Suzanne Desrochers grew up in the French-Canadian village of Lafontaine on the shores of Georgian Bay, Ontario. She is currently completing a Ph.D. thesis at King's College, comparing the migration to colonial North America of women from Paris with those from London. She also wrote her M.A. thesis on the filles du roi, combining creative writing and history, at York University in Toronto. Bride of New France is her first novel. She lives in Toronto with her family. |
BRIDE OF NEW FRANCE
Laure Beausejour grew up in a dormitory in Paris surrounded by prostitutes, the insane, and other forgotten women. With her friend Madeleine, she dreams of using her needlework skills to become a seamstress and one day marry a nobleman. But in 1669, Laure and Madeleine are sent across the Atlantic to New France as filles du roi. The girls know little of their destination, except for stories of ferocious winters and men who eat the hearts of French priests. To be banished to Canada is a punishment worse than death.
This haunting first novel explores the challenges that a French girl faces coming into womanhood in a brutal time and place. From the moment she arrives, Laure is expected to marry and produce children with a brutish French soldier who can barely survive the harsh conditions of his forest cabin. But through her clandestine relationship with Deskaheh, an allied Iroquois, Laure discovers the possibilities of this New World.
Chapter 1.
The commotion in the courtyard below reaches Laure when she steps into the Sainte-Claire dormitory. There is only Mireille lying in the long room of tightly made beds when Laure enters with Madeleine. The two girls have been given special permission by the dormitory governess to sit with their sick friend for a few minutes before returning to their needlework lessons. Laure doesn’t really believe that Mireille is ill and refuses to show her any sympathy. She knows that Mireille is just trying to get out of her last month in the workshop. Mireille found out last week that she was going to marry an officer stationed in Canada. He is a young and handsome man and wealthy enough that Mireille will not ever have to return to the Salpêtrière. While Laure has been struggling to learn new point de France stitches, Mireille has been feigning sickness, the distant soldier’s locket tucked under her pillow. Still, Laure is happy to have an excuse to come up to the empty dormitory. With no offi cers around, she can talk freely without being hushed or told to start reciting the Pater Noster.
Madeleine rushes past the window toward Mireille’s bed at the end of the room. She has brought with her, in the pocket of her dress, an ounce of salted butter that she saved from lunch. She takes out the melting pad and brings it to Mireille’s lips.
“Why are you feeding her your lunch? She already gets wine and meat with her pension.” Laure can’t stand to look at Madeleine fussing over Mireille as if she were a blind kitten in need of milk. How can she be the one getting attention when she already has more than the others? Laure walks to the window and looks down at the dozens of people gathered in the courtyard of the Maison de la Force. They have come today to watch the city’s prostitutes being transferred to the Salpêtrière.
The girls of the Sainte-Claire dormitory are forbidden to observe these women. Even mentioning them is punishable. The administrators say that observing the prostitutes will taint the morals of the Bijoux. They fear that the years of shaping these carefully selected orphans will be lost by one glance at the ill-reputed women. The Superior herself has told them that their melodic voices singing Ave Maris Stella and Veni Creator will be spoiled, and that the stitches the Bijoux’ fi ngers have been trained to produce in imitation of Venetian lace will unravel in the coarse company of the filles de mauvaise vie... Read More
"a wholly original example of social history at its best"
–John Barber, The Globe and Mail
“a fully imagined but deeply grounded novel”
–John Barber, The Globe and Mail
“Bride of New France will not silence critics of the new social history, nor is it meant to. But if they do want to bring the past alive for a new generation, as they typically claim, they could never find a text more likely to engage the minds and imaginations of young people, especially girls, who have grown immune to the conventional narratives.”
–John Barber, The Globe and Mail
“A moody, beautiful piece of historical fiction.”
–Dana Medoro, Winnipeg Free Press
“Fans of historical novels that look for colour and romance will most likely enjoy this novel, and for the chance to visit a relatively over-looked setting in Canadian history, so in the end did I.”
—Toronto Star
“The novel does an excellent job with sensory details…. The various settings–the Salpetriere, the boat that takes the women to Canada, and New France itself–are finely drawn.”
—Edmonton Journal
“Desrochers’ descriptions are vivid and unforgiving.”
—Quill & Quire
“Desrochers has given history’s silent filles du roi a voice.”
—Quill & Quire
"Suzanne Desrochers brings a novelist's eye to a subject –the filles du rois of seventeenth century Quebec –which is deeply embedded in the mythology of French Canada and ought to be better known in English Canada. Hers is a bold and intimately imagined re-creation, through the eyes of her resourceful heroine, of this fascinating historical episode."
—Philip Marchand
"Bride of New France is a gorgeous historical debut, in no small part because Suzanne Desrochers's superb imagination brings this period of Canada's story to vivid, vivid life."
—Joseph Boyden
