Eugénie Niboyet

Eugénie Niboyet
Eugénie Niboyet by Nadar
Born	Eugénie Mouchon 10 September 1796 Montpellier
Died	6 January 1883 (age 87) Paris
Nationality	French
Other names	Eugénie Mouchon-Niboyet
Occupation	Writer, journalist, translator, and political activist
Spouse(s)	Paul Louis Niboyet
Children	Jean Alexandre Paulin Niboyet

Eugénie Mouchon-Niboyet (September 10, 1796 – January 6, 1883) was a French author, journalist and early feminist. She is best known for founding La Voix des Femmes (The Women's Voice), the first feminist daily newspaper in France.

Eugenie Niboyet, named Eugenie Mouchon at birth, was born on September 10, 1796, in Montpellier, France.(Poujol 2003, p. 243) Eugenie wrote about her own family background in the last part of her literary work, The Real Book of Women (Le vrai livre des femmes): “I come from a literate family with origins from Geneva, Switzerland," she wrote before emphasizing the importance of her grandfather Pierre Mouchon, an erudite pastor in Geneva and contributor to the Encyclopédie of Diderot and d’Alembert. Only afterward did she mention her father, who came to France to study at the Faculty of Medicine of Montpellier, and her mother by simply stating, "He married the daughter of a pastor from Gar," which indicated a Protestant origin. At the beginning of her book, Eugénie emphasized the importance of her family’s origins in Geneva, the importance of her father relative to new ideas from the French Revolution but also relative to moderation, and his "refusal of excess," which led to him having to take refuge in the Cevennes to avoid execution.

Her father raised her three brothers in “the respect and love” of Napoleon Bonaparte. Louis, aide-de-camp to the French General Teste, died in the battle of the Moskwa, Russia. Emile, a health officer, was taken prisoner in Dresden, Germany. During the Bourbon Restoration, the family lived in Lyon. Eugenie was marked for life by the arrest of some of her family members, and by her visits to the prison. That did not stop her from affirming that, "during that time, my religion was The Empire, my idol was Napoleon I."

Eugénie had two sisters, Aline and Elisa, to whom she later wrote: "We do not write for the narrow minds who want to confine women to the household. Women no longer have to buy their freedom, but to exercise it."

In her autobiography, Eugénie emphasized the commitment of her family to Napoleon as one reason for the choice of her husband: "As a Child of the Empire, I could not marry anyone but an imperialist." Eugenie was 26 years old at the time of her Protestant marriage to Paul-Louis Niboyet on October 8, 1822. Paul-Louis was a brilliant lawyer aged 30 years, and his father was Jean Niboyet, knighted in 1810 and loyal to Napoleon. The married couple resided in Mâcon, a town in the Burgundy region of France, where Paul-Louis practiced the law profession. On June 22, 1825, their only child, a son named Jean Alexandre Paulin Niboyet, was born.