Marie-Claire is a novel by Marguerite Audoux published in 1910 by Fasquelle and which received the same year the Femina prize, which forbade her to receive the Prix Goncourt, awarded a week later, despite the support of Octave Mirbeau , author of the preface. It is the first work of its author and as such the most autobiographical. The novel sold more than 100,000 copies.Marguerite Donquichote, who took her mother's name, Audoux, in 1895, was orphaned by age three, following the death of her mother and abandonment by her father. She and her sister Madeleine initially lived with an aunt but ultimately spent nine years in the orphanage at Bourges. In 1877, Andoux was put to work as a shepherdess and farm worker in the region of Sologne. There, she fell in love with a local boy, Henri Dejoulx, but his parents would not permit them to marry.