Eugénie Foa

Born Esther-Eugénie Rodrigues-Henriques in Bordeaux in 1796, she came from a Sephardi Jewish family and later wrote under the name Eugénie Foa; some sources also note the pen name Maria Fitzclarence. She spent much of her career in Paris and built a reputation as a prolific author for both adults and younger readers.

Her work ranged across novels, tales, and historical writing, and she is often singled out for bringing Jewish themes into French historical fiction at an unusually early moment. That makes her an important figure not only in French literature, but also in the history of Jewish writing in France.

Sources found during this search agree on her birth year, but differed on her death year, with one source listing 1852 while your note gives 1853. To stay accurate, it is safest to say she died in the early 1850s in Paris.