Books to Love: Women of Influence: Ladies of Liberty
“There are places in this world where the past still echoes in the stones.”
There is historical fiction and then there is historical fiction.
The first type of historical fiction is historical in a broad sense. The characters and events are largely fictional- they are constructed in a particular time and place, sometimes surrounding pivotal events in the annals of mankind’s existence. The authors possess a great deal of knowledge regarding the customs, rules, culture, and manners of the time in which they are writing. Therefore, when you read this type of historical fiction, while the characters may not have actually walked this earth, you as a reader are still achieving a somewhat immersive experience.
The second type of historical fiction I have found to be a bit more rare. This type of historical fiction is woven around true personal accounts. The authors of this type of historical fiction are true researchers. They have spent exorbitant amounts of time ferreting out historical minutia. While they do exert a certain amount of license in recreating specific scenes, nearly every element that they write is deeply rooted in true historical fact. In order to achieve this sort of accuracy, these authors have read extensively, contacted professional historians with specific knowledge of the subjects which they are covering, traveled to the places they are writing about, and, in some cases, even attempted to learn different languages in order to more firmly grasp the psyche and character of the people of whom they are writing.
I have read both types of historical fiction and enjoy each in turn. Today it is of the second type of historical fiction that I will be focuses on.
Click on the picture or follow this link to Stephanie Dray’s website where she has a video and written blurb, an excerpt from the book, and many other funs elements for historical fiction buffs.
As I mentioned in Books to Love: Women of Influence: The French Edition, the Marquis de Lafayette and his wife are historical personages that mean a great deal to me. I have the highest regard for their sacrifices, stances, and beliefs. And, because I am an historical fiction buff, I have lamented the deplorable lack of historical fiction dedicated to them. At the time of my lamenting, there was none.
I even joked at one point that if I wanted to read some historical fiction about the Lafayettes, I would have to write it myself.
Well, dear readers, if I could have written a book that encompassed the love these two people have engendered within my heart, it would be Stephanie Dray’s The Women of Chateau Lafayette.
Like many of the pieces of historical fiction that I gravitate to, Stephanie Dray’s The Women of Chateau Lafayette is a story told in three parts, each chapter switching between three different women’s perspectives, adding richness and understanding to each, and celebrating a synergistic culmination between the time periods.
Adrienne
Upon reading a title containing the word Chateau Lafayette, it is no wonder that one of the most preeminent characters would be the woman who married the Marquis, Adrienne de Lafayette. I have read two biographies about Adrienne, and several others about her husband; armed with that knowledge, and really loving the woman she was, I dipped my toe into our first meeting in The Women of Chateau Lafayette with trepidation. I mean, what if Ms. Dray didn’t do Adrienne the justice that I believed she deserved? There’s nothing worse than being desirous of a thing only to have it ruined when you find it.
Thankfully, I had no reason to worry. It appears that Stephanie Dray has fallen in love with Adrienne in just the same way I have.
The hinge of Dray’s novel is Adrienne. The other two women’s lives pivot around hers even though they live over a century after she died. The first obvious link is that of the Chateau Lafayette in Chavaniac where Lafayette was born and raised, and where Adrienne lived many years of her life.
However, most subtly woven throughout the tapestry of this novel is how the fiber of Adrienne’s character not only inspires these women, but also holds them accountable to a higher ideal- liberty.
We first meet Adrienne on the day of her wedding. Both she and her husband are very young, though this was not uncommon during the time in which she lived. What is uncommon is how certain Lafayette is about who he is. Many men never achieve that sort of confidence in themselves, but Lafayette had it at the tender age of sixteen. For Adrienne, her confidence took a few more years to develop, but when she learned who she truly was, there was no dissuading her. During the course of her life, there were many times in which she could have hidden her true character and no one would have blamed her; in fact, many people would commend her for being circumspect and exercising common sense. But there are times that demand the discomfort and danger of making a stand. With each opportunity to turn aside from the quest for Liberty, Adrienne set her shoulders back and stood taller. For a woman whose stature was small, history has recorded her among giants.
The retelling of events in her life is beautifully expressed, tender at times, heartbreaking at others, and always with a resilience that will leave any reader inspired. Furthermore, the attention to historical detail will provide an education in and of itself. For example, it is clearly written that the events of the French Revolution are separate from the inception of the Reign of Terror- a thing which often gets muddied in the swift study of history attained in school.
While Adrienne never stepped foot upon the soil of America, the gratitude this nation possesses for her has earned her the honorary title of one of America’s Founding Mothers. But she was also the Mother of the French Revolution, naive enough to believe that the truth and justice of such an honorable cause of liberty and self-determination for each man and woman in the world would sweep aside the pettiness of aristocratic objects. However, as she and her husband both learned through massive tragedies and almost insurmountable obstacles is that the pettiness of mankind knows no bounds nor does the insatiable quest for power by the corrupt.
While Lafayette’s Declarations of the Rights of Men and Citizens may have been embraced by the King of France with the great promise to see more wide-sweeping reform in the nation, neither Lafayette nor Adrienne counted on the political undermining of those who cared nothing for the betterment of humanity and everything for the filing of the coffers and the acquisition of power.
Yet, when all seemed lost. When Lafayette was imprisoned away from his family. When the Jacobites seized power and took all of their worldly possessions. When the infant nation of America seemed incapable of coming to the aid of one of their heroes. When family and friends were being murdered daily. When all hope seemed gone, Adrienne did the most heroic thing any person can do: she hoped.
It was this hope in the righteousness of her cause, in the ultimate triumphing of good over evil, that helped her to stand- shakily at times- and take the necessary steps in the cause of liberty. And because of her actions, the legacy of her husband remains to this day, for she affected great moves on his behalf, even at the expense of her health, and ultimately, her life.
Beatrice
Reading and learning about the extraordinary life of Beatrice Chanler was one of the unexpected delights of The Women of Chateau Lafayette. The New York 400 and all the Gilded Age splendor of those social circles has never been a draw for me. However, I was oh-so pleasantly surprises by Beatrice. What a woman worthy of remembrance!
Of course, I believe it has very much to do with her humble (and somewhat mysterious) beginnings as an impoverished actress- Minnie Ashely- who just happened to catch the attention of William Astor Chanler, one of The 400.
We meet her in the book many years later. She is a mother of two boys who are both in boarding school. Her husband has always been an daredevil and wanderer, going off to chase the next adventure. When meeting her in The Women of Chateau, she’s in France on the eve of the Great War. War talk is just talk to her, however. More important in her mind is being able to see her husband who has broken his leg in a mysterious manner. The mysterious part she’s used to; the fact that she had a premonition that it’s a rather serious injury is less common. So, purposefully putting all her concerns regarding the state of their relationship aside, she goes to see Willie.
Beatrice loves her husband. With all the bad in their marriage, she still loves him. And she’s used to all his foibles and faults, too. When he tells her that he wants her to return to America because there’s going to be a war, she implores him to go with her. He refuses, instead, telling her that when his recovery time is over, he’s going to make himself useful and aid in the war effort in France.
When she expresses a desire to be of use, he derides her. That derision works the opposite effect. Rather than return to America to tend to hearth and home, Beatrice returns to U.S. soil with a bee in her bonnet.
She will be of use in the war effort. And, dear readers, boy-oh-boy is Beatrice Chanler of use. This is where Lafayette makes his appearance- in spirit, of course. Beatrice founds The Lafayette Fund which among other endeavors was responsible for sending Lafayette Kits to the front filled with necessities for the soldiers in the trenches. During the course of the war, over a million Lafayette Kits were sent to France. Several times Beatrice accompanied their treacherous trans-Atlantic voyage. In fact, she narrowly missed being aboard the Lusitania.
Beatrice understood two things when she invoked Lafayette’s name. First, she knew that the Marquis de Lafayette represented the cause of Liberty for which the Frenchmen were once again taking up arms. And secondly, she knew that there was not a single member in The 400 whose heartstrings would not be pulled by invoking a Founding Father’s favorite- Lafayette. (George Washington spoke of Lafayette as a son.)
Beatrice, like Colonel Charles E. Stanton understood that America had a great debt to France because of Lafayette. Therefore, when France needed help to withstand the encroachment of tyranny, Beatrice saw it as a patriotic duty to come to the aid of Lafayette’s people. The indelible bond forged between American and France, symbolized most aptly by Lafayette, must be honored. Beatrice Chanler believed this and put herself in harm’s way on more than one occasion in order to honor it.
Beatrice’s contribution was not just for the war effort, though. Her desire to stand ally with Lafayette and his people birthed something wholly unexpected within her. It was she that established a preventorium, school, orphanage, and museum at the Chateau Lafayette. And that leads us quite nicely to our last character in the Stephanie Dray’s book.
Marthe
The only character within this novel who was not once a living and breathing woman is the character of Marthe, whose life unfolds during the bleak and uncertain times of Vichy and later Nazi occupied France. However, Stephanie Dray did indeed form the character of Marthe from a variety of historical sources.
While one would expect that the hardest historical information to procure and research would be from the time of Adrienne, it was actually what transpired at the Chateau Lafayette during World War II that was the hardest about which to find accurate, detailed information. Even though much of the records from that time no longer existed, Dray was able to gleans lots of information about what transpired during that time at the chateau. Regardless of what she discovered, there were no names attached, such was the furtive nature of those who worked in the resistance of the fascists and Nazis.
As Dray says herself,
“These mysteries presented a real challenge. I had overwhelming evidence that heroic acts took place at and around Chavaniac— often by women and often in Lafayette’s name, as the true story of Lafayette’s stolen statue and the Secret Army of Lafayette attests— but I couldn’t know who the heroes and heroines were. ”
What was Stephanie Dray’s solution? She created a character who embodied many of the characteristics necessary to participate and facilitate many of these heroic acts.
That is Marthe. We meet her as an aspiring artist from the chateau. She was raised there, one of the first Lafayette babies to be brought to the chateau by Beatrice Chanler herself. Marthe has learned and thrived there and now the world is open before her. She dreams of Paris and studying art in-depth and becoming a true artist.
However, the unstoppable tide of the second world war destroys all those dreams. Rather than going to Paris, she remains as a teacher at the chateau.
On the directives of government mandates, Marthe is handed a complex commission by the head of the chateau to do an in-depth study of Adrienne de Lafayette. This is when we begin to see the slow and subtle transformation of Marthe from a woman who is angered by the cessation of her dreams to a woman who must take a stand against tyranny. As the Vichy government’s grip becomes tighter and tighter, controlling what can and can’t be taught, Marthe finds herself doing something she never thought she would- she becomes political.
Through a series of events, she finds herself in league with the Resistance, forging papers and ferreting messages. What is the most exciting to me about this all is that fact that Dray was so thorough in her research that nearly every event or situation she chronicles did actually transpire. Whether it involved a woman named Marthe is the only mystery that remains.
Marthe is an homage to the countless, nameless women who risked life and limb for liberty. What she witnesses, what she suffers, the anguish she feels when injustice steamrolls over everything dear to her is what must have been felt by the few who, like her, did all they could to rescue men, women, and children. Furthermore, it is through her time spent with Adrienne in the Chateau as she sketches and sculpts the Mother of the Revolution, that the ideals for which Adrienne dedicated her life begin to inspire and gird Marthe with the strength necessary to take her own stand.
All of these women are fully fleshed out. Stephanie Dray does not render any of them saints. Their doubts, struggles, faults, and largesse are fully explored, which makes The Women of Chateau Lafayette all the more worthy of the read. For, it’s a mirror, allowing us to see how even the fractured and imperfect ones in the world can affect great and lasting change when they ally themselves with righteous causes.
The Women of Chateau Lafayette is a celebration and an homage. It celebrates the indefatigable and irrepressible cry of freedom within every person. Its an homage to the great sacrifices so many people made in the quest to heed that call.
Liberty echoes through the pages of history. It is both a war cry and a clarion call. What this book clearly expresses is that no matter how few may answer its call, it will never be silenced. For The Women of Chateau Lafayette, that cry began in America and echoed across the sea. It’s cause was taken up whole heartedly by Gilbert and Adrienne de Lafayette. Regardless of the pressures to abandon it, they would not. Rather, the harder the times became, the more trenchant they became. Liberty had rooted so deep within their souls that to deny it would be to extinguish the very life within themselves.
That fire burned so brightly and fiercely that generations later, its warmth still lingered within the walls of the chateau where they had once walked. It inspired countless others, Beatrice and the ubiquitous Marthe, amongst them, to take up its torch and carry it forward.
“Because the world always snuffs out fire, and every generation must bring light from darkness again.”
Have any of you, dear readers, read this book yet? Or, if not this book, have you read one that lingered like this one has with me? Please share about in the comments below.
