Louise Crombach

Louise Crombach or Crombak (24 December 1815 – 12 April 1894) was a French seamstress, prison inspector, writer and feminist. In 1845, she was prosecuted for having a lesbian relationship. She began her professional life as a seamstress but, in view of her literary talent, which was compared to that of Elisa Mercœur,

Her first children's book, Le Jeune libéré, was published in 1839 and received the Montyon Prize from the French Academy the following year.

Faced with material difficulties, Elisa de Lamartine found her a job as a Prison Guard at the women's prison Saint-Lazare in 1842. That year, one of Desbordes-Valmore's poems ("Moi, je le sais", in Bouquets et prières) was dedicated to her. Louise Crombach introduced her to Marie Pape-Carpantier, as they knew each other. At the beginning of 1844, she joined the team of journalists of Le Nouveau Monde, Journal de la science sociale, which aimed to revive, without success, the former Fourierist journal Le Nouveau Monde. Other editors included Arthur de Bonnard, one of the first French cooperators, and .

Louise Crombach was sentenced to two years in prison in June, but an appeal to the Court of Cassation overturned the judgment. The revelation of this correspondence, however, distanced her from Desbordes-Valmore, so much so that she did not intervene when Crombach was again the subject of a trial in November 1845 in Versailles. Crombach was nevertheless acquitted and went to take refuge in La Villette with a priest. She died in 1894. Hélène et Laurence (1841) Un pauvre devant Dieu, ou Qu'est-ce que la richesse ? (1845)Les Papillons et les enfants, Alexandre et Michel, les Roses de la Fête-Dieu, le Médaillon-protecteur (1845)''