Dash, COUNTESS, the name under which Gabrielle Anna Cisterne de Courtiras, Vicomtesse de Saint-Mars, published a series of novels, many of which were readable, if of but slender literary merit. She was born at Poitiers, August 2, 1804, of a noble family, married early, and took to literature for a living after the loss of her property, writing sometimes as many as five or six novels a year. She died 11th September 1872. Her stories deal almost exclusively with the aristocratic world and its more or less illegitimate liaisons. They have a certain brightness and vigour, but lack reality, and are peopled by a crowd of stilted puppets rather than living men and women. Of her numberless books may only be mentioned
Les Amours de Bussy-Rabutin (1850), La Pomme d'Eve (1853), Le Galanteries de la Cour de Louis XV. (1861), Comment Tombent les Femmes (1867), and Les Aventures d'une Jeune Mariée (1870).