Élise Moreau


Élise Moreau was a French poet.

Biography

Moreau was born in 1813 in Rochefort but was raised in Niort where her family settled. She started writing poetry at an early age. A local prefect M. de Saint-Georges, encouraged her and gave her letters of recommendation to study in Paris.
She travelled there with her mother, and received a warm welcome, notably from Sophie Bawr, whose gratitude she wrote about when Bawr died in 1861. The first collection of Moreau's, Dreams of a Young Girl, was published in 1837, shortly after her arrival in Paris.
On the death of Élisa Guizot, in January 1833 Élise Moreau wrote an elegy. François Guizot, then Minister of Education, encouraged her; as well as other luminaries of the time including Nodier, Chateaubriand, and Lamartine.
She was sent to the Academie Francaise, to participate in a contest for the legacy of Moliere. She submitted a piece which did not win the prize, but it did give her wider notoriety.
After some further publications such as A Destiny and Memories of a little child, she married the poet Paulin Gagne, whose eccentric designs, translated into the most amazing styles, and caused more notoriety than she would have desired. In 1854 they founded a literary journal Le Théâtre du monde, which appeared from 1854 to 1857; she collaborated in each issue. Later in her life she became influenced by her husband's eccentric lifestyle as can be seen in the work Omégar. In this work, it was said that she was less Ms. Moreau and more Mme. Gagne.
She and her husband spent the last years of their lives living in poverty. She died in 1861.

Works