Between the revolution of 1789 and that of 1848, women represented on average 3 to 5% of the borrowers of the Bibiothèque nationale de France. This discreet but continuous presence testifies to the existence of a regular female public in this place of knowledge with a national and even European influence. Who were these women readers, what did they read and what material or symbolic difficulties did they face ? Authors, teachers, journalists, translators or painters, foreigners, ordinary or famous readers, occasional or “great readers”… this variety underlines that women were already investing in multiple fields of culture. Their presence, as well as the catalog of borrowed books, challenges the prejudice of the “dilettante” reader to draw the contours of women working with and on books. Based on the administrative archives of the Bibliothèque nationale, and more particularly on the loan registers, this article proposes to examine the use of the library by women in the first half of the 19th century. It questions the access to bookish knowledge to the history of a cultural institution, inviting us to write a gendered history of reading practices.