I am rereading one of my own books, which has recently been republished by Open Road: Bluebird, or the Invention of Happiness. It is based on the life of the Marquise de la Tour du Pin, an Irishwoman who married a French marquis and escaped the French Revolution of 1789, thanks to her great courage. It was she who obtained the permits to leave France from Tallien, the fierce revolutionary. The family sailed from France in a one-masted boat, going to Boston during the winter months with their two small children. Lucy Dillon, which was her maiden name, was a source of inspiration to me. Brave, intelligent, and always curious, this woman of Irish origin came to America and kept her family alive by becoming a dairy farmer in the Albany area.
Yet rereading my own book about her, what struck me most was that this was above all a love story. Whoever Lucy was in real life, I had made her in love with her French husband, Frederick. Lucy, in my version of her, loved her husband despite the great difficulties of their life together. The Marquis de la Tour du Pin does not take to farming in America as Lucy does. He does not appreciate the freedom of their life on the farm, and prefers his career in France as a soldier and his books. The moment he can, he insists on their return to France to reclaim his ancestral chateau. Frederick is not a practical man and it is mainly thanks to Lucy’s intervention with Napoleon that the Marquis becomes a Prefect in Amiens. Lucy accompanies him to the Fort du Ha when he refuses to sign the papers of allegiance to Phillipe d’Orleans. Lucy and Frederick have six children, all of whom die except for one boy. Lucy eventually loses all her properties—Frederick is not good with money, her money, and she finds herself living alone in Pisa after Frederick’s death at the end of her life with her only boy.
Yet through all of this adversity, her ultimate allegiance is to Frederick. She loves him from the first moment she sees him as an adolescent when he comes to ask for her hand from her grandmother at her house on the Rue du Bac. Lucy gives birth to her little girl, Seraphine, whom Frederick catches during the birth and then has to leave precipitously, to avoid capture. Separated from him during the days of the revolution in France, she longs for her Frederick and greets him with great joy when he is able to join her for their voyage to America.
Rereading my own words, I realized how much of my own love for my husband of 40 years lies in this book. What a gift he has given me remaining at my side all this time. And how important our love for all family—our children, our partners—is.