A Biographical Dictionary of Modern Rationalists/Ackermann, Louise Victorine
Ackermann, Louise Victorine, French writer. B. Nov. 30, 1813. During a visit to Berlin she married a German pastor, Paul Ackermann, who became a Rationalist. He died two years after wards, and Mme. Ackermann settled at Nice. Her stories and poems (Contes, 1855; Contes et Poesies, 1863) won for her a high position in French letters. In her later years she lived at Paris, and her house was the centre for a brilliant group of writers (Caro, Aulard, Coppée, Sully Prudhomme, etc.). She was the most decidedly Agnostic of them all. Religions, she said, "impose antiquated and narrow beliefs which are entirely unsuitable for a being who knows nothing and can affirm nothing" (Pensées d'une solitaire, 1903 ed., p. 11 a fine study of her life is prefixed to this edition). On her tomb was inscribed her Agnostic verse:
J'ignore! Un mot le seul par lequel je réponds
Aux questions sans fin de mon esprit déçu.
D. Aug. 2, 1890.