Fanny Loviot was a French adventurer who wrote a single book in 1859, "Les Pirates chinois, ma captivité dans les mers de Chine" ("Chinese Pirates, My Captivity in the Seas of China"), about her emigration to San Francisco and her journey in the seas of China, where she was kidnapped by Chinese pirates before being freed by an English crew. Fanny Loviot's birth date and place, as well as her life before she boarded the Dunkirk schooner "Indépendance" with her sister from Le Havre on May 30, 1852, are unknown. Fanny Loviot is mentioned in the passenger registration as a laundress who lives on Boulevard Montmartre. This journey was one of the departures of the "Loterie des lingots d'or" ("Gold Ingots Lottery"), which carried primarily poor people and Parisian revolutionaries to California for free. Fanny Loviot and her sister arrived in San Francisco on November 20, 1852. The two sisters remained in California for eighteen months before Fanny decided to accompany an artist to Jakarta. After being kidnapped by pirates in the South China Sea, she was eventually rescued by an English crew and returned to Hong Kong. She later returned to France, arriving on December 26, 1854. Two days later, on December 26, 1854, the Valetta anchored in the bay of Marseille, and by the 30th, I was in Paris," she says.
