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Biographical background

In 1842, Brontë traveled to Brussels with her sister Emily, where they enrolled in a pensionnat (boarding school) run by M. and Mme. Constantin Héger. In return for board and tuition, Charlotte taught English and Emily taught music. Their time at the pensionnat was cut short when Elizabeth Branwell, their aunt who had joined the family after the death of their mother to look after the children, died of internal obstruction in October 1842. Charlotte returned alone to Brussels in January 1843 to take up a teaching post at the pensionnat. Her second stay at the pensionnat was not a happy one; she became lonely, homesick and fell in love with M. Héger. She finally returned to her family's rectory at Haworth in January 1844.

Brontë drew on this source material for her first, unsuccessful novel The Professor. After several publishers rejected this early work, Brontë reworked the material as a basis for Villette. In particular, most literary historians believe the character of M. Paul Emanuel to be closely based on M. Héger. Furthermore, the character of Graham Bretton is widely acknowledged to have been modelled on Brontë's publisher, George Murray Smith, who was at one time a potential suitor.