Marie-Hélène Bouchard

Wife of Hermès Bouchard, a voracious reader and noted book collector, namesake of the Bouchard Society. She urged her husband to fund the Bouchard Prize and who served as the chair of the judging committee.

According to accounts of the 1912 event, Marie-Hélène retrieved V. M. Straka's note from the monkey he sent, and collapsed on the dais after reading it. It was reported that she had been weakened by a prolonged illness. She committed suicide in October 1912 by leaping from a rooftop in the 16th Arrondissement of Paris.

Hermès Bouchard was rarely seen in public thereafter. The Society was disbanded.