Fanny Tercy

Fanny Tercy, Françoise-Cécile Messageot (22 November 1782, Lons-le-Saunier – 1 April 1851, Quintigny), 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 (nickname "Fanny") 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 (1790–1856), 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 (1775–1841), 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 (1829), Tercy walked from the town of Arinthod to the old Oliferne castle.

Later life and death During the reign of Louis-Philippe, she obtained a pension of a "woman of letters".

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