Cornélie Wouters de Vassé
Cornélie-Pétronille-Bénédicte Wouters, known as the baroness of Vassé, was a woman of letters known for her work as a translator in the 18th century.
Biography
Cornélie Wouters de Vassé was born in Brussels, in what was then the Austrian Netherlands and is now Belgium, in 1737. She was one of at least seven children born to Jacques Corneille and Catherine Marguerite Wouters.She moved to Paris after the death of her husband, the wealthy baron of Vassé, and it was there that she began to write and translate for a living in 1782. She often collaborated with her sister Marie Thérèse Wouters, who helped her translate works into French from English, including The British Plutarch by Thomas Mortimer.
In 1790, she became the only woman of the period to have contributed to the public debate over Jews' rights in France, producing a pamphlet in their defense. She argued they should be given full civil and political rights, without having to give up their religious beliefs.
She died in Paris in 1802.