Catherine Bernard (1662 – 16 September 1712) was a French poet, playwright, and novelist. She composed three historical novels, two verse tragedies, several poems, and was awarded several poetry prizes by the Académie française. Bernard established the fundamental aesthetic principle of the French literary conte de fées popular in the salons of the late seventeenth century with the dictum: "the [adventures] should always be implausible and the emotions always natural". Her works are appreciated today for their psychological nuance.