By Paul Carrier
We've been kicking around on this planet for so long that the past is overflowing with fascinating people whose lives have been lost to history, or marginalized by it. So it was, for me, with the "filles du roi," a class of women in 17th-century Canada whom I first encountered when I began researching my family's Québec routes.
Some 800 "daughters of the king" were sent from France to New France, as the French colony in Canada was known. These girls and young women were called filles du roi because King Louis XIV covered the cost of their migration from 1663 to 1673, to provide wives for French settlers. The filles du roi are legendary in French Canada, but unheralded here in the United States. Unbeknownst to me until recently, I have several of these women in my family tree.
Suzanne Desrochers' Bride of New France explores the doleful life of a young Laure Beauséjour, a fictional fille du roi whose torturous journey begins when she is a child living on the streets of Paris with her parents. Laure is snatched by the king's archers and housed in the Salpêtrière, a massive asylum and hospital for all manner of female inmates, including the insane, orphans, prostitutes and the poor.
Years later, when the 17-year-old Laure has the audacity to write to the king complaining about conditions in the Salpêtrière, she is quickly added to the newest list of filles du roi who are bound for New France. Initially, Laure fears being exiled to a brutally cold and savage land where French settlers are forever at war with the Iroquois, but over time, she finds herself torn between two worlds.
Laure is a compelling character. She proves to be an independent-minded young woman of "sharp thoughts and high expectations" who remains true to herself despite the vicissitudes of life at sea and in the wild, harsh corner of the New World in which she is forced to live.
Even before the ship carrying Laure reaches Canada, the other girls aboard "are turning themselves into colony wives," Desrochers writes. "Laure is something different, a goddess from Antiquity, a serpent woman who doesn't know where her body ends and the waves begin." The mush on which the girls must subsist at sea is monotonous and unappealing, yet for Laure it carries "the taste of freedom."
Some 800 "daughters of the king" were sent from France to New France, as the French colony in Canada was known. These girls and young women were called filles du roi because King Louis XIV covered the cost of their migration from 1663 to 1673, to provide wives for French settlers. The filles du roi are legendary in French Canada, but unheralded here in the United States. Unbeknownst to me until recently, I have several of these women in my family tree.
Suzanne Desrochers' Bride of New France explores the doleful life of a young Laure Beauséjour, a fictional fille du roi whose torturous journey begins when she is a child living on the streets of Paris with her parents. Laure is snatched by the king's archers and housed in the Salpêtrière, a massive asylum and hospital for all manner of female inmates, including the insane, orphans, prostitutes and the poor.
Years later, when the 17-year-old Laure has the audacity to write to the king complaining about conditions in the Salpêtrière, she is quickly added to the newest list of filles du roi who are bound for New France. Initially, Laure fears being exiled to a brutally cold and savage land where French settlers are forever at war with the Iroquois, but over time, she finds herself torn between two worlds.
Laure is a compelling character. She proves to be an independent-minded young woman of "sharp thoughts and high expectations" who remains true to herself despite the vicissitudes of life at sea and in the wild, harsh corner of the New World in which she is forced to live.
Even before the ship carrying Laure reaches Canada, the other girls aboard "are turning themselves into colony wives," Desrochers writes. "Laure is something different, a goddess from Antiquity, a serpent woman who doesn't know where her body ends and the waves begin." The mush on which the girls must subsist at sea is monotonous and unappealing, yet for Laure it carries "the taste of freedom."
Bride of New France examines the clash of cultures within New France, not only between the French and the Indians, who "mock the French women who are prisoners in their homes," but also among the French themselves. Some of the European-born filles du roi and the Canadiennes (French women born in New France) have radically different perspectives. Priests, nuns, newly arrived "brides" and hardened former soldiers who eke out a living by farming and trapping develop conflicting assessments of their small, struggling colony.
While most Frenchmen demonize the fearsome Iroquois, for example, Madame Rouillard, a plainspoken innkeeper and midwife, insists they are no different than other men. As for the Jesuits who have sailed to the New World in hopes of converting the Indians, Bouillard says it is a foolish notion because "the God we bring from France is just as lost as we are on the winter trails of this country." Desrochers' description of Laure's first winter in New France is especially harrowing.
Laure is disillusioned by the shallow, greedy adventurers she encounters in Ville-Marie (the future Montréal), including Mathurin, whom she grudgingly marries and quickly grows to despise. As a group, they are "the worst-looking peasants she has ever seen, only they have been bolstered by the fresh air and plentiful food of the New World. The language they speak sounds like the snarl of fighting dogs." She seems to share the view of the Jesuits that France has constructed "an unholy mess" in Canada, where boisterous settlers "do nothing but drink and fight." As Madame Rouillard explains, "the price we pay for freedom is that we have to live here."
Laure's husband proves to be a feckless lout who is often away from home, living among the Indians and bedding their women. Lacking a loving spouse or children of her own, Laure falls back on her reserves of strength and her intimate but troubled relationship with Deskaheh, an Iroquois man who was raised by the Algonquins.
Desrochers sprinkles her narrative with just enough French words and phrases to provide context and an air of authenticity -- terms such as parvis (the square in front of a church), fille courageuse (brave girl) and bijou (jewel: the Salpêtrière nickname for girls like Laure who can read and embroider).
In a 2011 interview with A Bookworm's World, Desrochers, who is Canadian, said she was surprised to learn that many filles du roi came from the Salpêtrière. "I had thought they were good country girls looking for decent husbands. My childhood impressions changed completely when I realized that many were basically poor, institutionalized urban women who had little choice in the matter."
While most Frenchmen demonize the fearsome Iroquois, for example, Madame Rouillard, a plainspoken innkeeper and midwife, insists they are no different than other men. As for the Jesuits who have sailed to the New World in hopes of converting the Indians, Bouillard says it is a foolish notion because "the God we bring from France is just as lost as we are on the winter trails of this country." Desrochers' description of Laure's first winter in New France is especially harrowing.
Laure is disillusioned by the shallow, greedy adventurers she encounters in Ville-Marie (the future Montréal), including Mathurin, whom she grudgingly marries and quickly grows to despise. As a group, they are "the worst-looking peasants she has ever seen, only they have been bolstered by the fresh air and plentiful food of the New World. The language they speak sounds like the snarl of fighting dogs." She seems to share the view of the Jesuits that France has constructed "an unholy mess" in Canada, where boisterous settlers "do nothing but drink and fight." As Madame Rouillard explains, "the price we pay for freedom is that we have to live here."
Laure's husband proves to be a feckless lout who is often away from home, living among the Indians and bedding their women. Lacking a loving spouse or children of her own, Laure falls back on her reserves of strength and her intimate but troubled relationship with Deskaheh, an Iroquois man who was raised by the Algonquins.
Desrochers sprinkles her narrative with just enough French words and phrases to provide context and an air of authenticity -- terms such as parvis (the square in front of a church), fille courageuse (brave girl) and bijou (jewel: the Salpêtrière nickname for girls like Laure who can read and embroider).
In a 2011 interview with A Bookworm's World, Desrochers, who is Canadian, said she was surprised to learn that many filles du roi came from the Salpêtrière. "I had thought they were good country girls looking for decent husbands. My childhood impressions changed completely when I realized that many were basically poor, institutionalized urban women who had little choice in the matter."
