In order to save her own life, Sherzad, the sea monster, offers the king the location of a sunken treasure ship in return for her freedom. Only the stoic Count Lucien believes Marie-Josèphe about the sea woman, calmly taking the sea woman and Marie-Josèphe's scientific endeavors in stride. At the same time, her slave Odelette (really called Haleed) struggles to gain her freedom. They bleed her for hysteria, the pope openly shows outrage over the impropriety of her composing a cantata, and several court men harass her on the King's hunt. Unfortunately, only Marie-Josèphe can understand the sea woman (now called Sherzad) and her musical way of talking.
THE SUN THE MOON AND THE STARS SHORT STORY FREE
Thus, Marie-Josèphe tries to convince the others at court, including her brother, that the sea woman is intelligent and hopefully free her. Father Yves brings back two specimens: one, a dead male sea monster covered in sawdust and ice the other, a live female sea monster placed in the Apollo fountain in the Palace of Versailles.Īcting as her brother's assistant, sketching the dead sea monster's dissection, and caring for the live specimen, Marie-Josèphe soon realizes the creature is not a sea monster, but a sea woman.
Her brother, Father Yves de la Croix (a natural philosopher and explorer), has recently returned from a mission commissioned by the king: to bring back the endangered sea monster whose flesh is rumoured to give the consumer immortality. Set in 17th-century France at the court of the Sun King, King Louis XIV, the young, colony-raised, naïve Mademoiselle Marie-Josèphe de la Croix is the lady-in-waiting to King Louis XIV's niece.
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