Athénaïs Michelet

Bust of Madame Michelet, 1899 by Antoine Bourdelle

Athénaïs married the much older Jules Michelet in 1849. She had first encountered Michelet through his literary work, having written to him for guidance after having read Du prêtre, de la femme et de la famille; at the time she was tutoring the children of the Princess Cantacuzène in Vienna. Their literary conversations remained the basis of their relationship even after their marriage.[1] She and her husband entered into a shared literary life, collaborating on L'Oiseau (1856), L'Insecte (1857), La Mer (1861) and La Montagne (1868). Although these books were published under Jules Michelet's name only, he explicitly credited Athénaïs not only for turning his attention to natural history, but also as an active collaborator.[2] At his death, they were working on La nature.[3]

She subsequently published several books in her own right: Mémoires d'une enfant in 1867 and Les chats in 1904. She wrote a book expressly for the English audience that was published as Nature, or the poetry of earth and sea (London: T. Nelson 1872).[4]

Before he died, Jules Michelet accorded Athénaïs literary rights to his books and papers, acknowledging that she had had a significant role in the writing of his later years.[5] Although the will was contested by Jules Michelet's son-in-law, Athénaïs won her case and retained the papers and publishing rights.[5] She published several books about Jules Michelet and his family, based on the extracts and journals he had left her. She bequeathed the literary legacy to Gabriel Monod. The tradition of writing about Jules Michelet thereafter painted Athénaïs as an "abusive widow", exerting sexual control to guide her husband's literary endeavours along her own lines of interest.[6]