Sophie de Ségur

She started at fifty-six. Twenty books later, French childhood had a new accent. Born Rostopchine in St Petersburg, married into a title, then wrote for granddaughters who lived too far away to scold in person. Hachette put her in pink covers and sold her in railway stations: Sophie, model little girls, a donkey’s memoirs, a Russian general, a good little devil. The Fleurville books are the ones everyone remembers. She had a whole Bibliothèque rose besides. The countess is the brand. The mischief is the author.