She was a French novelist who wrote the best known version of Beauty and the Beast. Her third husband was the French spy Thomas Pichon (1757–1760).
She wrote several fairy tales, among them an abridged version of Beauty and the Beast, adapted from Gabrielle-Suzanne Barbot de Villeneuve's original. After a successful publishing career in England, she left that country in 1763 with her daughter Elisabeth
Her first work, the moralistic novel The Triumph of Truth (Le Triomphe de la vérité), was published in 1748. She published approximately seventy volumes during her literary career. Most famous were the collections she called "magasins," instructional handbooks for parents and educators of students from childhood through adolescence. She was one of the first to include folk tales as moralist and educational tools in her writings
She published the magazine Le Nouveau Magasin français, ou Bibliothèque instructive et amusante between 1750 and 1752, and contributed with articles to the British newspaper The Spectator during her years in London
