Louise Swanton-Belloc (1795–1881)

Louise Swanton-Belloc was born Anne-Louise Chassériau Swanton in La Rochelle to James Swanton, an Irish officer in the French service, and his wife Marguérite-Louise-Joséphine Chassériau. Her parents gave her an excellent education as a child, with a particular focus on English language and literature. She began writing at age 17, and her first published work, a translation of Adelaide O’Keeffe’s Patriarchal Times (Patriarches, ou la terre de Chanaan) appeared in 1818. In 1821, over the objections of her father, she married Jean-Hilaire Belloc, a painter, with whom she had three children. Her son Louis would later marry Bessie Rayner Parkes, a prominent English feminist who became Louise's friend. Two of Louise's grandchildren in this line also became prolific writers: Marie Adelaide Belloc Lowndes and Hilaire Belloc. Louise had a large circle of literary and social friends and acquaintances, including Charles Dickens, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Victor Hugo, Emile Souvestre, Stendhal, Madame Mohl (Mary Elizabeth Clarke), Lamartine, and Maria Edgeworth. With her translations, she introduced the French public to important literary works such as Uncle Tom's Cabin, Cranford, novels by Dickens, The Vicar of Wakefield, works of Walter Scott, and a great number of Maria Edgeworth's books. Louise herself wrote more than 40 books, including the first full-length biography of Lord Byron published in 1830 with an introduction by Stendhal. She is also remembered as a strong proponent of women's education. Louise often collaborated on projects with her close friend Adélaide Montgolfier, daughter of the famous aeronaut Jacques-Étienne Montgolfier. Together they created a curated circulating library geared towards developing the minds of young women. The pair also founded La Ruche, journal d'études familière, a monthly magazine for the education of young women, and co-authored a number of children's books.