The Children

"There now," Marie-Jeanne said, sitting back on her heels with an amazing amount of grace when one considered the way the boat rocked and pitched. "That's better, isn't it?"

Angelique snuffled a bit longer before coming to terms with the fact that her sister--older by two years physically, but much more emotionally--would no longer be doling out pats and reassurances. "I suppose," she sighed. "When will we be free from this dreadful boat?"

La Ville d'Archangel had departed St.-Malo on August 12, 1785, but the family had not left from there; they had embarked at Nantes, after having gone to gather up their step-father's widowed mother Marguerite. Their step-father was heard to say (when he thought the children were not listening) that he would not abandon his mother to "the coming terror." Whatever that meant. At the moment, Angelique could not think anything would be more terrible than the ship they were on. The rations were getting smaller and smaller, and she could no longer recall a time when she wasn't hungry. But then, whenever she did eat, she felt sick, and only kept herself from expelling her food by meditating on the fact that she wasn't sure when she might eat next.

Marie-Jeanne was worried, and said as much to Jean-Louis, who was 11 and heir to the family name. Indeed, his sisters had come to the conclusion that Louis (as they called him) was truly head of the family now, since their mother had remarried and taken another name, one that was not theirs. No, the siblings had decided that it was the three of them now against the world. They would none of them have left France if they'd had the power to refuse.

"Angelique is always ailing," Louis told Marie-Jeanne now with some impatience. He was hungry, too, and also not completely well, but he felt the burden to be strong for his sisters' sake. "She is too frail by half. She should never have come; none of us should."

Marie-Jeanne agreed with this, but felt there was no use in pointing it out now; complaining never solved any problems. "Maman is wrapped up in caring for Jacques," she mused. Jacques was their step-brother, only a year old.

"And dealing with the old hag," added Louis with no lack of bitterness. "They might as well both be babies, for all the howling they do."

Marie-Jeanne grimaced and left it at that. But she was pleased to notice in the following days that Louis was more attentive to Angelique than he was wont to be, and he even shared some of his rations with her in an effort to cheer her.

It was clear to any observers aboard La Ville d'Archangel that Louis and Marie-Jeanne were cast from the same mould, but those same sightseers would have been surprised to learn that Angelique was their full-blooded sibling. Louis and Marie-Jeanne shared their mother's dark hair, and both were tall and (increasingly, as the ship sailed on) thin. Louis' eyes were dark and Marie-Jeanne's a sort of deep blue, but the siblings shared the same sharp expressions that would make any adult hesitant to speak--these two, one could be sure, would pick up and remember anything that was said within their hearing.

Little Angelique, however, was at age seven a petite beauty. She had fair hair and skin, and eyes of pale blue. Indeed, she looked the picture of her name: angelic. She did not share, however, her siblings' quick wits, nor did she inherit the steely backbone the rest of her family displayed. Everything had always been done for her, never had she been forced to deal with hardship; even when their father had died, Angelique had been sheltered from the worst of the waves of emotion that had crested over their household. Her father had been a distant figure--kind, to be sure, although when she really thought about it (which was almost never), she wasn't sure at all. Affection had come from Marie-Jeanne, and from their nurse, and maybe, if Angelique stretched her imagination just a bit, she could recall a few warm hugs from her mother and father.