Other branch
born Marie-Jeanne Chantegreil
Miette
/mjɛt/
Labourer's helper
Silvère's beloved in La Fortune des Rougon — and one of the cycle's most purely tragic figures. Born Marie-Jeanne Chantegreil, she is thirteen or fourteen years old, effectively orphaned after her father was convicted of killing a game warden during a poaching altercation and transported to the penal colonies. She is left to be exploited as an unpaid servant by a brutal uncle. She and Silvère meet secretly at the old cemetery of the aire Saint-Mittre and fall into the tender, half-understood love of adolescence. When the insurgent column forms she insists on marching with Silvère, turning her cloak inside-out to show its red lining and taking up the flag as the column's standard-bearer. Zola renders her at this moment as 'la vierge Liberté' — the virgin Liberty — an allegorical figure out of Delacroix. She tells Silvère that it feels like carrying the Virgin's banner in a Corpus Christi procession: she is a child playing at revolution, with no real understanding of what she is in the middle of. She is shot near Orchères and dies in Silvère's arms, clutching the flag. Dr Pascal, who will become the cycle's scientific conscience, pronounces her dead.
Bien-aimée de Silvère, treize ou quatorze ans. Son père, braconnier, a tué un garde-chasse et a été condamné au bagne — elle est laissée à la merci d'un oncle brutal qui l'exploite comme servante. Elle marche avec les insurgés, le manteau retourné pour montrer sa doublure rouge, portant le drapeau dont Zola fait un symbole de la Liberté. Elle croit porter la bannière de la Vierge. Abattue près d'Orchères, elle meurt dans les bras de Silvère.
Wild-haired, dark-eyed, with the tanned face of a girl who has spent her whole life outdoors and the fierce, unselfconscious beauty of someone who has never been told she is beautiful.
Wild-haired, dark-eyed, with the tanned face of a girl who has spent her whole life outdoors and the fierce, unselfconscious beauty of someone who has never been told she is beautiful.
Family & Relationships
- Lover Silvère Mouret
Engraving from the Vizetelly English translation of La Fortune des Rougon (1886) — Public domain
Appears In
Details
- Branch
- Other
- Generation
- III