French novelist, born at Havre, came to Paris in her youth, and there lived to an extreme old age; was a prominent figure in the social and literary life of the city; collaborated at first with her brother Georges, but subsequently was responsible herself for a set of love romances of an inordinate length, but of great popularity in their day, e. g . "Le Grand Cyrus" and "Clélie," &c., in which a real gift for sparkling dialogue is swallowed up in a mass of improbable adventures and prudish sentimentalism (1607-1701).