Villette

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Villette (1853) by Charlotte Brontë is the story of Englishwoman Lucy Snowe who ends up a teacher at a girls' pensionnat in Villette, the capital of Labassecour, a fictional French-speaking country on the continent. Autobiographical in many ways, the novel shows stoic Lucy overcoming barriers of language, culture, complex psychological self-conflict, emotional torment, and falling in love. The character of M. Paul Emanuel is believed to have been based on Charlotte Brontë's own impossible object of affection, the one and only true passion of her brief life -- Constantin Héger, the proprietor of the Brussels pensionnat where Charlotte taught.