(NOTE: page numbers refer to the hardcover edition)
Mireille gets more mature as the book goes along; this is only to be
expected, since she ages from 15 to 24 (or 54, or 200, depending on how
you look at it). By the end of the book, she seems less emotional and
more scientifically-minded than she is at the beginning. But I think the
biggest change in her character is that she gets less impatient.
At the beginning of the book, Mireille is very impatient; we see this
especially when she is with Valentine, even though Valentine probably
deserves it; she says some very rude things, such as asking Talleyrand how
old he is, and whether Mme. de Staël is his lover (p. 56). Even the
abbess and David get impatient with Valentine; Talleyrand is the only
person who does not.
Even after Valentine dies, though, Mireille is still very impatient.
When Napoleon and his sister take her to Corsica, she does not want to go
at first because she can not wait to get to Algeria to find out the secret
of the pieces. She also gets impatient when Napoleon's mother tells her
the long story about Napoleon's family's involvement in the Game (p. 265).
Then, when Napoleon's mother tells Mireille she's pregnant and will have
her baby in six or seven months, Mireille becomes angry again: "Six or
seven months!" Mireille cried. "Impossible! I cannot stay here in
Corsica that long!" (p. 266).
Later, when she is in the desert, Mireille is impatient with her friend
Shahin when he tells her all the old legends of his people: "I came here
to find a secret. You know that. Instead, you tell me myths of some
red-haired woman who has been dead thousands of years..." (p. 297).
Obviously, Mireille does not yet know that the legends have something to
do with the secret she's looking for. When she does come to realize this,
Mireille begins to love the old legends and writes them down in her diary.
It takes her about four months to realize how important the legends are;
it is February 1793 when she gets impatient with Shahin, and she begins
her diary in June 1793 (p. 385). I think Mireille loses some, but not
all, of her impatience when she's in the desert; certainly, she becomes
much wiser by the time she leaves the desert.
The first big change in Mireille, however, happens between the time she
goes back to France (and kills Marat) and the time she goes to England.
Mireille knows, from Marat, that the pieces Talleyrand had sent to England
are in danger. This is one reason why I think Mireille did not really
want to kill Marat; she wanted him to tell her more about the danger in
England. (I'll say more about this in another article, on the
confrontation between Mireille and Marat.) If Mireille had been as
impatient at this time as she had been in Corsica, less than a year
before, she would have gone to England right away, as soon as Corday
rescued her from the prison. But she did not; she went back to the desert
instead, and spent quite a bit of time there. Unfortunately, we do not
know exactly how much time she spent in the desert. All we know is that
she got to England six months after Corday rescued her (July 1793-January
1794). I do not think it took a ship six months to get from Algeria to
England. So, obviously, Mireille is much more patient by now, if she
decides to wait so long before going to England. What caused the change?
It is difficult to say, but it probably has something to do with killing
Marat, and the sacrifice that Corday made for Mireille. Later in the
book, Mireille thinks about Marat and Corday at unexpected times (see p.
430, p. 432, and p. 510), so I certainly think she was affected by that
whole experience.
But Mireille has not lost all of her impatience before going to
England. Understandably, she is impatient to see Talleyrand; she cries in
the gazebo when she can't find him (p. 432). This is not the only reason
why she cries, though; there are many reasons for it: the deaths of
Valentine and Corday, killing Marat, and possibly the fact that she knows
now that she has such an important role in the Game, but she's still a
little reluctant to accept it.
The most important change of all happens between 1794 and 1798; it is
only by 1798, when she is in Russia, that Mireille fully matures.
Unfortunately, we do not know what caused the change because we do not
know what Mireille was doing in those years. (See my article on the
missing years for my own opinion on what Mireille was doing.) In 1798,
Mireille is much more in control of events than she ever was before. For
example, she says, "Napoleone is in Egypt, but not at my request.
What does he do there? How much has he learned? I want him brought back
to France." (p. 505). Mireille can actually control what Napoleon does.
Before this, it seemed that events controlled what she did; now it is the
other way around.
In the last chapter, Mireille and her friends work patiently for thirty
years, figuring out the formula. I wonder what the younger Mireille would
have thought if she had known it would take thirty years. By the end of
the book, Mireille is less emotional. I counted the number of times
Mireille cries; she cries six times between 1790 and 1794, and only twice
in 1798 or later. Both these times, it is for a very good reason: the
death of the abbess and seeing Talleyrand for the first time in seven
years.
I also think that Mireille gets to be more like Catherine as the book
goes along. Interestingly, in 1799, when she starts figuring out the
formula, Mireille is 24, the same age as Catherine in 1973, when
she starts figuring out the formula. And 24 is a multiple of 8.
Coincidence? I don't think so. Mireille is less emotional and more
analytical and scientifically-minded, like Catherine, when she is figuring
out the formula (see especially p. 541-542). There is, however, enough
difference between the two heroines that Mireille makes and drinks the
elixir, while Catherine does not.
Copyright 1997 Vicki Kondelik.