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
Katherine Anne Porter Fools" for $500,000). Producer David O. Selznick was after the film rights; but United Artists who owned the property, demanded $400,000. The novel was adapted for film by Abby Mann; producer and director Stanley Kramer featured Vivien Leigh in her final film performance. Despite Porter's claim that after the publication of "Ship of Fools " she would not win any more prizes in America, in 1966 she was awarded the Pulitzer Prize and the U.S. National Book Award for "The Collected Stories of Katherine Anne Porter". That year she was also appointed to the American Academy of Arts and Letters.