Marie Harel, French cheesemaker (d. 1844)
Marie Harel (born Marie Catherine Fontaine; April 28, 1761 – November 9, 1844) was a French cheesemaker, who, along with Abbot Charles-Jean Bonvoust, invented Camembert cheese, according to local legend. She worked as a cheesemaker at the Manor of Beaumoncel and made Camembert cheeses according to local custom. Her main contribution was to have initiated a dynasty of entrepreneurial cheesemakers who developed the production of Camembert cheese on a large scale, notably her grandson Cyrille Paynel, born in 1817, who created a cheese factory in the commune of Le Mesnil-Mauger in Calvados at France.