Frances Wilson Huard (1885–1969)

Frances Wilson Huard was an American who married French artist and aristocrat Charles Huard in 1905. In September 1914, at the start of World War I, while her husband was away serving in the French military, she was responsible for the estate and Château de Villiers, their summer home near Soissons and the Marne River in northeastern France. The household consisted of three women, four children, several dogs, and a number of farm animals. In 1916, unbeknownst to them, the war was about to arrive at their doorstep: they were directly in the path of the invading German Army and the First Battle of the Marne. Their home was bombarded and looted by German troops; Frances later turned it into a field hospital. She wrote a memoir of her experiences in My Home in the Field of Honour (1916) and a second book, My Home in the Field of Mercy (1917), both bestsellers. Her husband provided the illustrations. In 1915 and after the war, she toured the USA and Canada giving public lectures and selling her husband's art work to raise funds for post-war relief. She later wrote other books, including With Those Who Wait (1918), Lilies, White and Red, a collection of short fiction (1919); American Footprints in Paris (co-authored with François Boucher, 1920), and a biography of her husband, Charles Huard (1969).

She also translated French works into English, including Colette Baudoche by Maurice Barrès (1918), The Flying Poilu: A Story of Aerial Warfare by Marcel Nadaud (1918), Military Servitude and Grandeur by Alfred de Vigny (1919), and The Golden Goat by Paul Arène (1921). She wrote essays for American periodicals including The Century, The Bookman, and Scribner's Magazine.
In 1943, during World War II, the Huards fled the Nazi Occupation of Paris for the home of friends in Poncey-sur-l'Ignon in the Burgundy countryside. After the war, they built their own home in the town, which was bequeathed to the Fondation pour l'Art et la Culture at their deaths.