Mononymous person break with his past. The new name combined several features. It was an anagram for a Latinized version of his family surname, "Arouet, l[e] j[eune]"; it reversed the syllables of the name of a family "château", Airvault; and it has implications of speed and daring through similarity to French expressions such as "voltige", "volte-face" and "volatile". "Arouet" would not have served the purpose, given that name's associations with "roué" and with an expression that meant "for thrashing". The 19th-century French author Marie-Henri Beyle used many pen names, most famously the mononym Stendhal, adapted from the name of the little Prussian
Marie-Angélique de Bombelles Marie-Angélique de Bombelles Marie-Angélique Charlotte de Bombelles née "de Mackau" (1762-1800), was a French court office holder and letter writer. She was maid of honour and a personal friend and confidante of Élisabeth of France (1764–1794), and known in history for her correspondence with her, which is preserved. She was the daughter of baron Louis Eléonor Dirkheim de Mackau (1727-1767) and Marie-Angélique de Mackau, and the sister of Renée Suzanne de Soucy (1758-1841) and Armand Louis de Mackau (1759-1827). She married her cousin, the diplomat baron Marc Marie, Marquis de Bombelles in 1778, and became the mother of Louis Philippe