Born in
Challans,
Vendée, the daughter of a wealthy
shipbuilder, Edmond Pierre Douet, she graduated from the
University of Nantes then she studied art at the
École du Louvre in
Paris. In 1938, she married Paul Auriol, son of
Vincent Auriol (who would later become
President of France). During World War II, she worked against the
German occupation of France by helping the
French Resistance. She took up flying in 1946, got her pilot's license in 1948 and became an accomplished stunt flier and test pilot. Auriol was severely injured in a crash of a
SCAN 30 in which she was a passenger in 1949—many of the bones in her face were broken—and spent nearly three years in hospitals undergoing 33 reconstructive operations. To occupy her mind she studied algebra, trigonometry, aerodynamics, and other subjects necessary to obtain advanced pilot certification. She earned a military
pilot license in 1950 then qualified as one of the first female
test pilots. She was among the first women to break the
sound barrier and set five world speed records in the 1950s and 1960s. On four occasions she was awarded the
Harmon International Trophy by an American president in recognition of her aviation exploits. She once explained her passion for flying by saying: "I feel so happy when I'm flying. Perhaps it is the feeling of power, the pleasure of dominating a machine as beautiful as a
Thoroughbred horse. Mingled with these basic joys is another less primitive feeling, that of a mission accomplished. Each time I set foot on an airfield, I sense with fresh excitement that this is where I belong." In 1970, she published an autobiography,
I Live to Fly, in both
French and
English. Auriol and her husband divorced in 1967 and remarried in 1987. They had two children together, both boys. In 1983 she became a founding member of the French ''
Académie de l'air et de l'espace''. ==Records==