After Hervey's death, Fanny moved to Grez-sur-Loing, where she met and befriended Robert Louis Stevenson. A 1916 recollection of her by Mr Birge Harrison (published in the Centenary Magazine) recalls "That she was a woman of intellectual attainments is proved by the fact that she was already a magazine writer of recognized ability, and that at the moment when Stevenson first came into her life she was making a living for herself and her two children with her pen." Convinced of his talent, she encouraged and inspired him. He became deeply attached to her, but Fanny returned abruptly to California.