One of my childhood heroes

This post is going to be quite personnal. I'll walk you through one of my favorite fictional characters and, you guessed it, one of my childhood heroes.

This character comes from a book series (no, not Harry Potter for once, even though it was my second choice) titled "Les Colombes du Roi-Soleil" by Anne-Marie Desplat-Duc. It's targeted at young teenage girls, like I was when I started reading it. And oh boy, did it leave an impression on me.

The story is set in the late 17th century, in Versailles as the title suggests. Mme de Maintenon, Louis XIV's wife, created a "Royal House of Education", or Saint-Cyr, for noble young women and girls whose parents couldn't afford to provide for them anymore.

They were raised, fed, taught religion, sewing, French, History and dance until they were 20 years old. At that age, they could chose to become nuns or to get married with a suitor approved by the king.

Each book of this series follows another girl, all with the common point of having been in that house at some point. My favorite book (and heroine !) is a tie between the third, the seventh and the eighth. I absolutly adore every story but for the sake of this article, I'll have to choose the seventh.

This book, titled "Un corsaire nommé Henriette", is about a regular breton girl living with her classmates at Saint-Cyr. Unlike most of her peers, she doesn't feel at home there. The young ladies there are well know for their grace, beauty and obediance. Henriette is the contrary of that : heavy-boned, with a big jaw and a spirit of adventure, she dreams of nothing more than to be at sea. She manages to get out of Saint-Cyr and run away to Saint Malo where she disguises herself as a man and becomes a sailor.

What this story taught me is that it's okay to be different. Henriette was strong enough to make her dream come true in a society where it was frowned upon. It really inspired me to push through even if everyone said otherwise.

As I look back I realise that maybe this wasn't the greatest piece of litterature, but hey, it was to me when I was 8, and it really helped me develop creatively.

It also got me interested (addicted to anything from) the 17th century, which is a big part of my knowledge, personality and interests today.