In the early nineteenth century, three of France's most popular writers -Mme Cottin, Mme de Krüdener and Mme de Staëlpublished sentimental, early-Romantic novels all portraying male protagonists in a state of crisis. These crises, and the protagonists' characters as a result, are shaped by many absences throughout the novels. Absent fathers, the lack of ability to create or possess a desired woman, and the absence of words all influence the Romantic heroes' personalities and actions. In turn, those personalities and actions substantially impact the heroines' futures. Ultimately, as this paper argues, Cottin, Krüdener and Staël show how roles created for women are frequently untenable and unjust, particularly when conceived by men undergoing their own socio-political and/or identity crisis. This allows the writers to challenge the patriarchal order. To ascertain precisely how absences and voids are, seemingly paradoxically, endowed with creative power, and are able to give shape to crucial elements of the novels, this paper looks at theories of positive-negative space.Cottin's epistolary novel Claire d'Albe (1799) tells of twenty-two-year-old Claire, in an arranged marriage to an older man. The majority of the letters are from Claire to her friend Elise, and therefore the novel possesses a double female narrative: Cottin writing Claire, and Claire narrating the story's events. When M. d'Albe's adopted nineteen-year-old son, Frédéric, arrives to assist with d'Albe's manufacturing business, he and Claire fall in love. Claire is established in Frédéric's and d'Albe's eyes as a perfect ideal of womanhood. However, both men's image of perfection conforms to polar opposite character-types, and the inability to uphold the simultaneously expected positions of virtuous angel and sexually desirable object cause Claire to fall fatally ill. 1 Frédéric dies soon afterwards.Krüdener's epistolary novel Valérie (1803) comprises letters from Gustave to his friend Ernest, written whilst travelling with friends of his late father: a Count and his much younger