Camille Marbo

Camille Marbo
Camille Marbo en 1937, photo Agence de presse Meurisse.
Born	Marguerite Borel 11 April 1883
Died	5 February 1969(1969-02-05) (aged 85)

Camille Marbo, (11 April 1883 – 5 février 1969) née Marguerite Appell, was a 20th-century French writer, mostly a novelist, laureate of the Prix Femina in 1913, president of the Société des gens de lettres, and president of the prix Femina.

Berthe Elisabeth Marguerite Appell was the daughter of mathematician Paul Appell (1855–1930).

In 1901, she married the mathematician and politician Emile Borel (1871–1956). Marguerite Borel held a lively scientific and literary salon.

In 1906, she created with her husband La Revue du mois where contributed their scientific friends and political or literary personalities appreciating this magazine which offered them the opportunity to choose their subjects and freedom of expression. This monthly was a notable success. Marguerite Borel took personally charge of the critics of plays and novels, and various chronicles.

When she began to write novels, she chose the pseudonym Camille Marbo, the name Marbo taking the first letters of her first name Marguerite and her name Borel.

In 1913, Camille Marbo was awarded the prix Femina, then called Prix de la Vie heureuse, for her first novel la Statue voilée.

During the First World War, she set up with her her father the Comité de secours national. She also founded and ran a temporary hospital in Paris, which earned her the médaille de la Reconnaissance française. The authorities asked her in 1916 to participate in the organization of women's work in place of the men who had gone to the front. Benefiting from her experience as head of the hospital, she created a recruitment center for women, which auditioned, tested and placed both salaried employees and volunteers in the services sector.More than 20,000 women were thus placed in his care. The treaty she published in 1919, "Mobilization féminine en France", documents the contribution of these women to the Allied victory. This document is precious because of its unique content as well as its methodical and professional form, free from the emotion that was too common at the time; It is carefully contextualized and enriched with statistics.