Zia Wesley's Blog: The Veil and the Crown - Posts Tagged "martinique"

As a famous songwriter once said, “What a long, strange trip it’s been,” to The Stolen Girl. I first read Aimée’s story in an obscure out-of-print book from the UK in 1971. The book gave a brief accounting of four European women who lived extremely unusual lives in the Middle East during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Actually, for any European woman to even be present in the Middle East in those days was highly unusual. Most females would only be in that situation on the arm of a husband who had either business or political reasons for making the trip. The four women in the book were there alone…two by choice and two by circumstances beyond their control.

To make it even more interesting, Aimée’s story had an unusual effect on me. As I read it, I saw it, as if remembering rather than reading it for the first time. It was very odd that her life felt like my memory. Remember, this was 1971 and women were just beginning to come into their own in this country so, it made me wonder what her life behind the heavily-guarded walls of the harem might really have been like two hundred years earlier.The more I discovered about the Ottomans, the more I wondered how she had survived and, more miraculously, how she had succeeded on such a grand scale.

I began doing lots of research and investigation, reading every book on the Ottoman Empire I could find. The stories of the Sultans were so fantastic and unlike anything I’d ever known or imagined. They were the stuff that dreams and nightmares are made of. I kept thinking what a fabulous film the story would make. It had everything I loved, sex, opulence, exotic music and clothes, interesting locales like Paris, Martinique and the Sultan’s harem in Istanbul, sea voyages on sailing ships, pirates, intrigue, murder and love! I always thought someone in Hollywood would turn it into a spectacular movie like Gone With the Wind or Cleopatra.

Throughout the next thirty years, it hovered in the back of my mind like a dream so real I never forget it. When I’d finished with careers, businesses, and marriages, I realized that writing the story was exactly what I wanted to do. My first task was learning how to write a novel. You’ll have to let me know if I succeeded. As I said earlier, it’s been quite a ride!

Aimée opened her eyes. She was lying on a narrow bunk in an unfamiliar cabin. Afraid to move, she scanned the small quarters with her eyes, making sure she was alone. She was, indeed. Her hands shook as she ran them over her body to see if her clothing and person were intact. Everything seemed to be in order, except that her heart was pounding madly and she was beginning to panic. She remembered the pirates rushing into the ship’s salon, looking into one of their faces and seeing the devil himself. She must have fainted. How long have I been unconscious—and where am I? - From The Stolen Girl – Book 1 of The Veil and the Crown by Zia Wesley

Aimée Dubuq de Rivery (born 4th December, 1768) was a French aristocrat and cousin to Rose Tascher de la Pagerie (who would later become one of the most important women in France). Aimée was born on the Island of Martinique, and spent much of her childhood on Les Trois-Islets, the sugar plantation owned by her Cousin Rose’s family. While returning home in July of 1788, from a convent school that she was attending in France, the ship she was sailing on was attacked by Algerian corsairs (pirates) who abducted her.

It is at this point where Aimée’s story moves from history to legend, as few hard facts exist. It is known that less than one year later, a young, blonde, and blue-eyed French woman became the favorite of Sultan Abdul Hamid, the aging sultan of the Ottoman Empire. That young woman was given the Turkish name Nakshidil, and gave birth the following year to a son, Mahmud, who would eventually become sultan himself. It is also common knowledge that the sultan who followed Hamid, his handsome young nephew Selim, developed a fascination with all things French, and petitioned King Louis to send French military personnel to train his Turkish troops. The French also helped the Turks build a foundry to manufacture cannon and balls. A few years later, a French newspaper, printed by a French press in Istanbul, appeared along with a French library.

Might Aimée have perished at the hands of the corsairs or did she, as legend says, rise up from the ranks of the Sultan’s harem to become the first figure of European influence in the Ottoman Empire? It is interesting to note that blonde hair and blue eyes continued to appear in the sultans of the Ottoman line right up to the last sultan of the empire in 1924.

I am sure no one remembers that I did not come to this life of my own accord. My immersion has appeared to be so complete. Few people outside these walls could ever imagine the priceless jewels that adorn my body, the numbers of those who wait upon my every desire, or the vastness of the land and wealth I own. Only a handful comprehend the power of my words, my political influence, and the public works I personally conceived of, funded and built.

While our corner of the world knew my husband's name and deeds well, the whole world now knows of my son. Yet only those who live within these walls know me. Despite the fact that I am the wealthiest woman in the world, my name is unknown. The only persons who truly knew me are gone: my cousin Rose, who died six years ago as the former Empress Josephine, and Baba Mohammed Ben Osman, The Dey of Algiers, Captain of all Barbary Coast pirates and my personal savior. Now that I am old and dying, I suddenly feel desperate for someone to know who I am. I do not wish to die as if I had never existed. I want someone to know that I did not enter this world at the age of eighteen as Nakshidil, the odalisque. Although I shall die as the most powerful woman in the whole Ottoman Empire I was born French on the island of Martinique as Marie-Aimée Dubucq de Rivery.

The Stolen Girl
Zia Wesley