Pauline Ménard-Dorian was born at the Château du Fraisse on 21 July 1870 to Paul-François Ménard, a wealthy politician and businessman, and Louise-Aline Dorian.

[1] A member of a prominent Republican family, her maternal grandfather, Pierre Frédéric Dorian, served as the Minister of Public Works for the French Third Republic.

She spent her childhood between living in a hotel in the Rue de la Faisanderie and her family's properties in Fraisse and Lunel.

Her mother hosted Republican salons attended by Jules de Goncourt, Edmond de Goncourt, Émile Zola, Alphonse Daudet, Auguste Rodin, Élie-Abel Carrière, Victor Considerant, and Georges Clemenceau, Georges Périn, Allain-Targé, Challemel-Lacour, and Henri Rochefort.

She and her husband hosted popular literary and political salons in Paris attended by Zola, Marcel Proust, Léon Daudet, the Goncourt brothers, Jean Cocteau, Max Jacob, Eugène Carrière, and Erik Satie.