Abstract: In 1840, and in 1869 when the lampoonist revived the matter, Louise Colet became the victim of Alphonse Karr’s revelation of her adulterous affair with Cousin. Her open letter questions the place of women in literature: how can a female writer be subjected to vicious campaigns to defile her as a woman and undermine her authorship? Louise Colet tried to defend her honor and the cause of women by promoting a women’s literature in which literary creation is never detached from life and its vicissitudes.
