Bible Encyclopedias
Pauline Marie Armande Aglae Craven

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

Search for…

Enter query below:

or

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W Y Z

Prev Entry
Paulicians

Next Entry
Pauline Virginie Dejazet

Resource Toolbox

Print Article

PAULINE MARIE ARMANDE AGLAE CRAVEN (1808-1891), French author, the daughter of an émigré Breton nobleman, was born in London on the 12th of April 1808. Her father, the comte Auguste de la Ferronays, was a close friend of the duc de Berri, whom he accompanied on his return to France in 1814. He and his wife were attached to the court of Charles X. at the Tuileries, but a momentary quarrel with the duc de Berri made retirement imperative to the count's sense of honour. He was appointed ambassador at St Petersburg, and in 1827 became foreign minister in Paris. Pauline was thus brought up in brilliant surroundings, but her strongest impressions were those which she derived from the group of Catholic thinkers gathered round Lamennais, and her ardent piety furnishes the key of her life. In 1828 her father was sent to Rome, and Pauline, at the suggestion of Alexis Rio, the art critic, made her first literary essay with a description of the emotions she experienced on a visit to the catacombs. At the revolution of July, M. ' de la Ferronays resigned his position, and retired with his family to Naples. Here Pauline met her future husband, Augustus Craven, who was then attache to the British embassy. His father, Keppel Richard Craven, the well-known supporter of Queen Caroline, objected to his son's marriage with a Catholic; but his scruples were overcome, and immediately after the marriage (1834) Augustus Craven was received into the Roman Catholic Church. Mrs Craven, whose family life as revealed in the Recit d'une sceur was especially tender and intimate, suffered several severe bereavements in the years following on her marriage. The Cravens lived abroad until 1851, when the death of Keppel Craven made his son practically independent of his diplomatic career, in which he had not been conspicuously successful. He stood unsuccessfully for election to parliament for Dublin in 1852, and from that time retired into private life. They went to live at Naples in 1853, and Mrs Craven began to write the history of the family life of the la Ferronays between 1830 and 1836, its incidents being grouped round the love story of her brother Albert and his wife Alexandrine. This book, the Recit d'une sceur (1866, Eng. trans. 1868), was enthusiastically received and was awarded a prize by the French Academy. Straitened circumstances made it desirable for Mrs Craven to earn money by her pen. Anne Severin appeared in 1868, Fleurange in 1871, Le Mot d'enigme in 1874, Le Valbriant (Eng. trans., Lucia) in 1886. Among her miscellaneous works may be mentioned La Sceur Natalie Narischkin (1876), Deux Incidents de la question catholique en Angleterre (1875), Lady Georgiana Fullerton, sa vie et ses oeuvres (1888). Mrs Craven's charming personality won. her many friends. She was a frequent guest with Lod Palmerston, Lord Ellesmere and Lord Granville. She died in Paris on the ist of April 1891. Her husband, who died in 1884, translated the correspondence of Lord Palmerston and of the Prince Consort into French.

See Memoir of Mrs Augustus Craven (1894), by her friend Mrs Mary Catherine Bishop; also Paolina Craven, by T. F. Ravaschieri Fieschi (1892). There is a biography of Mrs Craven's father, "En Emigration," in Etienne Lamy's Temoins des jours passes (1907).