When Corday was a girl, her older sister and their mother, Charlotte Marie Jacqueline Gaultier de Mesnival died. Her father sent Corday and her younger sister to a convent in Caen. In the convent's library, Corday read the writing of Plutarch, Rousseau, and Voltaire After 1791, Corday lived in Caen with her cousin, Madame Le Coustellier de Bretteville-Gouville. They were very close. Corday was going to inherit her cousin's estate.