3.5 out of 5 stars - Historical fiction set first in France and then in Canada during the reign of King Louis XIV.
Laure is but a young girl when she is snatched off the street by the archers and taken to the Enfant-Jesus dormitory to get religion and to be trained by the nuns. She is taken as a servant by a kindly old woman when she is 10 but is returned to the Sainte Claire dormitory after her mistress dies. She learns sewing and lace-making skills but is not content with her life and her days. She writes a letter of complaint to the King, never knowing that it will spark a chain of events that take her from one sort of prison to another.
The King wants to populate his new world known as French Canada in the years of 1663-1673 when he sent about 800 women to Canada from France to become the wives of fur traders and soldiers who were already settled there. Conditions were harsh there, and the life that Laure finds is even worse than she had imagined when she left behind her pitiful existence in the infirmary and hospital known as The Salpetriere.
I enjoy historical fiction and I had not read anything about the women known as the filles du roi sent away from France. These women were usually poor or orphaned young women who were supposedly happy to leave their lives of poverty to sail across the Atlantic and be taken up as wives to work the land in the cold, hard forests of Canadian outposts. THe savages and religious orders fought hard for control of trade and conversions.
I recommend it to anyone interested in this unique perspective of one woman's journey and life in that primitive new world.
Laure is but a young girl when she is snatched off the street by the archers and taken to the Enfant-Jesus dormitory to get religion and to be trained by the nuns. She is taken as a servant by a kindly old woman when she is 10 but is returned to the Sainte Claire dormitory after her mistress dies. She learns sewing and lace-making skills but is not content with her life and her days. She writes a letter of complaint to the King, never knowing that it will spark a chain of events that take her from one sort of prison to another.
The King wants to populate his new world known as French Canada in the years of 1663-1673 when he sent about 800 women to Canada from France to become the wives of fur traders and soldiers who were already settled there. Conditions were harsh there, and the life that Laure finds is even worse than she had imagined when she left behind her pitiful existence in the infirmary and hospital known as The Salpetriere.
I enjoy historical fiction and I had not read anything about the women known as the filles du roi sent away from France. These women were usually poor or orphaned young women who were supposedly happy to leave their lives of poverty to sail across the Atlantic and be taken up as wives to work the land in the cold, hard forests of Canadian outposts. THe savages and religious orders fought hard for control of trade and conversions.
I recommend it to anyone interested in this unique perspective of one woman's journey and life in that primitive new world.
Excellant historic novel. The book gives a very accurate accounting of life for women of this period and their hardships.
