Silence of Stone

ISBN: 1550812432

Author: Beckel, Annamarie

Condition: New

Based on historical records, Silence of Stone recounts the story of Marguerite de Roberval, a young French noblewoman. During a colonising expedition to New France in 1542, she falls in love with a soldier. Jean-Franois de Roberval, commander of the expedition and Marguerites guardian, is so outraged at the disgrace she has brought upon the name Roberval that he abandons her, her lover, and a servant on the Isle of Demons, a small island in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Marguerite survives, spending nearly a year entirely alone. More than two years after her abandonment, she retu s to France, rescued from the island by a Breton fishing ship. In Silence of Stone, Marguerite at 36 is an entirely different woman from the 18-year old abandoned on the Isle of Demons, so much so that she speaks of her younger self as she. Sixteen years after her retu to France, relentlessly questioned by King Franois IIs geographer, André Thevet, Marguerite reluctantly recounts her life on the island.