A REAL FRANCOPHILE
Sandra Gulland revels in digging into the culture and history of France. In her latest novel, The Shadow Queen, she finds inspiration in the court of the Sun King, writes Peter Robb.
THE SHADOW QUEEN
Sandra Gulland (Harper Collins)
The court of Louis XIV in 17th century France was a magnet for the rich and powerful.
Versailles also oversaw a burgeoning culture that featured, among others, great playwrights like Racine, Moliere and Corneille.
The court of the Sun King still has the power to attract today. For the writer Sandra Gulland, it has become a bit of an obsession that has spawned two delightful books of historical fiction. The first, Mistress of the Sun, focused on Louise de la Valliere, the mistress of the king. The second is called The Shadow Queen and it focuses on Claudette, a young daughter of the theatre who finds herself in the court at Versailles, as the mistress's maid, making ends meet for herself and her widowed actress mother and her disturbed brother.
Gulland is a bit like the Monarch butterfly. She splits her time between the quirky and interesting Eastern Ontario town of Killaloe and an equally unique town in the central highlands of Mexico called San Miguel d'Allende, and was born in the U.S. but left there after the assassination of Robert Kennedy and took up residence in Canada.
She is a devoted Francophile who revels in digging into the culture and history of France. Her first trilogy of books focused on the life of Josephine Bonaparte. In her Mexican home she, for example, is active in a French conversation group with people from France, Mexicans who are trying to learn French and people like her who are unafraid of taking le beau risque.
When Gulland comes to writing a new book, character is at the forefront.
“For me it always begins with a character that I am intrigued to follow. Louise drew me into this period of time and as I was researching her life I came upon the life of Claudette and one obsession led to another.”
The 17th century was a dynamic, fragmented period full of war, pestilence and instability. There was also the fruits of the northern renaissance. And there was the Sun King.
It was interesting getting to know him, Gulland says, “although that is hard. Louis was born and raised on a stage so he learned to guard his private life. I've always come to know him through the people around him.”
And then there was the life of the street, especially in the flowering of French theatre.
The theatre at that time was extremely dynamic. Gulland's hero- ine was part of that world. “Corneille, Moliere, Racine, these were all her people. It was very exciting getting to know them up close and personal.”
Gulland didn't like history in university because it was boring military and political history.
“I took the requisite courses and I had a hard time with them because I would fall asleep. So it wasn't until decades later when I was working at what was then Methuen in Toronto and I was an editor and I had an idea to develop a line of biographies for young adults.
“So I went to the children's library in Toronto and got out a
What I have learned from studying history so closely is a realization that nothing is forever ... it’s not comforting.
biography and it happened to be about Josephine Bonaparte. And that was a revelation, that history happened to real people like you and me. That introduced me to the notion of history being alive. One thing led to another and every book led to another passion.”
As a writer of historical fiction she reads a lot, but sometimes a little luck is involved.
“I was very lucky for Shadow Queen. I was in Paris doing research and I posted on my blog that I couldn't find where the Marais Theatre had been and I got an email out of the blue from John Golder who happens to be the foremost authority on 17th century Parisian theatre out of the blue. He provided me with a reading list. I would pepper him with questions. It all amounted to a master class on the subject."
She dug deep into her subject reading, for example, three books alone on the audience in 17th century French theatre.
“I just loved the theatrical world, although it was impoverished and scorned.”
The players were scorned by the church. They weren't allowed the sacraments or a church burial. They weren't allowed to marry and were condemned as devils. Nevertheless they were extremely popular with the people. There was even a bench for the bishops in the theatres.
When Claude takes up an offer to join Louis's court as confidential maid to the king's mistress, she discovers that court is not a respectable place. It was the ultimate theatre and her training suited her very well, Gulland says.
The proliferation of historical fiction today dates to the publication in North America of the Civil War novel Cold Mountain, Gulland says.
“That turned everything around; all of a sudden I was getting offers for my books. Publishers had seen there was an interest in literary historical fiction.”
Read and writing history also educates, Gulland says.
“What I have learned from studying history so closely is a realization that nothing is forever. So when I look at governments and countries, these are more fragile than they may appear. It's not comforting but it is a perspective.”
Gulland started writing at 40 when she realized that “I had always wanted to write a book and if I didn't start it would never happen.”
Five novels published, she is working on a sixth, this time a young adult novel set in the Napoleonic era.