Marie de Sabrevois: Difference between revisions
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In the waning days of the [[French and Indian War]] (or ''La guerre de la Conquête'') Mary is casually abducted by a secret agent of Governor-General [[Pierre François de Rigaud, Marquis de Vaudreuil-Cavagnal|Vaudreuil]] of New France, who takes her up the [[Kennebec River|Kennebec]]. The abduction is facilitated by the Governor-General's network among the [[Abenaki people]] who inhabit the woodlands from the coast over the watershed to the [[Saint-François River]] in Canada, New France. The agent is Henri Guerlac de Sabrevois, a seigneur and captain in the Béarn regiment, a "devil with the women"<ref>''Ibid''., p.109</ref> who watched Mary in Arundel with lascivious (and what we now call paedophilic) intent. She will eventually take his surname, though as he has a wife in France this is done through the fiction that she is his little sister.<ref>''Ibid''., p.459</ref> |
In the waning days of the [[French and Indian War]] (or ''La guerre de la Conquête'') Mary is casually abducted by a secret agent of Governor-General [[Pierre François de Rigaud, Marquis de Vaudreuil-Cavagnal|Vaudreuil]] of New France, who takes her up the [[Kennebec River|Kennebec]]. The abduction is facilitated by the Governor-General's network among the [[Abenaki people]] who inhabit the woodlands from the coast over the watershed to the [[Saint-François River]] in Canada, New France. The agent is Henri Guerlac de Sabrevois, a seigneur and captain in the Béarn regiment, a "devil with the women"<ref>''Ibid''., p.109</ref> who watched Mary in Arundel with lascivious (and what we now call paedophilic) intent. She will eventually take his surname, though as he has a wife in France this is done through the fiction that she is his little sister.<ref>''Ibid''., p.459</ref> |
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With the British conquest, the couple attempt to get away to old France, but are arrested at sea and interned at [[Elizabeth Castle]] until the [[Treaty of Paris (1763)]]. Attracted by the conditions of the new British province of [[Province of Quebec (1763–1791)|Québec]] under the peace, they soon return to America |
With the British conquest, the couple attempt to get away to old France, but are arrested at sea and interned at [[Elizabeth Castle]] until the [[Treaty of Paris (1763)]]. Attracted by the conditions of the new British province of [[Province of Quebec (1763–1791)|Québec]] under the peace, they soon return to America and Guerlac places Mary--now Marie--in a Montréal convent to learn, among other arts, astronomy<ref>''Ibid''., p.142</ref>. This may be how she makes the acquaintance of the director of the [[Saint-Sulpice Seminary (Montreal)]], who later proves to be a fanatically loyalist (anti-independence) spymaster, before Guerlac brings her back down to Québec City to resume their cohabitation. |
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==Counter-revolutionary Work== |
==Counter-revolutionary Work== |
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Revision as of 16:21, 28 March 2011
Marie de Sabreville is the villainess in two of Kenneth Roberts' Arundel novels--Arundel and Rabble at Arms (1929 and 1933). Conducting what we would now call Psyops together with various males in the British North American establishment, she very nearly causes the failure of the Thirteen colonies' armed Independence movement in the 18th Century.
She was written somewhat in the mold of historical figures such as Amy Lyon (AKA Emma Hart) and "Grietje" Zelle, with a dash of femme fatale from the detective fiction of Roberts' contemporaries.
Youth
She is originally named Mary and, like most of the major characters in the novel sequence, lives in the frontier seacoast village of Arundel in the Massachusetts Bay colony’s district of Maine. Her father is the alcoholic widower Mallinson, an object of local contempt who may have abused her (“Where did you learn so much about kissing?", the narrator asks her when they are both little more than children.[1]); in any case she hopes to escape him through male rescue.
In the waning days of the French and Indian War (or La guerre de la Conquête) Mary is casually abducted by a secret agent of Governor-General Vaudreuil of New France, who takes her up the Kennebec. The abduction is facilitated by the Governor-General's network among the Abenaki people who inhabit the woodlands from the coast over the watershed to the Saint-François River in Canada, New France. The agent is Henri Guerlac de Sabrevois, a seigneur and captain in the Béarn regiment, a "devil with the women"[2] who watched Mary in Arundel with lascivious (and what we now call paedophilic) intent. She will eventually take his surname, though as he has a wife in France this is done through the fiction that she is his little sister.[3]
With the British conquest, the couple attempt to get away to old France, but are arrested at sea and interned at Elizabeth Castle until the Treaty of Paris (1763). Attracted by the conditions of the new British province of Québec under the peace, they soon return to America and Guerlac places Mary--now Marie--in a Montréal convent to learn, among other arts, astronomy[4]. This may be how she makes the acquaintance of the director of the Saint-Sulpice Seminary (Montreal), who later proves to be a fanatically loyalist (anti-independence) spymaster, before Guerlac brings her back down to Québec City to resume their cohabitation.