Anne-Catherine de Ligniville, Madame Helvétius Madame Helvétius is mentioned briefly in the Robert Lawson children's book "Ben and Me" (1939) as having many important people at her dinners, and also having cats (distressing to the protagonist, who is a mouse) and a particularly disagreeable dog. Anne-Catherine de Ligniville, Madame Helvétius Anne-Catherine de Ligniville, Madame Helvétius (23 July 1722 – 12 August 1800), also Anne-Catherine de Ligniville d'Autricourt, nicknamed "Minette", maintained a renowned salon in France in the eighteenth century. One of the twenty-one children of Jean-Jacques de Ligniville and his wife Charlotte de Saureau, Anne-Catherine de Ligniville, the niece of Madame de Graffigny, married the
Anne Jane Cupples Scott. On 18 May 1858, Anne, aged 19, married George Cupples, a respected literary figure and breeder of Scotch deerhounds, aged 36. In 1859, her father died at the age of 55, and her widowed mother continued as planned to New Zealand, where she established a small school at Pelichet Bay, near Dunedin. Anne Jane remained in Scotland, along with a brother, who later travelled to New Zealand. Mrs Cupples' first book to be published appears to be "Unexpected Pleasures or, Left Alone in the Holidays", published by W.P. Nimmo, Edinburgh in 1868. This book was published when Ann Jane