Maria de Villegas de Saint-Pierre

Maria de Villegas de Saint-Pierre, also the Countess Maria Van den Steen de Jehay (1870-1941) was a Belgian writer who won the French literary prize for her 1912 novel, Profils de gosses. She became a nurse and at the outbreak of World War I turned her family estate into a hospital. When the Germans seized her castle, she went to the front to nurse soldiers at the Hospital du Duc de Vendome near Calais and soon was transferred to the Élisabeth Hospital in Poperinge where she served as hospital director for three and a half years. After establishing the Belgian Civil Help Association, the Countess raised funds, organized and directed the association to support three hospitals, build two orphanages, run schools, provide inoculations and many other public health initiatives. She received many awards and honors, including the Order of the Belgian Crown, the Order of Leopold, the Order of the British Empire and the French Croix de Guerre. Maria-Charlotte Ghislaine de Villegas de Saint-Pierre was born on 14 December 1870 in the Château de Louvignies, near Soignies, in Hainaut Province, Belgium to the Belgian Count Léon de Villegas de Saint-Pierre and Countess Marie-Ferdinande de Maillin of Mohiville, in the Wallonian Namur Province. Her father had been a diplomat, but gave up his career to become mayor of Chaussée-Notre-Dame-Louvignies. Maria was the second child in the family and had an older brother, Alphonse and two younger siblings, brother Louis and sister Albertine, who were raised in the family castle on the estate. On May 17, 1892, she married her cousin Count Léopold van de Steen de Jehay, who worked for the royal family as a liaison between the court and foreigners. The couple lived in Brussels within walking distance of the royal palace and spent the summer months at her husband's family castle in Chevetogne in Namur Province. Within a year, she gave birth to their only son, Jean. Following in the family tradition, de Villegas de Saint-Pierre became a writer and published works under the pseudonyms "Quevedo" or "Dame Peluche".