(NOTE: page number refers to the hardcover edition.)
NOTE: This is from 20 years ago, before The Fire was published
The 200-year-old Mireille says, in her letter to Catherine, "You now
know a secret few people have ever learned. Even Alexander [Solarin] and
Ladislaus [Nim] have never guessed..." (p. 547). Few people--that
means Catherine is not the only one who knows. So, who else knows?
Mordecai does, certainly; after all, he had the last few pages of
Mireille's diary, which contain the secret of the elixir. Also, I think
Kamel's father, who was married to Mireille and died before the story
begins, must have known the secret; so did Renselaas, the Dutch Consul who
was Mireille's husband before she married Kamel's father. She married
both of them because she needed their protection, and I do not think she
would have kept such a secret from them. Possibly, there was someone else
who knew the secret between the time Mireille drank the elixir and the
beginning of Catherine's story, but we do not know that, since we do not
really know what happened to Mireille in those years, except for the story
that Nim and Solarin tell Catherine, about the time when they were
children.
At the end of the book, Nim, Solarin, Lily, and Harry know the secret,
because Catherine showed them the letter; I do not think Lily and Harry
knew before this. I don't think Kamel knows the secret; he was not there
when Catherine read the letter, and I don't think his father had any
reason to tell him.
Robespierre was the first person, besides Mireille and Corday, to know
that Mireille killed Marat. I am not certain how he found out, though; he
had David's portrait of Mireille, but if Mireille and Corday looked so
much alike, how did he know that the person at the trial was Mireille and
not Corday? Mireille had green eyes and Corday had blue eyes, but, at the
trial, was Robespierre really close enough to get a good look at
Mireille's eyes? The only possibility I can think of is that Robespierre
saw the 8 on Mireille's hand; Corday would not have had the 8.
After Robespierre found out that it was Mireille who killed Marat, he
told David. Then, about four years later, David told Napoleon and
Talleyrand. Talleyrand's servant, Courtiade, also knew the secret,
because he was in the room when Mireille and Talleyrand were talking, and
Talleyrand told her he knew about Marat. I also think Shahin knew that
Mireille killed Marat; in fact, he predicted it before it happened. Did
Mireille's children know? Possibly; her son might have known because of
his magic powers, but I don't think her daughter would have known unless
Mireille told her, or unless she read the diary, which mentions the scene
in the prison.
Catherine, of course, knows that Mireille killed Marat, because she
read Mireille's diary; Lily also knows because Catherine read the diary to
her. Solarin must have found out when Catherine showed him the diary on
the boat. Mordecai knows, too, because he also read Mireille's diary. I
do not think Nim, Harry, and Kamel know, since they did not read the
diary.
Copyright 1997 Vicki Kondelik.