Henriette Renan was born into a fishing family in Tréguier in Brittany where she lived in the large house bought by her grandfather. Their father, captain of a small cutter and a convinced Republican, had married the daughter of a Royalist tradesman from the neighbouring town of Lannion; their mother was half-Breton, her paternal ancestors having come fromBordeaux. Renan was 17 years old when her father died and she became the head of the household, in particular, taking responsibility for her 5-year-old brother Ernest Renan. After failing to establish a girls' school in Tréguier, Renan moved to Paris to teach, where she met :fr:Sophie Ulliac-Trémadeure|Sophie Ulliac and became tutor to a Polish family with whom she toured Europe. She later moved to Vienna as tutor for Count Zamoyski. Renan wrote for Le Journaldes jeunes personnes and other periodicals under pseudonyms including Emma du Guindy. Now independently wealthy, she was able to support her mother, pay for her brother's education, and clear her father's debts. Henriette Renan had a great influence on her brother, acting as mother, sister, confidante and adviser. Ernest Renan relied on his sister's research in art history and her own published writing.
Death
In 1860, Henriette joined Ernest and his wife Cornélie in Lebanon while Ernest conducted archaeological investigations in both Lebanon and Syria. They stayed in the home of Zakhia Chalhoub el-Kallab and his son Abdallah Zakhia el Kallab, a notable Maronite family in the Amsheet region of Byblos, whose ancestors had been ennobled by the Ottoman Sultan and who had founded the first hospital in Lebanon, :fr:Hôpital Saint-Michel d'Amchit|Saint-Michel d'Amchit. Already in poor health, Renan died of malaria in Amsheet on 24 September 1861. She is buried in the vault of Mikhaël Bek Tobia al-Kallab in Amsheet near the church of Notre-Dame.
Works by Henriette Renan
Souvenirs etImpressions, Pologne, Rome, Allemagne, voyage en Syrie, edited by Henri Moncel with an introduction by Mary Duclaux
