Born in the year of Our Good Lord of MDCCVII in Contrecœur, Nouvelle France, Anne is the eldest daughter of a soldier. François-Antoine Pécaudy de Contrecœur was a scion of the low gentry in France, and a soldier through and through. He arrived in le Québec as ranking officer of the Régiment de Carignan-Salières, the first French regular military unit in the New World. He had Anne and a younger son named after him, with her wife dying in chilbirth in MDCCXXI. Shortly after he died in battle, heartbroken, with some calling it a case of 'suicide by Englishman'.

Anne has been leading Contrecœur ever since: first only nominally as she was still the ward of neighboring seigneur de Bettencourt, and directly for the last few years, with an energy bordering on impatience, often interrupted by her boundless (and obviously unladylike) interest in scholarly matters.

The Seigneuresse de Contrecœur is a petite 23-year-old, small and physically delicate even for the clichéed standards of a French noblelady. For all her softness and porcelain-like appearance, with pale skin and jet black ringlets, she's one of the sharpest minds around, quick-witted and inquisitive. Anne has learned to get what she wants through manipulation and courtly manners, warm smiles concealing a relentless stubbornness. In Contrecœur she's known as a shrewd administrator, a graceful dancer and an avid hunter, handy with a fowler and skilled with the pencils and brushes. But her true passion is the sciences, being well versed in native cultures, cartography and mathematics, and known to correspond with like-minded gentlemen in English, Latin and Greek.