Fanny Tercy


Fanny Tercy, Françoise-Cécile Messageot, was a 19th-century French historical novelist. Along with Stéphanie Félicité, comtesse de Genlis,, Sophie Doin, and George Sand, Tercy embraced and transformed sentimentalism during the first half of the 19th century.

Biography

Françoise-Cécile Messageot, was born on 22 November 1782 in Lons-le-Saunier. She was the daughter of Jean Joseph Messageot, a cavalry officer who became a postmaster, and Marie-Françoise Clerc. She had an older sister, Lucile, who became a painter, and a twin brother, François-Xavier. Her mother remarried Claude-Antoine Charve, a judge at the Lons-le-Saunier court. From this second marriage, Louis, Tercy's half-brother, and Liberté-Constitution-Désirée, a half-sister who married Charles Nodier, were born. Tercy spent her childhood in Lons-le-Saunier.
Judge Charve was imprisoned in 1793 at the Cordeliers prison where he met Anne-François Tercy, playwright and "man of letters", also imprisoned; he was Fanny's future husband. They married on 11 September 1814. After the wedding, the couple went to Paris and were very close to Charles Nodier. He encouraged Fanny Tercy to write. Unable to stand her husband any longer, she left him in 1824. To prepare for her La Dame d'Oliferne, Tercy walked from the town of Arinthod to the old Oliferne castle. She regularly attended the salon held by Charles Nodier and met many writers of the time there: "... Fanny de Tercy, in her corner, had already finished her work: she would not stop knitting while Musset, Hugo, Vigny or Nerval were recounting their verses".

Later life and death

During the reign of Louis-Philippe, she obtained a pension of a "woman of letters". From 1839, Fanny Tercy returned to Quintigny, where she died on 1 April 1851.

Selected works

  • Deux nouvelles françaises : Marie Bolden, ou la Folle de Cayeux et Cécile de Renneville , Paris, Th. Desoer, 1816
  • Louise de Sénancourt Paris, Maradan, 1817
  • Isaure et Montigny, Paris, 1818
  • Six nouvelles, 2 vol., Paris, Galliot, 1821
  • L’Ermite du mont Saint-Valentin, ou Histoire des amours de la dame de Martigues et du chevalier Roger de Parthenay, 2 vol. Paris, Béchet aîné, 1821
  • Contes moraux à l'usage des enfants, Gallica, 1828
  • La Dame d'Oliferne, Paris, Levavasseur, 1829
  • Chroniques franc-comtoises. La Tour de Dramelay, Paris, C. Vimont, 1831
  • Nouvelles chroniques francomtoises. Le Juif et la sorcière. Paris, C. Vimont, 1833
  • Historiettes et conversations morales, dédiées à Mennessier Nodier, Paris, Dufey, 1834
  • Chalain et les enfants de M. Aubert, 1834
  • Emmerande la bienheureuse, 1834
  • Pierre et Marcellin, 1836