Bernardine Melchior Bonnet (1906–1995)

Bernardine Melchior-Bonnet, née Paul-Dubois, born in Menthon-Saint-Bernard in southeastern France, was an historian and biographer who specialized in the history of the French Revolution and the First Empire. Her books received several prestigious awards from the Académie française: the Grand Prix Gobert in 1958 for Napoléon et le Pape; the Prix Broquette-Gonin in 1970 for Les Girondins; and the Prix de l'Académie in 1986 for La Grande Mademoiselle. She was recognized with the Prix de l'Académie in 1979 for her entire body of work. Also in 1979, she won the Prix Marcel-Pollitzer from the Association des écrivains combattants. Other biographies included the duc d'Enghien, Charlotte Corday, and Jérôme Bonaparte. Her maternal grandfather was historian and critic Hippolyte Taine. She married historian Christian Melchior-Bonnet in 1930.