Les deux noms and Petit journal de la fin de ma vie: Céleste de Chabrillan’s mémoires inédits

Author: JANA VERHOEVEN
Explorations No 49 Part I (Dec 2010): 3-17
https://doi.org/10.62586/TPCO3731

This former Paris courtesan was the wife of the first French Consul in Melbourne, Count Lionel de Chabrillan. After her husband’s death she became an author, much of her writing having been inspired by her experiences in Australia. The author gives an account of her re-discovery of some of Céleste de Chabrillan’s manuscripts (believed to have been lost) of the latter’s unpublished autobiographical writings. The article also analyses the significance of these memoirs.

Keywords: autobiography, Céleste de Chabrillan, Théâtre de Belleville, female perspective on events in France in the second half of 19th century