She was never to forget. She would always remember. They would
haunt her always. Something prophetic stirred in her . Someday you will
remember all this ; someday when
time has caught up with these swift
running feet and all of you in this room are scattered to the four
winds. The author must of thought her great aunts hidden past would
make a good subject for a novel , ever since she had spotted the French
womens gravestone as a child cracking nuts on the family
tombstones in New England. Henriette Desportes - Deluzy was a
remarkable person in her own right who got caught up in the Praslin
murder case , which was notorious in the nineteenth century. The book a
best seller in its day was a vindication of Henriettes rights and a
historical drama, based on real people, written in three sections, it
follows French history at the time of Louis-Phillippe when Henriette
becomes the governess to the younger children of the
Duc and Duchesse
de Praslin who are unhappily married. The romantic portrayl of the
duc's personality is a bit incongruous with the facts of the brutal
murder, even though there is a hint of the possibility of terrible rage
earlier on. The book seems to become more alive as the author comes up to
the time when she can look at the public records of the trial in Paris
and consult
people who actually knew Henriette latter on in America.
Where she goes to start a new
life after the trail and then marries a church minister ten
years her junior, who is also a member of the successful Field family,made famous by their work with TheTrans-Atlantic cable. An early forerunner of the internet. Their happy
married life finally gives meaning to the beautiful title that they
could have all this and
heaven too. There are interesting insights in Rachel Fields work that say more about the author and her family than she lets on, such as how the minister had a bird of paradise by his hearth when he expected a dun coloured or more plain a hen to live with as his wife than the exotic Henriette, but then after she dies he remarries about eighteen months later.
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