1719​​​​

The rolling of the ship La Mutine makes my stomach churn. I am about to vomit again. My dress, caked in vomit and whatever else, is my worst nightmare come true. The people do not care whether we live or die, so why would they allow us to clean ourselves? When will it end? I have since stopped counting the days. Our bodies have the impenetrable odor that they always have had in prison, the rotten stench akin to death. In a way, we are among the living dead. No one thinks of us, nor cares.

Water leaks through the cracks and with every rise and fall, our tattered gowns are stuck to us. Chained here for God knows how long. There were 132 of us and now only sixty-two of us remain. Seventy women dead, passed on to the next life. The women could not stand the conditions and succumbed to the illnesses that ravaged their bodies, unrelenting. Unforgiving. Like the men above, who look at us with evil and contempt in their eyes. We are scum of the earth to them. Why should they care what happens to us? I still hear the crashing sounds of their dead bodies as they dumped them, one by one into the depths of the ocean. Now, I am a weary soul, all of us are the same body. We share the same maladies. We think, breathe, menstruate together.

I am sure my best friend Bernadette is thinking the same thing as me for all it takes is one look at her sorrowful face. She must be thinking of how different our lives could have been, just as I am. I feel the gentle squeeze of her hand in mine like she always does. I shiver at the thought of Bourgeois and what he had done to Bernadette. Her answer to his evil was gravely injuring him for a life in prison.

France seems so far away now, a distant memory. As a child, I lived comfortably, though I was among the poorest. I could barely heap together enough money for my family, and what little I could was not enough. As a wandering seller, I sold flowers. A bouquetière. I cried out for hours, day after day for someone, anyone to buy my white azaleas, but not a soul noticed me amid les cris de Paris. The cries of Paris. And who would? My voice was small, and it was a crowded city, cramped full of people trying to do the same as me. And I was not as charming as the other girls who had full breasts and sultry eyes, enough to charm the seedy men who would buy flowers from them. Seduction and intrigue was not something I was skilled in, nor did I have any interest in that sort of thing. All I wanted was to support my siblings who groaned for food every morning and night.

Until one fateful day when my life changed forever. I tried to tell those inspectors that I was innocent, but I knew the man who accosted me had it in for me. I did not give him what he wanted, and he took advantage of my "disobedience" by pummeling me to the ground, with the other inspector. I tried to tell them I was an honest girl, trying to make a living for her poor family. The answer I received for it was a slap on the face from the police officer. He told me to 'shut up and know your place, you cheap slut.' They were ruthless, uncaring. All because I did not choose to sleep with one of them.

The police chose not to examine my body when I told them. They could have called upon a respectable physician to do the examination. Surely that alone could have proved my innocence. I was merely eighteen years old when it happened in 1709. A decade ago. Now I am twenty-eight. I have wasted my life in Salpetriere Prison for a crime I did not commit. Royal orders on account of public prostitution, which is not true. When my family found out, they disowned me saying that they would never support a deflowered girl as their own. Even my family did not believe that I was innocent, and it hurt me the most. My flesh and blood thought nothing more of me than just another blight on society. All of it is untrue, for I, Marie Lefebvre, am still a virgin. I am innocent.

And here we women rot, hoping that the next day will be when we finally dock into uncharted territory. I do not fear the unknown, for I know that wherever we go, will be far better than a life in the shackles of prison. But for now, I must pray that I am not next. I will not be. I am determined to survive whatever hell these men think I deserve.