother’s “celestial-sounding” forename.