They embarked for Louisiana on a boat named The whale, leaving a Paris without hope to carry in their womb the fruits of the said New World. They were orphans or outcasts, they became mothers or nuns, for better and for worse.
In his novel Louisianathe young Julia Malye retraces the story of three women who made the journey from Salpêtrière, this establishment that is at the same time hospital, orphanage and prison in 17th century Paris.e century, to Louisiana, where their destiny is to marry and have children.
Geneviève, angel maker, was imprisoned in Salpêtrière for having performed abortions. Pétronille, a rebellious spirit, was disowned by her family. And Charlotte is an orphan. “She never knew her mother. The only somewhat maternal figure she had was the superior of Salpêtrière, who entrusted her with this mission, in which she felt invested, for once,” explains the author, met during a tour in Montreal.
Julia Malye herself, both hardworking and gifted, has an unusual background. At fifteen, she published her first novel, Tocqueville’s fiancée, where she was inspired by the story of her ancestor, for whom Tocqueville had fought a duel before coming to America and marrying an English commoner. Since then, Julia Malye studied at Sciences Po and the Sorbonne, before heading to the United States, where she obtained a master’s degree in creative writing in English.
A forgotten story
It is also in English that this Parisian wrote the first version of Louisiana. During a stay in the United States, she understood with wonder that literary creation courses were given there at the heart of a university course. “I was quite surprised to see that I could take writing classes and get college credit for it,” she says.
At the end of his Master in literary creation, she visited New Orleans and discovered the history of these women forgotten “as much by the history of France as by American history”.
There she meets a descendant of one of the passengers of The whale, this ship which brought 90 women from Paris to Louisiana, which had recorded their story in a self-published book. “I knew the story of the Filles du Roy, who left a few decades before the women of The whale. On the other hand, I had never heard of the women deported from Salpêtrière, in Paris, to Louisiana,” she says. During the search, Julia Malye will also get her hands on the list of passengers of The whale.
“It’s upsetting because in fact, there are the women’s first and last names, which are sometimes scratched or badly written, and then there is the age,” she says.
From these crumbs of history are born the three main characters of Louisiana. It is first within the cold walls of the Salpêtrière that we meet them.
Shelter turned prison
La Salpêtrière, at this time of the 18th centurye century, “it’s a bit of a utopia that has become a dystopia,” she explains. Because it was created by the king to give the destitute a roof and something to eat, but it turned into a prison system for marginalized people. Besides, it was really a city next to the city, because it was not yet part of Paris. Several hundred, even several thousand people were locked up there.”
It is to escape this that Julia Malye’s heroines end up voluntarily enlisting for Louisiana, in search of a better future, with the mission of having children for the colony.
At times, she says, “it made me think a little about the role of women, about the way they are exploited in The Scarlet Maid, by Margaret Atwood. They are married and their role is to have children. »
Through the ups and downs of these women’s lives on this side of the Atlantic, a homosexual attraction emerges, at least for two of them. “I invented this story [d’homosexualité] by trying to see to what extent each of them, depending on who they were when they left France, was able to find areas of freedom or reinvent themselves. But I do not claim to take a contemporary look at this era which would in fact betray the value system of these women. »
The project kept her busy for eight years, between numerous rewrites and rereadings and writing in English, then in French. “I had moments of distress,” she confides. Louisiana initially consisted of ten characters and ten different points of view, before expanding from 250 to 600 pages.
But Julia Malye not only has a fertile imagination, she is also a hard worker. After completing a first version in English, started during her stay in the United States, she began working on a French version once she returned to France. Because it was in French that these women lived, in New France at the time. The book, very well received in France, has already been translated into several languages. When we met, Julia Malye was preparing to launch the English version in New Orleans.
In the meantime, she has of course returned to writing, but this time in the form of an essay. After spending many years in the world of Louisiana at the time, she wanted to write about a world “where we hear telephones ringing and horns honking in the street”.