Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve

Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve (28 November 1685 – 29 December 1755) was a French author influenced by Madame d'Aulnoy, Charles Perrault, and various précieuse writers.

Barbot was born and died in Paris, France, but belonged to a powerful Protestant family from La Rochelle. She was the descendant of the notable Amos Barbot who was a Peer of France and a Deputy of the Estates General in 1614. His brother, Jean Amos, became mayor of La Rochelle in 1610. Another relation, Jean Barbot (1655-1712) was an early explorer of West Africa and the Caribbean, who worked as an agent on slave ships. He published his travel journals in French and English when he migrated to England to escape the prosecution of Protestants after Louis XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes in 1685.

In 1706, Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve married Jean-Baptiste Gaalon de Villeneuve, a member of an aristocratic family from Poitou. Within six months of her marriage, she requested a separation of belongings from her husband who had already squandered much of their substantial joint family inheritance. A daughter was born from the marriage but no records indicate if she survived. In 1711, Gabrielle-Suzanne became a widow at the age of 26. She progressively lost her family fortune and was forced to seek a means of employment to support herself. Eventually, she made her way to Paris where she met Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon, or Crébillon père, the most famous playwright of tragedies of the period. It is likely she began co-habitating with Crébillon père in the early 1730s (although the earliest documented date is 1748), and remained with him until her death in 1755. Gabrielle-Suzanne assisted Crébillon père with his duties as the royal literary censure, and thus became knowledgeable about the literary tastes of the Parisian reading public.

Barbot published both fairy tales and novels. Her publications include a novella Le Phénix conjugal (1734) (The Conjugal Phoenix), two collections of fairy tales, La Jeune Américaine ou les Contes marins (1740), and Les Belles Solitaires (1745), and four novels, Le Beau-frère supposé (1752), La Jardinière de Vincennes (1753) (The Gardener of Vincennes), Le juge prévenu (1754) (The Biased Judge), and the Mémoires de Mesdemoiselles de Marsange (1757) (Memoirs of Mlles de Marsange). La Jardinière de Vincennes was considered her masterpiece and greatest commercial success. The Bibliographie du genre romanesque français 1751-1800 lists 15 editions of her novel.

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