Well, it actually didn't take long to find the novel that your great-great aunt must have been reading,
Yvelise by
Guido da
Verona.
http://books.google.com/books/about/Yvelise.html?id=7MIunAEACAAJ
Guido da
Verona was an Italian author. In the WorldCat international library catalog I have found translations of the novel into Spanish and Portuguese, but it doesn't seem to have ever been translated into either English or French. I've been able to use Google Translate to find a short description of the novel which says it is in the form of a confessional letter written by a married man named
Enzo, who falls in love with an eighteen year old woman named Yvelise and then must choose between her and his sickly wife
Martha. I would suspect that either the novel is set in
France, or Yvelise in the novel is said to be from
France, but I can't so far get confirmation of that.
Probably
Da Verona made up the name to sound exotic and "French" to Italian readers in 1923. Perhaps he thought he was creating a feminine form of
Yves by blending it with
Elise?
This message was edited 7/14/2014, 9:56 AM