Here’s a bit more about the real people, places, and events that figure in this book.
Louis XVI: Born in 1754, Louis was the last king to rule France before the French Revolution. Governing France wasn’t his favorite occupation, though; he preferred hunting or assembling and reassembling locks. On July 14, 1789, the day the Bastille fortress fell, Louis wrote one word in his diary to describe the day’s events: Nothing.
Marie Antoinette: Born in 1755, she became Queen of France when she was fourteen. Coming from the more relaxed Austrian court, she found the rules at Versailles stifling. She sought refuge in fashion, gardening, and interior design, but her extravagant habits made her an object of ridicule and hatred for the French people. If you want to read more about her, I’d recommend Antonia Fraser’s biography, Marie Antoinette: The Journey.
Louis-Phillipe II, Duc d’Orléans: Born in 1747, Philippe was the king’s cousin and in line to the throne of France. To help pay off his debts, he turned his magnificent Parisian palace, the Palais-Royal, into an entertainment free-for-all with restaurants, cafés, gambling halls, and gathering places for political radicals. Just after the events depicted in Enchantée, Orléans became a revolutionary, adopting the name “Philippe-Egalité”—Equality Philippe—and siding with the Third Estate (the commoners) in their grievances against his cousin the king. In an interesting twist, his personal secretary was Pierre Choderlos de Laclos, the author of the scandalous book Les Liasons Dangereuses, which Camille keeps trying to finish reading.
Fashion: Though the French court had long been seen as refined and elegant, it was Marie Antoinette who became France’s Queen of Fashion. During her reign, fashions changed so quickly that dresses needed to be restyled for every event and new hats were created overnight to celebrate current events, such as a French naval victory. The queen’s hairdresser, Léonard Autié (so famous he went by his first name), designed Marie Antoinette’s much-imitated extravagant pouf hairstyles. He sometimes collaborated with celebrity stylist Rose Bertin, who dressed Marie Antoinette and those who wished to look like her. I was inspired by Bertin when thinking about Sophie Durbonne’s career; like Bertin, many young women found new careers in the growing fashion industry, which gave them increased social status and mobility.
Money: In 1789, French currency was still primarily in coins, though that would change later in the year with the production of paper money called assignats. The basic unit of account was the livre. A gold louis was worth 24 livres; the double louis d’or, 48: the demi-louis d’or, 12. The little copper sol (or sou) was valued at 1/20 of a livre.
Balloons: In the early 1780s, hot-air balloons were all the rage. Commemorative handkerchiefs, earrings, toys, and hairstyles all celebrated these new objects of wonder and scientific achievement. In August 1783, the Montgolfier brothers, Charles and Étienne, sent a balloon up from Versailles as the royal family watched. It was the first to carry passengers: a rooster, a duck, and a sheep. The first manned flight in a montgolfière (as the new balloons were called) took place a few months later; the pilot was Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier, known to be both charming and fearless, and his copilot was the noblemen François Laurent, Marquis d’Arlandes. Soon the craze spread to England, where the dashing Italian aeronaut, Vincent Lunardi—about to crash his balloon in a field—doffed his hat to a pretty milkmaid, who took hold of the balloon’s basket and saved him. That moment was one of the inspirations for this book.
The Storming of the Bastille: Along with the Tennis Court Oath, the fall of the Bastille is considered one of the first events of the French Revolution. On July 14, 1789, crowds of people, worried that mercenary armies stationed in Paris were about to attack, descended on the old Bastille fortress in search of guns and ammunition. The fortress was also a jail, housing seven prisoners. After the armed crowd stormed the fortress, they decapitated its military governor with a knife and released the prisoners. A few days later, enterprising Parisians were selling pieces of the rubble from the fortress as souvenirs and giving tours of the interior, where a broken printing press was passed off as an instrument of torture.
People of Color in Eighteenth-Century France: Though they don’t often appear in movies or novels set in this time period, there were people of color in France in 1789. Diaspora from the French colonial empire had arrived in France from places like North America and India; slaves were often brought to France by their masters from plantations in the Caribbean. Most of their stories have gone untold, though we know a little about some of them. One such person was Joseph Boulogne, Chevalier de Saint-Georges, whose father married one of his slaves and brought her and their infant son to Paris; the Chevalier grew up to be a famous swordsman and composer. Another was Julien Raimond, born to a French father and biracial mother in the French colony of Saint-Domingue (now Haiti). Raimond moved to Paris and successfully petitioned the National Assembly to grant free-born men of color the right to vote. Last, there was the Senegalese orphan girl, raised as an aristocrat during the French Revolution, who inspired Claire de Duras’s best-selling 1820s novel, Ourika. Did a person like Lazare live in Paris in 1789? I don’t know, but he certainly could have. In Enchantée, I’ve tried, based on historical research and my own experience, to imagine such a life as Lazare’s into being.
Acknowledgments
First, to Molly Ker Hawn, the best agent an author could wish for: thank you for championing this story, always being in my corner, answering all my questions, and guiding me on this journey—for everything, really. You are magic.
To my editor, Sarah Dotts Barley, who loved (and understood) this story from the beginning, saw what needed to be done, and helped me get there. Your enthusiasm and generosity made hard work feel light. Merci pour tout, Madame B. A big thank-you, too, to my publisher, Amy Einhorn, and all the fantastic people at Flatiron/Macmillan who have made this book a real thing, especially Patricia Cave, Adriana Coada, Anna Gorovoy, Keith Hayes, Lauren Hougen, Nancy Trypuc, and Emily Walters. Thanks, too, to Jenna Stempel-Lobell for the title lettering.
Thank you to Venetia Gosling and the truly wonderful team at Macmillan Children’s Books, for bringing Camille’s adventures to the UK and beyond, and to Albatros Media, for sharing this story in the Czech Republic.
In Enchantée, the Marquis de Chandon tells Camille the history of French magic. As he describes it, Louis XIV employed a team of magicians to make Versailles the glittering palace of his dreams. I was lucky enough to have a posse of my own to help me create this story. Karin Lefranc and Rebecca Smith-Allen befriended me at my first writing conference and agreed to read for me (verdict: pretty words but no real plot). They have been with me through the highs and lows, brainstormed like geniuses, and read too many drafts of the story to count. Rebecca introduced me to an online writer’s group, The Winged Pen, all of whose members have encouraged me and been cheerleaders for this book. I want especially to thank Julie Artz and Michelle Leonard, who offered important feedback, and to Gabrielle Byrne, who read the manuscript twice, each time with love and insight. Julie and Gabrielle also whispered words of wisdom in my ear while I was querying and many other times. Thank you all for your help and your friendship.
I was lucky enough to get involved with the mentoring program Author Mentor Match in its inaugural round. My mentor, Emily Bain Murphy, was the first person outside my critique group to read the manuscript; she believed in this story all along. Thank you, too, to Alexa Donne, who shared her wealth of behind-the-scenes knowledge with me.
Merci mille fois to Alwyn Hamilton, who so generously suggested ways to improve my French. Any errors are, of course, my own.
Thank you too to the authors who so generously blurbed this book and helped it take its first steps in the world.
I would also like to express my appreciation for my friends in academia, Dr. Tita Chico and Dr. Carolyn Dever, who helped me make contact with Dr. Gillian Dow, Dr. Scott M. Sanders, and Dr. Scott Manning Stevens. Their recommendations for reading in turn helped shape my c
onstruction of French views on race, as well as Lazare’s imagined experience.
There is no ledge so precipitous that Jeff Giles cannot talk me down from it. Thank you for being just a phone call away. Thanks, too, to Bridget Hodder, who recommended I take the plunge on a change I’d long been considering.
A huge cheer to the dear and lovely friends who stuck with me—and celebrated with me—as I wrote this book. In particular, so much love to Karen Cullinane and Sonja O’Donnell, as well as Heather Liske, whose insights helped me fix a story problem at the eleventh hour.
Thank you, too, to my father, Manohar Panjabi, who supported me without needing to understand what I was doing, and to Kim Reid Panjabi and Mary Trelease. Brian Trelease was thrilled when I sold this book. Bri, I hope you are reading over my shoulder.
At the end of these acknowledgments, I come to the people who were there at the beginning: my two boys, without whom this book would not exist. Plot magician Lukas Trelease encouraged me to write this story, gave feedback, and when I was ready to throw it in the trash, helped me out of the hole. Tim Trelease believed from the beginning. He supported me day and night, through all the twists and turns that make up the writer’s life, and I could not be more grateful. I love you both.
Finally, to all of you who dream, who want more from life, who are willing to use your magic to remake yourselves and rise: this book is for you.
About the Author
Born in Sweden to Indian and Swedish parents, Gita Trelease has lived in many places, including New York, Paris, and a tiny town in central Italy. She attended Yale College and New York University, where she earned a Ph.D. in British literature. Before becoming a novelist, she taught classes on writing and fairy tales. Along with her husband and son, Gita divides her time between a village in Massachusetts and the coast of Maine. Enchantée is her debut novel. You can sign up for email updates here.
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Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Dedication
Epigraph
Paris, 1789
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Chapter 41
Chapter 42
Chapter 43
Chapter 44
Chapter 45
Chapter 46
Chapter 47
Chapter 48
Chapter 49
Chapter 50
Chapter 51
Chapter 52
Chapter 53
Chapter 54
Chapter 55
Chapter 56
Chapter 57
Chapter 58
Chapter 59
Chapter 60
Chapter 61
Chapter 62
Chapter 63
Chapter 64
Chapter 65
Chapter 66
Chapter 67
Chapter 68
Chapter 69
Chapter 70
Glossary of French Terms
Historical Note
Acknowledgments
About the Author
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
ENCHANTÉE. Copyright © 2019 by Gita Trelease. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. For information, address Flatiron Books, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, N.Y. 10010.
www.flatironbooks.com
Cover photography: paper © Cafe Racer / Shutterstock.com; woman © Katerina Klio / Shutterstock.com; ink © Kao / Shutterstock.com; gold © Dragana Jokmanovic / Shutterstock.com
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-1-250-29552-1 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-250-23951-8 (LitJoy Crate edition)
ISBN 978-1-250-29553-8 (ebook)
eISBN 9781250295538
Our ebooks may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at 1-800-221-7945, extension 5442, or by email at [email protected].
First Edition: February 2019
Enchantée Page 40