Marie-Angélique Memmie Le Blanc: Difference between revisions
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Revision as of 10:19, 13 July 2012
 | This article may require copy editing for non-fluent translation. (July 2012) |
Marie Angelique | |
|---|---|
| Born | birth name unknown 1712 Wisconsin, USA |
| Died | December 15, 1775 (aged 63) |
| Other names | The Wild Child of Champagne The Maid of Châlons The Wild Child of Songy |
| Known for | proven case of feral child |
Marie Angelique was a famous feral child of the 18th century, known as the "Wild Child of Champagne", "The Maid of Châlons" or "Wild Child of Songy". Although some feral child stories are fictive Marie Angelique's life is documented with several references. She was born in 1712 in current Wisconsin US state area and died in Paris in 1775. After several events, she moved from America to France where, in 1721, she became feral until September 1731 when she has been found in Songy in Champagne. After her entrance into society, she succeeded in learning to read and write, also unique among feral children.
A huge error was made in the book published in the 18th century. The book gave her 10 years when she was found at Songy instead of 19 or 20. Her birthday was changed by Mgr Cazotte to give her a better chance to being accepted as a novice.
Her story is known through separate counts by writers of her time, the most important of which are Charles Marie La Condamine and Mme Hecquet,[1] as well as contemporary studies by Julia Douthwaite[2] and Serge Aroles.[3]
In the beginning of the 21st century her life is still known in some English speaking countries but has been almost forgotten in France. Some TV series[4] and radio shows[5][6] figured her and a comic book is under preparation (expected publishing date in 2013 for French version).[7]
Biography
Serge Aroles has made a deep documentation compulsion, analysis and synthesis about feral children and especially Marie-Angélique. He published thirty documents among about a hundred he had found. According to his work on the topic Marie Angelique is the only proven case:
- Of a child who survived 10 years in forest. This long surviving period can be explained by her education. Indeed she was a native American from the Fox tribe in Wisconsin and had been given as a gift to a French noble Lady, Mme de Courtemanche, in 1718 and lived among to the French settlers at Fort Ponchartrain on Brador Bay for a while. We can expect she so learned to swim, to hunt and got every needed skills who helped her to survive in forest during this period.
- That can be certified thanks to different references. She went from Canada to Marseille, France, in 1720; stayed there during one year before escaping during the Great Plague of Marseille. Then she lived and moved to French forest and has been captured in September 1731 in Songy in Champagne at 700 km - 435 miles - north of Marseille, where forest areas were small.
- Of a feral child found showing neither social behavior nor human language who succeeded in a complete intellectual rehabilitation, having learned to read and to write. Some texts she wrote have been found and a list of her goods, made one month after her death, proves she had several books at her home.
Several books about Marie Angelique life had been published when she was alive and later but many mistakes appear as the mention she was from Labrador instead of Wisconsin, or that she was 10 years old instead of 20 when she was captured in Songy, or that she died poor at 30 whereas she died at 63 (15 December 1775), quite rich thanks to a regular donation from the Queen of France. Archives and modern history methods allowed to correct these mistakes.
In his book about the wolf-child Serge Aroles summarizes Marie-Angelique life as following:
- "These archives prove that the only feral child who survived in forest during 10 years without a definitive deterioration of her physical capacities or her mind, is a Native American from the Fox tribe who was bring to France by a Lady who unfortunately board in Marseille during Black Death pandemic of Provence in 1720".[8]
- "Escaped during this pandemic she could (should in the original text) have been the victim, Marie-Angélique walked thousands of kilometers through the forests of the French Kingdom before being captured in 1731 in Champagne region, then in a great condition of wild behavior. During these 10 years she did not live with wolves but survived despite them by resisting to their attacks thanks to a wood club and a steel weapon she founded or stole. When she has been captured this hunter blackish colored girl, haired, clawed was showing some characteristics of regression (she was kneeling down to drink water, she had regular eyes movements, as nystagmus, showing she was in permanent alert). However this girl passed an extreme challenge harder than surviving in coldness environment or fighting against wolves: get back a human language after 10 years of mutism".[9]
- "Despite the fact that the archives prove she was 19 years old when she has been captured, a current printed text told she was 10. This huge mistake, strongly spread, blocked historians' researches during 3 centuries to find her origin as it was necessary to look for her birth and arrival in France in older archives. Her intellectual rebirth has been important: she learned to read and write, became a monk for a while in a royal abbey, became poor, has been economically rescued by the Queen consort of France (spouse of Louis XV), refused love of a educated candidate, maintained a dignified behavior face to her long illness due to asthma and died quite rich as the inventory of her goods shows it".[10]
- "Monboddo, a Scottish philosopher, interviewed Marie-Angélique in 1765 and considered her as the most extraordinary people of her time. However this woman has been forgotten and has been replaced by characters from fiction."[11]
References
- ^ Homassel Hecquet, Marie-Catherine (1755). Histoire d'une jeune fille sauvage : trouvée dans les bois à l'âge de dix ans (in French).
- ^ Douthwaite, Julia V. (2002). The wild girl, natural man, and the monster: dangerous experiments in the Age of Enlightenment. Chicago History of American Civilization Series. University of Chicago Press. p. 314. ISBN 978-0-226-16056-6.
- ^ The biography of Marie-Angélique, with 30 facsimile of archives documents and shelfmarks of hundreds other archives hold in France Aroles, Serge (2004). Marie-Angélique (Haut-Mississippi, 1712 - Paris, 1775). Survie et résurrection d'une enfant perdue dix années en forêt (in French). ISBN 2-915587-01-9.
- ^ Is metionned as example in TV serie, Fringe (2009), Inner Child, Fox Broadcasting Company
{{citation}}: Text "04" ignored (help); Text "07" ignored (help) - ^ Template:FrFerrand, Franck (2011). L’Énigme des enfants sauvages.
{{cite book}}: Text "04" ignored (help); Text "14" ignored (help) - ^ Template:Frde Fontenay / Bougrain-Dubourg, Elisabeth / Allain (2012). Les enfants sauvages.
{{cite book}}: Text "01" ignored (help); Text "22" ignored (help) - ^ Template:Fr - Transclusion error: {{En}} is only for use in File namespace. Use {{lang-en}} or {{in lang|en}} instead. Jean-David Morvan/Aurélie Bévière, Gaëlle Hersent (2013). Marie-Angélique, la fille sauvage de Songy. ISBN to be defined.
{{cite book}}: Check|isbn=value: invalid character (help) - ^ Original version : "Ces archives attestent que l’unique enfant qui eût pu survivre une décennie en forêt sans altération irréversible de son corps et de son esprit, fut une petite Amérindienne du peuple des Renards (actuellement les Fox ; États-Unis), emmenée en France par une dame du Canada qui eut le malheur d’aborder à Marseille lors de la grande peste de 1720."
- ^ Original version : "Évadée lors de la terrible épidémie dont elle eut dû être la victime, Marie-Angélique parcourut sur des milliers de kilomètres les forêts du royaume de France, avant d’être capturée en Champagne, en 1731, dans un fort état d’ensauvagement. Durant cette décennie, elle n’a pas vécu au sein des loups, mais survécu au péril de ceux-ci, s’étant armée d’un gourdin et d’une arme métallique, volée ou découverte. Lorsqu’elle fut capturée, cette chasseresse noirâtre, chevelue, griffue, présentait certes des éléments de régression (elle s’agenouillait pour boire l’eau et ses yeux étaient animés d’un battement latéral permanent, tel un nystagmus, stigmate de sa vie dans l’alerte), toutefois, cette enfant avait triomphé d’un défi inouï, non tant la lutte contre le froid, les loups et la faim, mais bien le combat de préserver son langage articulé, fut-ce après une décennie de mutisme, de parole envolée."
- ^ Original version : "Alors que les archives assurent qu’elle était âgée d’environ 19 ans lors de sa capture, un texte imprimé lui attribua la moitié de cet âge. Cette erreur monumentale, infiniment reprise, ayant empêché, depuis trois siècles, les enquêteurs de découvrir son origine, attendu qu’il fallait chercher sa naissance et sa venue en France dans les registres antérieurs d’une décennie. Sa résurrection intellectuelle fut majeure ; elle apprit à lire et écrire, devint un temps religieuse en une abbaye royale, tomba dans la misère, fut secourue par la reine de France, épouse de Louis XV, refusa un amour qu’un lettré lui offrait, fut tant digne lors de son ultime maladie, un asthme aux longues asphyxies, et mourut assez fortunée, son inventaire après décès en faisant foi."
- ^ Original version : "Considérée par le philosophe écossais Monboddo, qui l’interrogea en 1765, comme le personnage le plus extraordinaire de son époque, cette femme d’autrefois est tombée en notre oubli ; elle s’efface, depuis plus de deux siècles, derrière toutes les héroïnes de la fiction."