[1] She was the daughter of neo-impressionist painter Théo van Rysselberghe and his wife Maria Monnom.

[3] Élisabeth had an affair with Rupert Brooke when she was twenty years old, and by 1913 the two might have become lovers "in a complete sense".

[6] After the war, in 1920, Marc Allégret, Gide's lover, fell in love with Élisabeth.

The father was André Gide, who at the time was married, and recognised the child only after the death of his wife, adopting her in 1938.

[7] Élisabeth had wanted a child "at all costs",[3] while Gide had passed her a note during a trip on the train with friends years before, where he explained that he could not bear to see her or himself childless.