 She said that although the character was strictly fictional, her general character had been suggested to Thackeray by a governess in Kensington Square, who was a companion to a wealthy but irascible elderly woman.In an unpublished 1911 essay, novelist Charles Reade used the accepted image of Sharp to illustrate Madame du Barry's assertion that the most foolish woman can trick a man, by using against him the education that he has paid for.Says Reade, had she known of Thackeray's creation, du Barry would have asserted "the wisest of the sex is a Becky Sharp".