The daughter of an engineer who had served Napoleon, she was a prominent member of the protestant church in Nîmes and Paris.

She translated the writing of English-speaking religious writers of the time, Thomas Adam, John Newton and William Romaine, into French, and her writing and thoughts were important to the development of protestant religious thinking in France during the Réveil.

She was governess to François Guizot's children, including his daughter Henriette who later also became a writer and translator.

At a young age, she moved to Paris and connected with many of the leading Christian thinkers of her time, including those from England.

[1] She looked at the experience of the Great Awakening and similar movements as models for her theology, particularly the works of John Newton, the ex-slave trader whose life transformation was embodied in the song Amazing Grace, and Thomas Adam's Private Thoughts on Religion.