Victoire la Rouge | 
A novel by Georges de Peyrebrune, a half-forgotten 19th-century female author with a male pseudonym. Free on wikisource. I read it because of its pro-working-class, proto-feminist leanings and because it is set in #Dordogne, which is the French département I'll be exploring in books this year. It is a page-turner and I really felt for the main character, a strong but dim girl raised in an orphanage without love or the skills to face the world.
Warning for fatphobia in the first chapters, and abuse
Photo of Chancelade, Dordogne, where Victoire lived for a while, from Père Igor, via Wikimedia (edited) 3mo