Marie Louise Mignot Marie Louise Mignot Marie Louise Mignot (1712–1790) was a French literary figure. She was the daughter of Voltaire's sister, Catherine Arouet (1686–1726) and her husband Pierre-François Mignot (d. 1737). After the death of her widowed father in 1737, Voltaire provided her with a dowry and she married army supply officer Nicolas-Charles Denis, giving rise to her married name of Madame Denis. After her husband's premature death in 1744, she was taken in by Voltaire and became his housekeeper, hostess and companion. She also adopted his protégée Reine Philiberte de Varicourt when the latter's marriage to the marquis de Villette foundered
Fran Hosken Fran Hosken Fran P. Hosken (Vienna Austria 1920 – 2 February 2006) was an American writer, feminist, and social activist. She founded the Women's International Network in 1975, and published a quarterly journal on women's health issues that became known, in particular, for its research into female genital mutilation (FGM). Hosken was born as Franziska Porges in Vienna where her father was a physician, and emigrated with her family to the United States in 1938. She attended Smith College, and in 1944 obtained a master's degree from the Harvard Graduate School of Design, one of the first women to do