The Tale-Teller (19 page)

REPORT FROM VARIN DE LA MARRE TO THE AUTHORITIES IN FRANCE, SEPTEMBER 15, 1738

Today, the fifteenth of September, one thousand seven hundred thirty-eight, Esther Brandeau, aged about twenty years, appeared before us, the Commissary of the Marine, charged with policing the maritime population of Quebec; the aforementioned girl embarked at La Rochelle disguised as a boy passenger under the name of Jacques Lafargue, on the ship Saint Michel commanded by Le Sieur de Salaberry, and has declared herself to be Esther Brandeau, daughter of David Brandeau, a Jew by race, a merchant of St. Esprit in the diocese of Daxe, near Bayonne, and herself Jewish in religion. Five years ago her father and her mother sent her away from the said place on a Dutch boat captained by Geoffrey to send her to Amsterdam to her aunt and her brother, but the boat was lost on the sandbanks of Bayonne during the moon of April or May, one thousand seven hundred thirty-three. Luckily, she was brought to shore by one of the seamen, and she lodged with the widow Catherine Churriau who was living at Biarritz, then fifteen days later she left, dressed as a man, for Bordeaux where, in this capacity and under the name of Pierre Mausiette, she engaged on a ship commanded by Captain Barnard destined for Nantes; she returned on the same boat to Bordeaux where she re-embarked in the same disguise on a Spanish boat with Captain Antonio, sailing to Nantes; having arrived at Nantes, she deserted and went to Rennes, where she found employment as a boy with a tailor named Augustin; she stayed there for ten months, then from Rennes she went to Clisson where she entered the service of the Recollets as a domestic and errand boy, and she stayed three months at the convent, after which she left without warning to go to Saint Malo where she found sanctuary with a baker named Jeunesse living close to the Great Door, where she stayed five months offering certain services to the said Jeunesse, then she went to Vitré to investigate certain things. There, she found employment under the director of the Chapel, a captain of the Queen's Infantry, where she served for ten or eleven months as a lackey, then she left this place because her health did not permit her to continue serving the director of the Chapel who was always sick; the so-called Esther then returned near to Nantes, to a place named Noisel, where she was arrested for being a thief by the misfortune of being in the wrong place but she was let go after twenty-four hours because they saw that they had been mistaken. She then presented herself at La Rochelle, having taken the name of Jacques Lafargue she boarded as a passenger on the boat
Saint Michel
, at which point we asked the said Esther Brandeau to tell us the reason she disguised her sex this way for five years, to which she replied that, having been saved from shipwreck, she arrived in Bayonne and was taken to the house of Catherine Churriau as she told us before, and there she ate pork and other meats the use of which is forbidden among the Jews, and she decided therefore from this time on never to return to her father and mother but to partake of the same liberties as Christians. This and all the forgoing comprises the testimony of the so-called Esther Brandeau, witnessed by us at Quebec this day and compiled by the said Varin.