Swiss novelist and translator, Montolieu was the author of Caroline de Lichtfield, ou Mémoires d'une Famille Prussienne (1786). She was a close friend of Madame de Genlis, whose encouragement was crucial to Montolieu's decision to publish. In addition, Montolieu produced over 100 volumes of translations and is cited as the first translator of Jane Austen's work into French. She married Benjamin de Crouzas in 1769, but the marriage lasted only a few years before Crouzas died in 1775. In 1786 she married Baron Louis de Montolieu, who also pre-deceased her in 1800. In 1813 she published Le Robinson suisse ou Journal d'un père de famille naufragé avec ses enfants from the German text by Johann David Wyss. Montolieu's text then served as the source for the beloved English translation, Swiss Family Robinson by William Henry Giles Kingston (1879).