Sophie Cottin (1770-1807), although she was the most widely read novelist of the napoleonic era and a rival of both Chateaubriand and Madame de Staël, met with international renown only to be completely forgotten in later years in France. The author of this study first raises the question of the brutam decline of her fame before unfolding the biography of a novelist whose destiny was overturned in the turmoil of the french revolution. He then proceeds to analyse the private correspondence of Madame Cottin as well as the five novels which were published during her short lifetime, thus restoring a major writer of the french preromantic period to her proper status. Finally he demonstrates that Sophie Cottin, whose name vanished from the literary scene after the brutal change that occurred in the readers' expectancy, nonetheless deeply influenced nineteenth century writers - among whom Walter Scott, victor Hugo, Lamartine and Flaubert