Isola

by Allegra Goodman

you guard against doing, saying, or thinking anything that will anger God.

My guardian was my father’s cousin, Jean-François de la Rocque de Roberval, and he was a great man because he had been the King’s boyhood friend. My father had been greater still, or so Damienne had told me. As for my mother, she had royal blood. However, my guardian had the advantage because he was living.

That means he will not separate us.” I asked, “Why would he want to?” She sighed. “Why do men like him do anything? Because they can.”

If you want to be considered wise, behave wisely and chastely. Be humble to all. Be truthful, courteous, and amiable…

“Yes. He waits upon the King.” My guardian followed the King’s progress to beg for a commission. A word, a fair wind, funds to start, and Roberval might sail again—but we had no news of him. — In August, the garden was warmer than our rooms. Walking there, we turned our faces to the sun, and we saw gnats and mayflies. How like ourselves, said Madame D’Artois. How frail every living thing. Roses shatter; winged insects live a single day. She said, Do not depend on anything but providence, and she told us parables of those I called the deadly virtues—patience, humility, and diligence. “Not deadly,” Claire protested. “Of course they are,” I told her. She said, “But they are the qualities we require

Vanity, vanity, taught Madame D’Artois. Everything we treasure has a price. And everything we have will slip away. She told us we were dust and our lives brief as grass. We might understand this if we were truly wise—but I lacked wisdom.

And this was New France, which Cartier called Canada, an isle so rich it was an empire in itself—but its greatest gift was the wide river—for ships might sail to the Spice Islands and China by this northwest passage.

soothe him. But he told me, “Listen.” “What

oranges from Spain.

“Those who know their faults are truly wise,” the Queen said. “And those who have endured the worst have most to teach. Do not say, then, that your story does not deserve retelling. Tell me, rather, how I might reward you for offering what you have learned.”