Pure Schmaltz
Reine Schmaltz (* 1776 in Lorient as Reine-Renée Marais; † 1845 ) was the governor's wife on board the Méduse , made famous by The Raft of the Medusa .
Reine-Renée Marais was born in 1776 in Lorient, the daughter of Julien-Michel Marais and Michelle-Reine Fauvel. In 1790 she came to the Ile de France in the entourage of the Marquis de la Fayette . On March 3, 1797, she married Julien-Désiré Schmaltz in Port-Nord-Ouest (Port-Louis), Ile de France.
On April 3, 1798, their daughter Eliza Louise Schmaltz was born while her husband was on Java . It was then that she suffered from depression for the first time . After the Peace of Amiens in 1802, Reine and her daughter also moved to Java.
Julien-Désiré Schmaltz was appointed governor of Senegal in 1816 . Another depression attack, which his wife had for a year, prevented the trip to Senegal from starting.
On June 17, 1816, the Schmaltz family boarded the frigate Méduse in Rochefort . Later in the process, recent depression of the leading woman on board, Reine-Renée Schmaltz, was reported. To cheer them up, Commander Hugues Duroy de Chaumareys set course for Madeira, but even Reine Schmaltz, who was ignorant of shipping, doubted the Commander's travel plans.
After the shipwreck of the Méduse on July 2, 1816 on the Arguin sandbank , a raft was built. The Schmaltz family sat next to Chaumereys in the main sloop that was supposed to tow the raft. One of the raft survivors, Savigny, later reports: "Dans la confusion qui n'avait cesser de régner" seules deux femmes parurent supérieures à la terreur du désastre: Mme Reine Schmaltz, la femme du gouverneur, et Mlle Eliza Schmaltz, sa fille paraissaient insensibles et comme étrangères à tous ces événements "(Only two women caused confusion in this terror of the catastrophe: Reine Schmaltz, the governor's wife, and her daughter Eliza appeared insensitive and like strangers in all these events).
On July 8th the launch was discovered by the "Echo" about 35 nautical miles from Saint-Louis . The Schmaltz family landed in Sengal on July 9th unscathed.
Reine Schmaltz later went to Smyrna, now Izmir, in Turkey with her husband, who was appointed consul general . Their daughter remained unmarried.
reception
Reine Schmaltz is the main female character in novels about the raft of Medusa , for example in Franzobel's "The Raft of Medusa" and in Jonathan Miles' "Medusa: The Shipwreck, The Scandal, The Masterpiece".
In the film Le radeau de la Méduse (1998), Reine Schmaltz is played by Claude Jade .
dig
The grave of Julien-Désiré, Reine-Renée and Eliza-Louise Schmaltz is on the Parisian Cimetière de Montmartre .
Individual evidence
- ↑ Jonathan Miles: "Medusa: The Shipwreck, The Scandal, The Masterpiece," 2007
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Schmaltz, Reine |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Marais, Reine-Renée (maiden name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Governor's wife on board the Méduse |
| DATE OF BIRTH | 1776 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Lorient , France |
| DATE OF DEATH | 1845 |