Bride of New France by Suzanne Desrochers Read Free Book Online Page B

ago, Laure had worn this same cloak over a blue dress that was lent to her by Madame d’Aulnay’s cousin. After the funeral, the cousin sent Laure back to the Salpêtrière, saying she no longer needed a servant in the house. How deluded Laure had been to think of herself as the daughter of a wealthy woman. She would never be such a thing.
    For Mireille’s funeral, Laure has no special dress to wear. This time the funeral Laure is attending feels like her own. She still has no appetite. Seeing Mireille Langlois’s dead face at the Hôtel-Dieu has left Laure feeling too light for the world around her.

    The little chapel is so crowded each morning that the girls joke they will burst its walls when they all start singing. This makes them sing louder. Soon they will start building the Eglise Saint-Louis, over which Laure saw the men and the architect deliberating on her way to see Mireille. It will be large enough to hold a morning Mass for all the new women entering the Salpêtrière each day. Also, it will have more space for all the residents with a few coins still jangling in their pockets who want to be buried inside the church. These are the same old couples that when alive give business to the stalls in the Cour Saint-Louis of the Salpêtrière. In the meantime, the little chapelSaint-Denis is crowded each morning and reeks of the rotten bodies of the pensioners who have saved enough money to be buried in it. No amount of flowers or incense can cover the smell of the dead.
    Laure usually finds going to morning Mass to be the most frightening part of her day. She is glad it takes place at quarter past six in the morning so she can put it behind her for the rest of the day. The only interesting part about going to church is the chance to hear a good story. If she prays at all in the stuffy little building, it is for the ceremony to end so she can follow the other girls of the Sainte-Claire dormitory into the fresh air and sunlight for the short walk to the dormitory before the start of the workday. But today Laure appreciates being trapped in the chapel. The priest’s Latin murmurings are a perfect echo for the whisperings of her own mind. When she walks up the aisle, she sees the bodies wrapped in shrouds. There are three of them, but Mireille’s is not among them for fear her disease might be contagious, which is ridiculous, Laure thinks, since she died of starvation really. But the hospital administrators are so afraid of the poor residents and their diseases. The day before yesterday there had only been one. Madame Gage stands beside Laure and Madeleine for the Mass.
    She knows the story going from ear to ear today is the one of Mireille Langlois’ life. Her father was a prince , a washing girl says. It was her mother who couldn’t stand to see her. So pretty. Couldn’t have her around the house after the father died. She’d never get a second husband. Had to get rid of her . Usually Laure is glad to hear these exaggerated, invented stories. She would run the rumours around in her head, adding new details, while her fingers repeated hundreds of minuscule stitches in the basement throughout the long workday. But today Laure wantsto scream at all the indifferent girls who are hungry for the usual entertainment. Unaware that one day, maybe sooner than they think, it will be their body lying near the altar, covered and silent. What kind of stories will they want to leave behind? Their lies make her sick.
    Mireille is being buried along with two other women and a boy. The priest assures the dozen or so people gathered that one of the stinking mounds had died a quiet death, an old death. The best kind. The other woman had died in childbirth. There was no mention made of the baby. Presumably, it had survived and was fighting it out with the tough little bundles known as the enfants-trouvés . If a child of the crèche lived through its first year, it was because they were able to get the greatest share of the milk of