Black, The Dark of Ages Past

Athena

March 1828
Paris

"You are looking dazed again, Ismérie. Could it be that the eyes are wandering?" The young woman whom the name belonged to looked up, her eyes meeting the amused gaze of her companion. The duo was most definitely of the many grisettes that wandered the streets of Paris. They had been hanging laundry to dry for the family they worked for.

"And whom could I possibly be starting at, my dear Mirielle?"

Now it would perhaps be proper to interject at the moment to give the reader an idea of these two grisettes.

Ismérie Amelina Azélie Chénier had a name as noble as her personage. Her hair was dark brown and hung in loose curls right below her shoulder blades. Her face was angelic to say the least, especially her brown eyes that seemed to hold some form of smoldering passion; had Paris been asked to choose between Aphrodite, Hera, Athena, and Ismérie, the decision perhaps would have been much harder though the last would not have been able to offer him much aside from her toiling. Despite her label as a grisette, she refused to let herself waste away to poverty. She always kept herself neat and presentable; her body was always clean. At a young age, her mother, Madame Chénier, had taught her to care for herself; an unhealthy body was a quick way to decay. 

Mademoiselle Chénier had not always been towards the bottom of the barrel; her grandfather had been born to a wealthy family and had traveled to Canada and then south into what was now the United States to increase his wealth in the fur trade. He married a Mdewakantonwan woman  and was blessed with advantages and a son. The Chénier family returned to France when her father was a teenager. During Napoleon's reign, her father had been bestowed the title of Baron due to his bravery on the battlefield. This however, broke the bond between father and son; the father banishing the son. Despite this, the Chénier family lived in comfort and ease and Ismérie astutely remembered the plentiful food and the brilliance of her former home, making her resentful of her current situation. She had been born in the middle of Napoleon's reign and scarcely remembered his downfall. In the household, the effect of his fall from power came upon them slowly. For a time, the family had been able to live in relative comfort with the money Monsiuer Chénier saved. 

But, all good things come to pass; her parents were lost in one of the many small pox outbreaks that occurred in Paris and she was sent to live with her father's parents. They too left the world not long after and she learned that her inheritance had been lost five years prior to her current situation. Her savior was that gift called education; she could read and write beautifully, her mannerisms both in speech and appearance were that of a lady rather than a street urchin, and she had a mind for philosophy. When she wasn't working, she was reading; not romance, but the ideas of Anna Barbauld and Jean Jacques Rousseau. She declared herself an ardent supporter of the rights of men and women; her passion had come to the point where she rejected the social norms of the inferiority of women and devoted some of her energies to the advancement of her sex as well as the downtrodden proletariat.

Her companion, Mirielle, was a stark contrast to the former. Her face was attractive, but she was nowhere near that of Ismérie. Yet, she held no hardness in her heart towards her dear friend. Whereas, Ismérie had enough fire to fight, Mirielle was contented with her current life. The grisette had been born into poverty; she had no warm memories of her parents. Mademoiselle Mirielle had been raised within the confines of an orphanage ran by the Church. There, she was well cared for and educated. There were plenty of friends to be made and she occasionally spent her summers in the country by the charity of the Church's patrons. She was pious and firmly believed that her situation was God's plan. She did nothing to fight it. Her skin was pale; her blonde hair thick and straight. Blue eyes looked upon others warmly rather than with disdain. She believed in charity and took pains to help those less fortunate that herself. Mirielle was also rather neat in appearance, believing cleanliness was close to godliness. Her manner of speaking was rather proper though sprinkled with slang of the streets of Paris. She too, could read and write, but read nothing other than the Bible. Ismérie would suggest to her friend that she joined a convent and become a sister, but Mirielle believed herself unworthy of the title. She paid no mind to politics and instead focused upon living as God would permit her to.