The Hangman in the Mirror by Kate Cayley

Set in 18th century (1700's) New France, The Hangman in the Mirror presents a fictionalized account of the true story of Francoise Laurent who was sentenced to hang for stealing from her employer, Madame Pommereau.

Told in the voice of Francoise, the story begins when she has just turned fifteen-years-old. Living in poverty with her father who is a soldier and her mother who is a washerwoman, Francoise must deal with both her parents who are drunk most of the time. She wishes for a better life and desperately wants to move up in Montreal society. 

The novel opens  on  Francoise Laurent's fifteenth birthday. with her father giving her a mirror. The mirror, traded from a peddler for the buttons on his military jacket, is small, cracked along one side in a tarnished and battered frame.

With her mother a washerwoman, their kitchen is always filled with steam, grease, sweat, and soap. Hanging from everywhere in the room are smocks, dresses, sheets and pillowcases. While most of these are threadbare, her mother shows her the fine line and lace of one order - that of a well-to-do lady who has had many stillbirths. Her maid brought the clothing in the night to be cleaned. 

One night Francoise is startled awake by her father who tells her to go get Mathilde, the midwife as the baby is coming early. Sadly Francoise's mother gives birth to a baby boy whom they call Christophe and he is buried the next day. 

After the death of her brother, Francoise's father, who had been taught to read by a priest in France, teachers her to read. One day after playing a silly game with Marie and Isabelle, both of whom she frightened terribly, Francoise came to understand the power of words. "I thought about words. Words, it seemed, were power, even for those with nothing in the world...Words could make things true, conjure things that had no existence. I thought that was a useful thing to know. Perhaps words could be a way out, for I knew I must find a way out of this life somehow, and not through a husband, though I should not mind one if it was someone I liked in himself." She was determined to be someone who did well in this new land.

In the summer, Montreal is hot, humid and smelly. In August Francoise overhears a young maid telling the peddler that people are sick with smallpox. Francoise watches the young maid, who works for the Pommerau family, buy hair ribbons from the peddler. She asks the maid how she can become a maid and the girl tells her that she must clean herself up and that she needs someone to recommend her, stating that she is of good character and a hard worker. Back at home that night Francoise's mother becomes ill but not with smallpox but with measles. As both her parents soon become ill, Mathilde sends Francoise to her home to change and wait there so that she also does not become ill with measles. However, after five days, Mathilde returns home with the news that both of Francoise's parents have died.

When both her parents die during a measles epidemic, she refuses to take over her mother's washing business. Instead, a family friend, Mathilde goes to see her father's commander and forces him to write a letter of introduction for Francoise so that she can seek employment as a maid in the home of the wealthy Pommereaus.

Madame Pommereau agrees to take on Francoise, who leaves behind her impoverished past for the comfort of her employers home. But from the beginning things do not go well. Francoise is sharp and not likeable and she immediately gets off to a bad start with the other servants in the house. Gradually and with patience, Madame Pommereau trains Francoise to be her maid. They develop a sort of distant relationship but when Francoise becomes too familiar one day, Madame reminds her that she is a servant. This angers Francoise, who decides to get revenge. That revenge takes the form of stealing Madame's beautiful black silk gloves. Once her wounded feelings heal, Francoise decides to return the gloves but not soon enough. Her crime is discovered and when Madame Pommereau tells her husband, he decides to press charges and have her tried. To make an example of Francoise in the new colony, she is sentenced to hang for the theft of a pair of gloves.

Now in prison, Francoise learns that the hangman has died and that no one has yet stepped forward for the position. One day a young man is moved to the cell beside her own. She learns from this man that he is a soldier who was imprisoned for fighting and killing a man in a duel. Francoise remembers what Madame once told her, about how a woman may escape being hanged. She forms a plan and begins to work it. Will she be able to save her neck from the noose?

Discussion

The Hangman in the Mirror is set in Montreal, New France in the 1700's is a fictional account of a real event that occurred in Montreal in 1751. 

In 1750 Francoise Laurent was twenty-years-old and was the daughter of the drum-major of Montreal, Guillamme-Antoine Laurent. She was found guilty on October 26, 1750 of stealing clothes from the Pommereau home where she was employed as a maid. She was sentenced to be hanged. Her sentence was confirmed on March 12, 1751 by the Conseil Superior but her execution was stayed due to the death of the executioner. Jean-Baptiste Duclos had died on December 28, 1750 and his replacement had not yet been found. And so Francoise Laurent remained in a prison cell in Quebec.

Meanwhile Jean Corolere had come to Canada in the autumn of 1750 and was a drummer in the grenadier and gunner company. On the evening of January 26, 1751, Corolere became involved in a duel with a member named Coffre from his company of soldiers. The duel ended with Corolere nicking Coffre in the hand, ending the duel and both went back to the tavern in Saint-Jean to drink. However, when the authorities learned of the duel they arrested Corolere but were unable to locate Coffre. In France and New France, duelling was illegal. According to the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, both Corolere and Coffre were sentenced on June 2, 1751 to one year in prison while further investigation took place.

Jean Corolere was placed in a cell next to Francoise Laurent. In New France, a condemned woman could escape execution by marrying an executioner. Likewise a man could escape the death sentence by becoming an executioner. Over the next three months, Francoise and Jean Corolere became acquainted and likely formed a plan together. Interestingly, the Dictionary of Canadian Biography entry for Jean Corolere, authored by historian Andre LaChance suggests that what happened next was entirely due to Francoise Laurent, and making it seem like it was a woman's wiles that were responsible. "The young criminal decided therefore to ensnare Corolere so completely that he would be ready to do anything to marry her, even serve as hangman, a role considered dishonourable at the period." On August 17, 1751, Corolere applied to be considered executioner, a position that still had not been filled. His request was granted and the remaining ten months of his sentence cancelled. The very next day, Corolere returned with a second petition asking the councillors to allow him to marry Francoise Laurent, thus saving her from execution. Francoise Laurent and Jean Corolere were married on August 19, 1751 in the "chapel of the intendant's palace."  Corolere served as executioner for a short period of time. There is no record of the whereabouts of Laurent and Corolere after April 29, 1752.

The Hangman in the Mirror is an imagined fictional account of these events based on the above historical facts. The author, who wrote a stage play on this historical event, has taken dramatic license and created a story that is depressing and dark. History knows little about Francoise Laurent or her parents except that her father, Guillaume-Antoine Laurent was the drum-major of Montreal. In the novel, Francoise's parents are portrayed as drunkards who drink away almost every penny they make, leaving their only surviving daughter, Francoise to fend for herself. Her mother is especially reprehensible, supposedly a former prostitute in France, who has given birth to ten children, of which Francoise is the only surviving child. And at the beginning of the novel she is pregnant and drunk most of the time. The story is told in the voice of Francoise Laurent, who is portrayed as a manipulative, irreverant young girl who is generally unlikeable. Her narratvie is crass and self-absorbed. 

The novel also offers a depressing portrayal of life in New France in the 18th century. Life in Montreal is not pleasant but especially so for the very poor. Francoise describes summer in Montreal as very unpleasant. "Summer meant heat and stink, maggots in the meat, ferment in the cider, white worms and weevils all about. The smell in those hot days could make your head swim, so mixed up it was with rot, spoiled food, dirty clothes."  In such conditions it was not surprising that people became ill.

The novel attempts to contrast the various social classes that existed in New France during this period and attempts to portray what they think of one another. For example, the young maid that Francoise meets in the market tells her that the weathly ladies can do nothing for themselves.  And the wealthy think badly of those who are of a lower social class.  For example, when Madame discovers that Francoise can read the Bible - an unusual skill for an uneducated maidservant of the time - she is not pleased. Madame believes that teaching someone from Francoise's class to read is a great unkindness because it would cause that person to wish for a life they could not possibly have. "Because to read is to imagine another life, a world elsewhere, is that not true? And for a girl, especially a servant girl, to read would surely mean to learn to imagine another life, and so be dissatisfied with how she must live and what she has been born into. Surely it could only lead to unhappiness, Francoise."

Madame feels that the lower classes should be happy with what they have and accept their lot in life, never aspiring to improve themselves. Reading might widen a person's view of the world but not give them the skills to attain a better life. This opinion, along with the waste of food and other basic amenities of life in the Pommereau's wealthy home, cause Francoise much disgust towards the wealthy class of New France.

Francoise's situation serves to demonstrate the severity of the justice system in New France - a system based on the penal laws of France. In New France there were three prisons, constructed of stone and located at Quebec, Montreal, and Trois Rivieres. Both Francoise Laurent and Jean Corolere were held in one of four cells in the prison at Quebec, which was located at the Intendant's palace. While we would consider hanging someone for theft to be unjustly harsh, the strict laws in New France were to set an example and act as a deterrant to would-be criminals.  This becomes very evident when Francoise is in jail and at her trial. 

When Francoise is visited by Madame Pommereau in prison, she tells Madame that the theft of the gloves is "a little thing" and asks Madame to "end it" showing she doesn't understand the seriousness of the situation. This is not surprising since Francoise has spent most of her life stealing in order to survive. But Madame Pommereau does not see the situation the same as Francoise. "I cannot end it now. I have compromised my dignity already by coming to see you at all. I would humiliate myself to end it, and what is worse, humiliate my husband. When something is set in motion, Francoise, it must run its course. Authority, property, law -- those are real things, which it is a duty to preserve. And when offended, remedies must be sought, and punishment is now the remedy..."  In other words, authority and civil order are so important in the colony that an example must be made of a young woman who has stolen from her employer. At stake are the reputations of the Pommereaus - even if that means the death of Francoise. The judge pronounces the sentence because he believes that Francoise is an "incurably" bad young woman. The courts of this time did not take into account the circumstances of the accused.

The character of Francoise Laurent is well drawn even if it is fictional; that of a willful, manipulative, young woman who is mostly unlikeable. She is impulsive and rude and doesn't think through the consequences of her actions and how they affect others. Although she had the intent to return the gloves and is sorry, it is too late. Her actions in threatening Bertha, the servant who found the gloves, and also Madame, have made the situation even worse. This led Madame Pommereau to take the matter of the theft to her husband who decided this was a very serious offense and to have Francoise charged.

The difficulty with creating such an unlikeable character is that the reader is unlikely to care much about what happens to Francoise. However, near the end of the novel, Cayley softens the character of Francoise Laurent somewhat. "I had meant to go on, but my voice caught in my throat. Because,  speaking all this, telling the best story I had ever told, I realized it was true. Whether speaking it made it true (for that is the strangeness of words) or whether speaking it made me know it to be true, I could not tell. But in that moment, I found I loved him. He was all I had left to love, and the force of it knocked the wind out of me so that I could not speak."

The Hangman in the Mirror is a historical fiction novel with a dark, depressing tone. It is more suited for much older teen readers or even adult readers due to the language and subject matter. The author has written a play about Francoise Laurent and it probably would have been better if another writer had tackled this story for teens. As a playwright, Cayley's vision of Francoise Laurent as a devious, calculating young woman who steals her employer's gloves in a fit of anger offers an interesting story for the stage but is maybe too dark a story for a teen novel.

Book Details:
The Hangman in the Mirror by Kate Cayley
Annick Press 2011
229 pp.