Marguerite de la Rocque de Roberval (arrival in St. John's, Newfoundland, 7 June 1542)
The story of Marguerite de la Rocque de Roberval seems as if it must be a work of fiction, and although "fictionalized" accounts of her extraordinary life were among the earliest to be written, what happened to this young woman in the mid-sixteenth century is not a romantic tale. Hers is a remarkable story of survival against all odds.
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Marguerite de la Rocque's story was told first by Queen of Navarre, in her Heptaméron, published posthumously in 1558 as Histoires des Amans Fortunés (title page of first edition, |
Little is known about Marguerite de la Rocque before the year 1536, when she is identified as co-holder of the seigneurial estate of Pontpoint (Picardy) and when a surviving documents suggests she pledged "an act of faith and homage" ([un] acte de foi et hommage) for her principal lands in Périgord and Languedoc. Although neither of her parents has been identified, she is somehow related to Jean-François de La Rocque, sieur de Roberval, the son of Bernard de La Rocque.
While Bernard's family was primarily associated with Languedoc, his third wife, Isabeau de Popincourt, brought the title and holdings of Roberval into the marriage, and although there is some disagreement about whether Jean-François was the son of Bernard's second (unnamed) wife or Isabeau, his third, it was Jean-François who inherited the title and property after his father's death.
Roberval's nineteenth-century biographer, Narcisse-Eutrope Dionne, avoided the problem identifying the mother of Jean-François by saying that when Bernard died in 1514, he left two children, a son (Jean-François) and a daughter, Charlotte. More recent genealogical research indicates Bernard also left a second son, another Jean de la Rocque, this Jean a monk who became prior of his order in Normandy.
Just how Marguerite de la Rocque is related to Jean-François is not clear, but their relationship is crucial to her fate. That she was not Roberval's daughter is certain. Although he did marry at least once, Jean-François had no children. Surviving records indicate that Roberval had "first cousins" (cousins germains), and "close family members" (cloches cousins), but they do not clarify his relationship to Marguerite. In his detailed genealogical work on Roberval, the Québécois historian Robert Robert La Roque de Roquebrune says only that Marguerite is Roberval's "very close relative" (parente très proche), but he adds nothing further.
Despite inheriting great wealth, Jean-François found himself in financial difficulties. In Dionne's words, "his splendor attracted friends, and his prodigality a whole swarm of flatterers." And then, having converted to Protestantism, he was outlawed, along with others of the Reformed faith, in 1534. Although his close relationship with the king, François I, allowed him to return to France (and the royal court), Roberval had by then squandered much of his fortune.
It was his desperate financial situation that may have led him "to the idea of recouping his fortune in Canada." In 1540, the king appointed Roberval "lieutenant-general in the country of Canada" with the aim of establishing a permanent colony. Although Jacques Cartier, an experienced mariner, had already made two voyages of exploration to Canada, it was Roberval who was charged with founding a colony; he was to be "viceroy," with Cartier as the expedition's "chief navigator."
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| Title page of Claude Gruget's 1559 second edition of Marguerite de Navarre's L'Heptaméron (Bibliotheque nationale de France) |
On 7 June 1542, Roberval arrived in Canada, entering into the harbor of what is now St. John's, Newfoundland, and I have used that date for this post. On that day, Roberval and his three vessels met with Cartier, who was on his way back to France, the process of settlement not having gone well. Roberval ordered Cartier to return to the colony he had established, Charlesbourg-Royal, but Cartier ignored Roberval and sailed away "under the cover of darkness."
Roberval and his settlers, having arrived in Canada, were at the end of their long voyage, but it is at this point that the story of Marguerite begins. Many of the details of just what happened to her differ from one account to another, but the broad outlines of her experiences are clear. Roberval abandons Marguerite, leaving her on an island in the Gulf of St. Lawrence. Marguerite survives until she is rescued in the spring of 1544 by French fishermen. She is taken back to France.
The earliest version of what happened to Marguerite de la Rocque is found in the collection of stories written by Marguerite d'Angoulême, the queen of Navarare, and sister of the French king.* In The Heptameron, the young woman's story is recounted by a character named Simontault, a knight who is one of ten young people, five men and five women, who have been stranded during a flood and decide to pass the time by telling each other stories. Simontault says that his narrative is intended "to serve as an example to women, and to give men cause for admiration, to see in the weaker sex what weakness recoils from." But Simontault is clear that the story he tells is fact, not fiction: I "will relate what I heard from Captain Robertval and several of his company."
While Simontault thus names Roberval and even gives him a title, "Captain," he does not name Marguerite, nor does he reveal that she is related Roberval. Instead, her identity is obscured, and she is introduced as the nameless wife of a nameless "artisan" on board ship. This artisan proves himself to be a "traitor" to "his master," Roberval. Roberval decides that he must execute the traitor, but then he is overcome by "compassion" for the "tears and supplicatons" of the condemned man's poor wife and decides that he will grant the woman "what she asked" (emphasis mine): she asks Roberval to leave her and her husband on a little island, "inhabited only by wild beasts"!
The wife's request is granted. She and her husband are abandoned--the unnamed woman her New Testament with her (so of course she will be fine). The two, husband and wife, survive for a while on the island, building themselves a shelter and hunting for food, the woman with rocks, the man with an arquebus that Roberval left with the couple. The unnamed "traitor" falls ill and dies, the woman buries him, fights off animals that threaten to eat his corpse, and then, "living like the beasts as to her body, and like the angels as to her spirit, she passed the time in reading, contemplation, prayers, and orisons, having a cheerful and contented spirit in a body emaciated and half dead." But one of the vessels of Roberval's "fleet" sails by, the men onboard see her, rescue her, and take her back to France. (I can't help but add here the reacton of Ennasuite, one of the young, unmarried ladies after listening to Simontault's tale: "If beasts did not bite me, their company would be more agreeable to me than that of men, who are irascible and unbearable.")
While the queen of Navarre's work was not published until nearly a decade after her death in 1549, she most certainly would have had some personal knowledge of events--she knew Roberval well, not only through their court connections (Marguerite was the sister of François I), but also because of her support for the Reformed faith. The queen of Navarre is thus careful in the way she positions herself as she relates the story. It is distanced from the queen--it is framed as a story-within-a story and put into the mouth of the narrator Simontault.
As for the two principal actors. Marguerite of Navarre is telling this story when both Roberval and Marguerite de la Rocque are still living, In this, the first known version of the story, "Captain Roberval" is seen to have acted justly--he condemns a traitor to death. He also acts mercifully--he grants the wife of the condemned man what she asks for, to spare her husband's life. He even acts generously, under the circumstances, not only setting them down on the island, as the wife had asked, but also by leaving them a few helpful supplies, like a weapon with which to hunt. In crafting her nararative, the queen of Navarre does not have her narrator utter a single word of cricism of Captain Roberval's behavior.
At the same time, in composing her narrative, the queen of Navarre shields the identity of Marguerite de la Rocque. She does not name the woman on board the ship, nor does she reveal her social status. Instead, the unnamed woman is presented as the wife of a craftsman, not as an unmarried aristocrat. As important, the wife in the queen of Navarre's narrative is free from any fault or failing herself, her behavior under these dire circumstances serving as a model for all women.
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| François de Belleforest, Le Cinquiesme Tome des Histoires Tragiques, 1572 ed. (Bibliotheque nationale de France) |
When the poet François de Belleforest recounts the story of Marguerite de la Rocque in Le Cinquiesme Tome des Histoires Tragiques, first published in 1570, he too frames her story. In his "tragic histories," Belleforest collects a series of sensational tales, frequently focused on revenge and betrayal, especially within families (one of his tragic histories is widely cited as the source of Shakespeare's Hamlet). Belleforest then embellishes these scandalous narratives with a healthy dose of moralizing--I love the marginal notes that frequently offer his sober, pious comments on the events in the story being told.
Marguerite de la Rocque's story is prefaced by a rather long history of heroic adventurers, conquerors, and explorers, extending from Alexander the Great and Hannibal to Christopher Columbus, Vasco de Gama, and Jacques Cartier.**
Having arrived at the "great voyagers of our excellent century," Belleforest then relates the story of a "young gentlewoman" who wants to see the wonders of nature and experience "strange and distant lands" for herself. Her brother agrees to take her with him on an extended sea voyage, though he is concerned about how she will fare. The trip is full of peril--he's worried about the rigors of the voyage, of course, but he sees potential danger to his sister posed by the men who will be on board the ship.
In this version of the story, Marguerite de la Rocque once again remains nameless, but so does her brother, who is only referred to in Belleforest's "tragic history" as "the captain." Despite his misgivings about his sister's reputation and the possibility of a physical "assault" upon her virtue when she is onboard a ship surrounded by so many men, the captain takes on board a young, handsome gentleman--one who isn't rich, but who is graceful, well-read, and likes poetry (and there is a very long poem by the young man embedded in the story once the three principal characters have been introduced). Belleforest also suggests--but does not make it certain--that the unnamed gentleman "perhaps" got himself onto the ship because he wanted to appeal to the "good graces" of the captain's sister.
The demoiselle is enchanted with the young man's amorous verse, and the two are soon burned by the "flames of love." Indeed, the captain's sister becomes "the happiest gentlewoman alive," and the peculiar liberty offered them on board the ship allows them the freedom to enjoy the pleasures of one another's company. (The narrator of the story at this point inserts his own very long reminder that women must cherish their honor and that gentleman should not make an idol of love.)
The pair consider marriage, but the demoiselle knows her brother--he is a proud man who would never allow his sister to marry the handsome gentleman, no matter how beautiful his poetry. She says that they should keep their love secret. And so their idyll continues as the ship sails on an incredible journey--Belleforest includes an itinerary that carries on for pages, more poetry, and a long discourse on love before returning to our pair of lovers, who at last decide to marry par paroles de present ("by words spoken in the present," or per verba de praesentia, a legal form of marriage, the consensual exchange of vows, though not necessarily the formal marriage that would please the young woman's brother!). Despite her clandestine marriage, the demoiselle is cautious about her honor and delays consummation--much to the ardent gentleman's despair. Belleforest's marginal comments here is worth quoting: "Too much privacy causes the ruin of chastity."
But after pages and pages of the young man pressuring the young woman, and the young woman denying her "husband" (he is now identified as son mari), the lovers are finally united in body as well as in spirit, as Belleforest discreetly phrases it. And the woman becomes pregnant.
Now the captain had had his suspicions about the two during the long voyage--three months and counting--but he finally looks at his sister and sees the unmistakable signs of her pregnancy. He speaks angrily to her, accusing her of having besmirched not only her honnor but her family's name. The young woman defends herself, at last revealing that she has not ignored her reputation--she claims she has been "legitimately married," and she defends the gentleman she has married, saying he is "virtuous, honest, wise, and valiant." A long debate continues, followed by another long discussion of all the lands the captain's ship passes on their voyage.
At length (and I do mean "at length"), the ship reach a "lost" and deserted island, and the captain decides to leave the couple there. "I am not as cruel as you are ingrateful," he tells them. He leaves them some arms and ammunition, but adds something just for the "gentleman": ink and paper so he can amuse himself by writing virelays and ballads. And that's that. The young woman's brother sails away "without saying another word."
And the rest goes more or less as Marguerite de Navarre told the story. The two pray, they build a shelter, and they support one another. In a marginal note, Belleforest identifies the island where they have been cast away "the isle of demons in the western sea." Belleforest's narrative diverges from the queen of Navarre's with the woman's pregnancy, however. Some weeks after the two have been left on the island, the gentlewoman gives birth to a son--the baby's parents serve alsoas his priest and baptize him. The infant does not live long, however; since the gentlewoman has only roots and grass to eat, she cannot produce milk, and he soon dies.
Soon the gentleman also becomes ill. He composes one more lengthy poem when he feels his end approaching--more than five pages long in the printed edition--and then he dies. The gentlewoman, now alone on the island, buries her husband at the foot of a tree and awaits the hour of her own death. She cries "for several hours," before realizing that she isn't dying. She continues to live.
At last, after a year has passed, the ships that have abandoned her return, and the gentlewoman thinks her brother has come back, sorry for having abandoned her. The privations of island life have left her looking so "hideous" that the men on the ships mistake her for a monster or a phantom--maybe one of the demons on the isle of demons. They soon give up that idea when they realize "the monster" can speak French. Her brother, however, has not returned because he pitied her--God has punished him, and he is dead. The men take the gentlewoman on board ship with them, and she returns to France. Although Belleforest tells his readers that she never regains her beauty or her joy, she is "worthy of praise." She lives thereafter with dignity--and in isolation--devoted always to the memory of her dead husband.
Closing out his story, Belleforest apologizes for not knowing the names of the demoiselle, the young gentleman, or the lady's brother, even while telling his reader that "our memory" of these events are still "fresh," having taken place "hardly twenty years" before the present day. He has taken the occasion to write the story down for those whom he "wishes to please."
Whew! Belleforest's version of Marguerite de la Rocque's story is much longer than Marguerite of Navarre's--in the first edition of L’Heptaméron, it occupies just over three pages of printed text. Belleforest's version of the story runs to some thirty-five pages. Still, the broad outline of the tale is the same--the demoiselle on a ship, she is abandoned by the captain and left on a wild island, and then she eventually returns to France. In both stories, the unnamed woman is also a wife, cast away with her husband.
But many details have changed from one account to the next. The woman whom Roberval abandons in Belleforest's tragic history is, like Marguerite de la Rocque herself, a well-born woman. Her personal identity is still preserved, however, since she remains unnamed. There is the addition of a poor but attractive gentleman, his desires, the clandestine marriage, and the pregnancy. And though all of this may seem to shade the gentlewoman's honor and reputation, Belleforest ends his narrative with praise of her.
While the captain, named in the queen of Navarre's account, he is also unnamed in Belleforest's version of the story. He is, however, described as the young gentlewoman's brother. His actions may seem understandable, if not excusable--anger, disgust, and disappointment at his sister's behavior--but it is the unnamed brother who is judged badly, not his sister. And his actions are condemned not just by Belleforest (and his readers), but by God. It may be that Belleforest feels himself able to cast this judgment on the "captain" because, by the time his tragic history is published, Jean-François de la Rocque, sieur de Roberval, has died.***
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| Title page of André Thevet's La cosmographie vniuerselle, 1575 |
The third and last contemporary source for Marguerite de la Rocque's story is that of the Franciscan explorer and historian André Thevet. In La Cosmographie Universelle, published in 1575, Thevet claims to describe every part of the known world--and frequently says he has traveled to all these places himself and seen all that he describes firsthand.****
Although Thevet did travel extensively in the eastern Mediterranean and Brazil, he never sailed to North America as he claims to have done. As Marcel Trudel notes in his essay in the Dictionary of Canadian Biography, Thevet was a "bogus scholar and a naive compiler of facts." He "recorded indiscriminately everything he read or heard, while at the same time creating the impression that he himself had actually visited the countries (including North America) that he described."
Nevertheless, while Thevet may never have been to Canada, he did do his research, using published works by those, like Jacques Cartier, who had. But Thevet also included information that was not in these source works, leading scholars to conclude that he acttually "talked with explorers." Despite his "gross errors and contradictions," Thevet "accumulated data to be found in no other sources," leading at least one modern historian to refer to him "an amazing source."
And so, what does André Thevet have to say about Marguerite de la Rocque? Notably, Thevet claims to have direct knowledge not only the story but of both principals, Jean-François Roberval as well as Marguerite de la Rocque. Indeed, Thevet refers to Roberval as "my familiar" (that is, "a close friend or associate," a "person whom one knows well," Oxford English Dictionary). In his account of the expedition, Thevet writes that Roberval was following the instructions of the king to "populate" the "land of Canada" in order to benefit France--if it didn't bring François I "much revenue," then least it would gain "immortal honor" for the king, who will have "rescued" the "barbarous people" inhabiting the land from their "ignorance."
Roberval's expedition will include the experienced Cartier, Thevet writes. And Roberval will also bring along a group of people to help "populate" the new land, including some "gentlemen," "artisans of all kind," and "several women," among them Marguerite, whom Thevet describes as "a rather close relative" of Roberval's. (In a later retelling of the story, Thevet says that Roberval is Marguerite's uncle.) Among those on board is an unnamed gentleman who has decided to take part in the journey "more for the love" of Marguerite than "for the service of the king" or "respect" for Roberval, the captain of the ship.
Once on board ship, the unnamed "gentleman of good birth" wastes no time in pursuing Marguerite, his pursuit encouraged by an old servant of Marguerite's (une vielle servante), a woman named Damienne, whom Thevet describes as "a very clever bawd." Like Belleforest, Thevet is notably discreet in his account of the relationship between the young gentleman and Marguerite--he says only that the two quickly "passed beyond promises and mere words." But Thevet blames the love affair on Marguerite's old servant, claiming that it was aided and abetted by the "clever bawd" Damienne, who "played the sentinel" while the two young lovers "went about their business." Thevet says that "all this"--the behavior of the two lovers--is due to the "prompt[ing]" of the servant Damienne.
Roberval is not ignorant about what is going on--he is informed about the relationship by several of those on the ship--as carefully as the two lovers thought they were being, there is not much privacy on a ship, even if a "clever bawd" is helping you! Thevet says that Roberval is "clever and wise." Instead of reacting immediately, he "disguised his wrath," more angry at Marguerite than the young gentleman. In order to "punish her," without "wronging" her young lover, Roberval separates the two, isolating them on separate ships. His intention is to punish his young relative but not to "wrong" the unnamed gentleman. But, seeing their continued love and loyalty, Roberval "decided to give them a surprise."
As Thevet recounts this "surprise," he does not do so without judging Roberval's actions. "[B]ursting with spite," Roberval abandons Marguerite and Damienne on the "Île des Démons" (Isle of Demons), telling her "this was the place he had ordained for the penitence of her crime and of the scandal she had done him." He leaves the young woman with not one but four arquebuses and some ammunition.
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| The Island of Demons, from André Thevet, La Cosmographie Universelle, 1575 |
Marguerite's lover observes what is happening from the ship he is on board. Fearing that he will suffer the same fate, but imagining that he will be abandoned on some other island, far from his beloved, the young man gathers together quite a haul of supplies and "precipitate[s] himself onto the isle to accompany his mistress." In a note to their translation, Schlesinger and Stabler suggest this phrasing has led many later interpreters to say the young man was somehow able to swim ashore carrying all the provisions he'd gathered.
In Thevet's original, the young man is said to "throw himself" (il se lanç[a]it)--it still isn't clear just how he got to the island from the ship, but whatever he did, he did it while "forgetting the peril of death into which he was hurling himself." For his part, Roberval sails away, still angry that he had been insulted by his young relative but glad that he had gotten rid of the pair "without soiling his hands with their blood."
The young lovers seem to live happily for a while. The island is full of terrible monsters that assume the shape of wild animals, but the two manage to build a shelter, make a bed, and feed themselves by hunting and gathering. At last the demons are conquered by "the Christians," whose "constancy" and "perseverance" make them feel ashamed--the monsters continue howling horribly at night, but otherwise they leave Marguerite and her companions alone.
In Thevet's account of Marguerite's story, the young woman becomes pregnant only after she has been abandonned on the island--unfortunately, as her time of delivery nears, the young gentleman becomes ill and dies. Thevet attributes his death to his "grief and vexation" (tristesse et facherie) that, in the eight months they have been cast away on the island, no vessels passed that could help them. Following his death, so "grievous" to the young woman, she and her serving woman must defend themselves from the "ferocious beasts." The young woman becomes proficient with both gun and sword--in one day she manages to kill three bears, one of them obviously a polar bear--in Thevet's words, this bear is as "white as an egg" (aussi blanc qu'en oeuf).
The young woman gives birth to her child, a son, and baptizes him, but then she suffers another blow: her old servant, Damienne, "followed the road" of the young gentleman, dying some "sixteen or seventeen months" after they were left on the island. And then, "a short while later," the young lovers' baby dies too, leaving the poor woman all alone. Well, not quite alone, because the terrible beasts are still on the island.
Rescue finally comes some after two more months of isolation--at last, two years and five months after she was first abandoned on the Island of Demons, the young woman is rescued by some fishermen. As in Belleforest's version of Marguerite's story, they at first mistake her for one of the demons on the island--they believe the fires she sets to signal them are "illusions" created by the monsters. Once they figure out she is a woman and not a monster, they take her with them back to France.
It is in France that Thevet claims to have met with Marguerite--he visits with her in Nautron, in the "country of Perigord": when he was there, she told him all about what had happened to her. Aside from living quietly, Thevet does not say what she doing in Nautron. For that, we need to return to the queen of Navarre's first version of Marguerite's story.
Keeping Marguerite de la Rocque's identity secret, the queen of Navarre says that the sailors take the unnamed woman back with them to La Rochelle: "and there, when they had made known to the inhabitants the fidelity and perseverance of this woman, the ladies paid her great honor, and were glad to send their daughters to her to learn to read and write. She maintained herself for the rest of her days by that honorable profession, having no other desire than to exhort every one to love God and trust in Him, holding forth as an example the great mercy with which He had dealt towards her."
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| Château de La Mothe, Nontrone, France |
Marguerite de la Rocque may have first landed in the port city of La Rochelle, as the queen of Navarre says, but most of those who have written about her accept Thevet's claim that she lived in Nautron, specifically at the late fifteenth-century Château de La Mothe. Certainly the locals believe this--as of April 2026, the "small château" is for sale, its online notice making much of the story of Marguerite de la Rocque.
The dates of Marguerite de la Rocque's birth and death are not known. Neither the Dictionary of Canadian Biography nor the Canadian Encyclopedia hazards a guess about where or when she was born and where or when she died. The French version of Wikipedia offers only "fl. 1536-1542" after her name (the abbreviation "fl.," for fluroit, or "flourished," indicating active dates). Many sources, like the English Wikipedia, cite a date of 1515 for Marguerite's birth, but that seems to rely on the surviving 1536 document--it assumes that she must be twenty-one to swear her oath of fealty, but women could make such an oath at the age of fourteen. And, in any case, it is not certain that this document refers to our Marguerite de la Rocque, though it is likely her.
There are only two "certain" dates in Marguerite de la Rocque's life: she set sail with Roberval on 16 April 1542 and arrived in Canada on 7 June 1542. She may have been as young as twenty years old or as old as twenty-seven when she made that voyage. Thevet claimed she was abandoned on the Isle of Demonns for two years and five months, but he doesn't say how soon she was cast away after Roberval arrived in Canada, nor how long her return journey was. She was back in France before Marguerite of Navarre died on 21 December 1549.
Her life may have been a long one--Thevet doesn't mention her death when he published his Universal Cosmography in 1575. If Marguerite were still alive, she could have been between fifty-three and sixty. A long life.
However long Marguerite de la Rocque's life, her afterlife is very long indeed. Her story has been told and retold for more than four and a half centuries . . .
And if you buy Château de La Mothe, please invite me for a long stay!
*Marguerite d'Angoulême's collection of stories, L’Heptaméron, was first published in 1558 by Pierre Boaistuau with the title Histoire des Amans Fortunés (you can see the title page, above). The entire first edition is made available online by the Bibliotheque nationale de France, which you can access by clicking here (that should take you right to the beginning of the story--if not, it is found on fol. 157r).
Because this edition is incomplete (it includes only 67 stories, among other issues), a second edition was published by Claude Gruget in 1559. He reordered the stories, restored some of the first edition's omissions, and added the title by which we now know the work, L’Heptaméron. At times I have had trouble accessing this 1559 edition at the Bibliotheque nationale's Gallica website, but it is readily available through Wikimedia (click here). Gruget's 1560 edition is also available at the Bibliotheque nationale's Gallica site (click here). And if you're really interested, many of the manuscript versions of Marguerite de Navarre's work have also been digitized--click here, for a list, with links, provided by the Marguerite de Navarre Society.
I've made it easy for myself here (and I hope for you) by quoting from a nineteenth-century edition of Marguerite de Navarre's story collection, in an English translation, posted at A Celebration of Women's Voices; you can access the full story of Marguerite de la Rocque, as told in L’Heptaméron, by clicking here (it's "Novel LXVII").
**François de Belleforest’s Le Cinquiesme Tome des Histoires Tragiques was published in 1570 and again in 1572. I haven't found an English translation online, but the complete text of the 1572 edition is at the Bibliotheque nationale's Gallica website (click here). The translations are my own. By the way, Belleforest was associated with the French court and knew Marguerite de Navarre.
***When Marguerite d'Angoulême died in 1549, only a few years after the events she relates in her version of Marguerite de la Rocque's story, Jean-François de la Rocque, sieur de Roberval, was still alive. Roberval struggled after returning to France after his voyage, never having resolved his financial problems, and he died in Paris in 1560. By the time Belleforest published his Tragic Histories in 1570, then, Roberval had been dead for a decade. In case you were wondering, Roberval was beaten to death by Catholics when he was leaving a Calvinist church meeting . . . Yikes!
****La Cosmographie universelle d'André Thevet, cosmographe du roi was published just five years after Belleforest's tragic histories. the two men having first been collaborators and then vicious rivals. I have used the second volume of the 1575 edition available at the Internet Archive (click here). The recounting of Marguerite de la Rocque's story, translated into English, is in Roger Schlesinger and Arthur P. Stabler, André Thevet's North America: A Sixteenth-Century View (click here). I've relied on Schlesinger and Stabler's translation at times, while checking it against the original.
Andre Thevet tells Marguerite de la Roque's story a second time. The later version is in hs Le Grande Insulaire et pilotage d'André Thevet angoumoisin, which was unpublished. The part of the manuscript covering North America is available at the Bibliotheque nationale's Gallica website (click here). Schlesinger and Stabler include transcriptions of parts of the original, including Thevet's new version of Marguerite's story (click here).
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