Many thanks to Dani, of A work in Progress, for giving me the idea of this post on the early years of Gabrielle, the heroine of Mistress of the Revolution, with her wet nurse, Mamé Laborde. My heroine spent the first years of her life in a cottage similar to the one depicted above by Boilly. […]
Gabrielle de Montserrat, the heroine of my first novel, Mistress of the Revolution, is eleven years old. She has been raised first by her wet nurse, then by the nuns of the Benedictine Convent of Vic, in Auvergne. Her father has died, and she does not remember anything of her mother. Then one fine day, […]
Bravo to Suzanne for recognizing the Marquis de Sade under the guise of the ci-devant Marquis de Lacoste in Mistress of the Revolution! In this little exchange, Lacoste-Sade expresses his opinions to my heroine Gabrielle, who, in the midst of the Revolution, now prudently goes by the name of Citizen Labro. “You have no idea, […]
The research for Book 3 is leading me to explore the topic of witchcraft in 18th century French countryside. Let me simply say that, during the Enlightenment, beliefs in witches and werewolves were alive and well. The only difference with earlier times was that accusations of witchcraft were no longer investigated or prosecuted, and that […]
I deleted this scene from the manuscript of Mistress of the Revolution even before it went to publishers. Why? It slowed down the pace of the novel at the beginning, and the foreshadowing of the French Revolution was too obvious. I have no regrets, though I am fascinated by tarots and their symbolism. Note how […]
Today is Mardi-Gras, Fat Tuesday, the last day before Lent. Before the French Revolution it was the occasion for bawdy, sometimes lewd masquerades. Raucous parades filed through the streets of Paris, like the promenade du bœuf gras (“fat ox parade.”) A young boy, called “King of the Butchers” with a gilt crown, sword and scepter, […]
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