00:01:34.380So today we're talking about Queen Marie-Louise Christophe, and she was the queen of Haiti.
00:01:39.600We talked about Haiti in the previous season where we were looking at the French Revolution,
00:01:43.460the Haitian Revolution, the American Revolution, this revolutionary period.
00:01:46.400And we talked then about the Haitian Revolution itself,
00:01:49.380but those stories we did last season kind of ended when the revolution took off.
00:01:53.400what do those people do afterwards? So we're going to get into all that in the episode. I
00:01:59.240don't want to spoil all of that. But the thing is, in Haiti, for a time, parallel to the Regency
00:02:05.800era in England, parallel to when Bridgerton was happening, there was a real court where there were0.63
00:02:11.000black royalty, where there were black people who were dukes and duchesses, and they were throwing
00:02:16.340beautiful balls and they were wearing all the outfits. But actually, this is actually happening.
00:02:22.200And who else could have written about it so beautifully except for author, Vanessa Riley, who is such a, I love speaking with Vanessa and I love reading her books because she's looking at history and she's finding the real black people who lived in these situations in their lives and imagining them or just filling out what we know from the few facts that we can get together.
00:02:41.740So in our conversation about Queen Marie-Louise, Vanessa explains her story, kind of what happened to, after, she'll explain what happens, during the Haitian Revolution, after, and then once she went in exile, this is why Vanessa's novel about her is called Queen of Exiles.
00:02:59.720Marie-Louise was always seen and treated as a queen, and it's such a fascinating story, and I'm really excited to have Vanessa back on to talk about it.
00:03:07.460and this is a conversation recorded a bit ago when this book first came out it is available now
00:03:14.060it's still in stores everywhere you should just get a copy of it so good and i got i invited
00:03:20.640vanessa back for a new kind of epilogue to this episode because on this podcast vulgar history
00:03:26.360we when we do a biographical episode usually we end it with a discussion of how does this person
00:03:33.680score in four different categories for our skin deliciousness scale and i invited vanessa back
00:03:38.180so that we could ordain queen marie louise into that scale as well because at the end of this0.57
00:03:45.140season just like on bridgerton you that's right you the listeners are gonna help choose the diamond
00:03:50.920of the season and it's going to be like dancing with the stars where there's the judge's score
00:03:55.360and then there's the audience's score so marie louise in order to be a part of this selection
00:04:00.480process for the diamond of the season. She had to have a score. Vanessa was kind enough to record
00:04:04.780with me about that. So stay tuned for this interview with Vanessa Riley and then some
00:04:09.360bonus content at the end, as we talk about and celebrate Marie-Louise Christophe, Queen of Haiti.
00:04:22.040So I'm joined today by Vanessa Riley, whose new book is called Queen of Exiles. And I am
00:04:27.820so excited to talk to you about this book and to talk to you about the main character who is a real
00:04:33.580historical figure. I have so many questions for you. But first, I just want to say welcome, Vanessa.
00:04:39.640Well, Anne, thank you for having me. And I just can't wait to talk about Queen of Exiles.
00:04:44.200There's a couple of things I want to talk about just to sort of ground everybody in the story
00:04:47.900and the history, because to understand who she is and the significance of her life,
00:04:52.020we need to talk a bit about the history of Haiti. So can you sort of set the scene of
00:04:57.140the world that she was born into? So when Marie-Louise Kovidad is born, we'll just call her
00:05:04.620Louise, she is in a blended family. She is the daughter of a hotelier owner. So her father,
00:05:13.500a free Black man, owned this very exquisite hotel in Saint-Domingue, which is the capital during
00:05:20.860that time frame. So you get a lot of Westerners coming in. They called it the Pearl of the
00:05:25.580Antilles. So she was very used to that lifestyle because her father had to cater to them. And so
00:05:33.820his daughters understood that life. But, you know, Senator Bing is a tale of two or three
00:05:39.580different factions. You have the Grand Blancs, which are the wealthiest of the wealthy. You have
00:05:46.080the petite Blancs who want to be Grand Blancs. Then you have free coloreds who are mixed race1.00
00:05:52.080children of Blancs and enslaved people who are now free. Then you have just this wave of0.99
00:06:00.340enslaved Blacks. So you have a Frenchie that could also be free Blacks, but you have also this0.93
00:06:05.340underbelly of society of enslavement. And everyone but the Grand Blancs is unhappy.0.98
00:06:39.380Well, a free man comes to the end one day. His name is Henri Christophe. He's fought in the American Revolution. He has ambitions to join the growing rebellions, but he instantly falls in love with this young girl.
00:06:54.060family keeps them apart for like two years, but they end up getting married. And now she's a
00:07:00.320soldier's wife and the rebellion explodes. All factions of Haiti is burning. And finally,0.85
00:07:08.600Jean-Jacques Dessalines commands the forces. He is able to push France away. Henri Christophe is
00:07:15.960second in command and Haiti is now free. She is now the, you know, being the wife of the general0.97
00:07:24.220who's the second in command is, you know, a lot of authority. I've read about the dinner parties
00:07:29.020and whatnot that she would hold at her house. But Henri Christophe is an ambitious man and
00:07:33.820there's discontent because Desalines has now appointed himself as emperor because he's trying
00:07:38.760to best Napoleon during this timeframe. It's a time of crisis and there is discontent because
00:07:45.020those free coloreds are upset that the black generals have all the power. The free coloreds1.00
00:07:52.660have more education. The ones who excelled in combat are with the free blacks. So there's this1.00
00:08:00.640thing between Haiti where you have coloreds and free blacks and they're fighting, they can't get0.99
00:08:06.820along. Jean-Jacques Dessalines is assassinated and the country splits into two. So the Republic0.65
00:08:12.500is in the South. The free coloreds are running that the black generals, they are running the1.00
00:08:18.200kingdom in the North and it eventually becomes a kingdom. Christoph becomes its first King0.92
00:08:23.500and his wife is the first queen. And so I gave you probably too long of an explanation.
00:13:18.640Well, Henri is selling this to the world.
00:13:21.320So when the money comes in, there's fees, there's transfer fees.
00:13:24.700That's going into his pocket, into his collection, and the rest goes into Haiti.
00:13:28.740And so there's literally there's there's points where they have to his ministers come to him like, OK, hey, man, we're going to split this up so that everybody knows what's what is the country's what is yours.
00:13:39.140But at one point, he actually has more cash on hand than the king of England.
00:13:44.040They are wealthy and property and lands and jewels. But you talk about coal, hard cash.
00:13:48.200actually has more because the lust for sugar did not stop with Haiti becoming free. It is still
00:13:56.800the drug of choice of all over the world. And the imports are within, I forget the metrics,
00:14:04.020but within a couple of years, they were exporting a great deal of sugar to the world.
00:14:10.460And I really wanted to understand where the money was coming from because that becomes such a major
00:14:14.640plot point. And it's funny talking to you about this book, you know, people listening who haven't
00:14:19.140read the book yet, the book is not told in chronological order. You're kind of, you see
00:14:24.380some of this, the time period you're talking about when Henri is so ambitious and she's being the
00:14:29.260queen. And then you're also seeing earlier and you're also seeing later. But so I think we can
00:14:35.100jump around her life a bit and it's not going to spoil the book for people, but she ends up in
00:14:39.600Europe, basically. And there's a question of how is she going to support herself? And it turns out
00:14:44.700that there is a substantial amount of money she's able to have, right?
00:14:50.500Yes, yes. And that was, it was, it was interesting rebuilding all of that, because there's, to me,
00:14:56.080it was always a disconnect. When people talk about Louise, they, I always hear poor and sorrowful,
00:15:03.480always attached to her name. And she came to my attention, one, because of the research I'd done
00:15:09.060for my previous book, but they were putting a plaque on a house in Mayfair saying that Marie
00:15:16.840Louise lived here. Mayfair is one of the most expensive parts of London. And then another house
00:15:24.360in Hastings on the seacoast. I actually was able to walk in this house and look at the view from
00:15:31.820her living room. It is amazing. These are expensive cottages. Now, am I to believe
00:15:39.700that the goodness and mercy of the English society is going to take a poor exiled Black woman and0.93
00:15:48.300put her up in all of these wonderful, exquisite, luxurious locations? Or does it make more sense
00:15:55.560that she actually has access to money? And when you look at that financing, Henri has banks that
00:16:01.020he's dealing with in America. He has banks that he's dealing with in London. When he dies
00:16:07.100unexpectedly, they're still holding on to large portions of that money. That, in my opinion,
00:16:14.300that's what she draws on. She retains the same people. They are able to make settlements with
00:16:19.500all of these banks. And that is what she has to live on because they do extensive travel1.00
00:16:24.200all across Europe. The properties that she owned or leased are immaculate. You cannot do that if
00:16:32.120you have no access to money. So she was able to rebuild. She didn't have it at first because,
00:16:37.320you know, we see her living in hotels. We see her living on the kindness of some of the
00:16:42.180abolitionists that were working with the kingdom at first. But then when she comes into her own,
00:16:48.320it's significant and she's able to live well and she's able to make sure her daughters who came
00:16:54.800with her are have the princess experience so to speak that they are treated like royals which
00:17:01.460they were this is all and you mentioned you know it's happening over the the 19th century so
00:17:07.900starting off in kind of the what we think of what I think of is like Regency England you know when
00:17:11.780I think about that time period that's the most famous country at that time and then getting later
00:17:16.160into the 19th century. And you have in your book, you include, and I think you say there are actual
00:17:22.840news clippings of stories about things. She was so well-known and so famous at the time,
00:17:28.620like as just this wealthy queen in exile traveling around Europe. It blows my mind. I've never heard
00:17:36.280of her before. I didn't know any of this, right? This completely blew my mind. And at one point,
00:18:07.460So the fact that people know she has money and they're curious, what is this woman doing?1.00
00:18:12.420How does she appear? Where is she going? You know, the the best example of how far she climbed and how far she was held in status was there was huge opera opening.1.00
00:18:26.620And I think I believe it was David Copperfield is cataloging this for his his his memoirs or his travel memoirs or whatnot.
00:18:34.040and he talks about the king of Prussia being seated in the front row and the king of Westphalia
00:18:40.640seated in the front row and then you have Madame Christophe and her daughters and then you have
00:18:45.380the prince of Prussia front row front section not hiding in the corner and sitting next to
00:18:52.620literally enemies of her husband because these are the brothers of Napoleon sitting in that front
00:18:57.560row with her and her daughters. So it's, that's the level she could, you know, money, I believe
00:19:05.660in history has always trumped race. So all our expectations that we get post, you know,
00:19:11.500Victorian sanctification and ripping away of different legacies, this is not there. This is
00:19:18.340before all of this. This is where everything is. And so the newspapers literally tell you the story
00:19:24.160that she, everywhere she went, people are following her, taking, you know, not necessarily
00:19:27.880taking pictures, but they are recording what she's doing, where she's going, who she's
00:20:03.860And I think we do such a disservice where we rationalize in our heads what we think has happened in history, as opposed to what has actually happened in history.
00:20:16.440when you were discovering these newspaper articles and other like that detail you just
00:20:22.880gave about her sitting front row I mean what what were you think like because you went into this I
00:20:29.140would imagine not knowing any of these details and then just detail after detail explaining that she
00:20:33.500was this she was literally a queen she was a queen like any other queen she was traveling around she
00:20:38.640was getting out you know she's wealthy she was respected like what was it like to discover these
00:20:44.040details? It blew my mind because I had bought into, you know, it still stopped making sense,
00:20:51.940right? I had bought into the lie that this Black woman is there with her daughter. She's poor.1.00
00:20:59.000She's ostracized from society. And I wasn't looking for a story of sadness. I wanted to see,
00:21:06.660so I was desperate to find some hope, something to show that, you know, that though there is
00:21:13.100suffering in her life, that is not her life. And then we go into it and use newspaper after
00:21:19.100newspaper talking about her jewels, talking about her going here, going to different spas. I mean,
00:21:26.800it is enormous how well documented Queen Louise is and her travels in Europe. And yet none of that
00:21:36.000remains in our present psyche. We go back to poor, sorrowful, because the kingdom fell.
00:21:43.580She was part of that kingdom. That is not that woman. This woman is so much more than the kingdom.0.94
00:21:49.920And in my opinion, everything that Henri wanted to achieve, this acceptance, she got it
00:21:57.080when she was in Europe. She was a queen, recognized as a queen. So, you know, it's,
00:22:05.200To me, we do a disservice when we don't look at the facts, when we just assume based on
00:22:13.540systemic racism that this is the way this woman is going to be treated.
00:22:17.500We make all these assumptions and we are literally putting her in a box that she was never in.
00:22:24.680And I'm not saying her life was easy by any stretches of the imagination.0.84
00:22:28.920A lesser woman might have been broken and whatnot.
00:22:31.620she kept her dignity and she marched through life with her head up not down so she was she had joy
00:22:41.980in the midst of sorrows she found victory where people wanted her to be defeated she's a woman
00:22:48.740we need to know absolutely and that's that's part of just reading this book and then I love that you
00:22:55.640put in the newspaper articles because that really is like this is true this is real like this is what
00:23:00.360happened. Because I kept reading this and I was like, how can this, how could this be true? And
00:23:04.080I've never heard anything about any of this. And what you just explained is. And that's why I love
00:23:09.440the fact that they let me put the newspaper clippings in because you got to see it because,
00:23:14.160you know, sometimes with historical fiction, you don't know what's true, what's not, you know,
00:23:17.500where, where is the author's imagination? I mean, it is fiction, right? Because I wasn't privy to
00:23:22.820these conversations. There, you do do an approximation of like, if the, if I'm living
00:23:28.040the sphere. I'm in the palace. These are the possible conversations I'm going to have.
00:23:33.000But when you see in black and white, these newspaper articles, I mean, it's, it's truth
00:23:39.980is stranger to fiction. And I was like, I'm going to have to put this in just so y'all will
00:23:44.520understand this is true. Yeah. This is real. This is happening. No, exactly. And that's,
00:23:51.740that was exactly what I, my experience when I was reading it. I was just thinking, I'm like,
00:23:54.940okay there's a part in the book where she there's another suitor who comes on the scene and i was
00:24:00.860like okay well i you know vanessa's probably imagining that she's probably making this play
00:24:04.180no no in the newspapers it's like these two people are seen together like there were rumors
00:24:08.240that he had proposed to her i'm like oh okay no that's that's also drawn from history prince
00:24:14.620buckler is another guy who's famous because for being a writer but before that he was he was um
00:24:21.820He was looking for a rich wife. He was looking for rich wife number two, but he never actually marries again after meeting Louise.
00:24:29.820So there's a change that happens. He still loves women because there are women before and after Louise.
00:24:36.780He loves women. But that whole motivation to find a rich wife to marry changes after he meets her.
00:24:42.400so it's it's there's something there's something special there and i think also her full healing
00:24:49.780from the tragedies of of what happened with henry etc and just she's still a woman even though she's
00:24:58.020queen this is honestly like even talking to you right now i'm just like i can't believe that this
00:25:04.340is a real person from history and no one's ever really written about her before
00:25:07.960originally i started to buy in until things the math was not mathing and i'm like something is
00:25:15.160wrong here and so i i expanded my search and particularly because i originally i was trying
00:25:20.980to find more meetings within the british aristocracy but when i started looking at the
00:25:27.940whole of europe because she travels so what that's where you find all these other very
00:25:32.360interesting connections and meetings and the life that she lived. She was very European in
00:25:40.420her travels, in where she lived. And so with Queen of Exiles, I wanted to give you a taste
00:25:47.000of all of this that this woman has done that we should really know about. That's the other0.99
00:25:53.940disservice. We've done a disservice to ourselves by not knowing about this woman. Or even looking
00:26:00.260at Haiti in today's lens is a society that's a struggle as opposed to what it was and what it
00:26:07.500could have been if countries had stepped up and done the right thing and kept France from coming
00:26:15.060back. I think it's in the postscript, like at the epilogue of the book, you mentioned just briefly,
00:26:22.000and we don't need to get into it a lot, but you said you do a comparison to Bridgerton,
00:26:26.500you know, the thought of having black people at these elegant balls, you know, having these
00:26:31.740titles and stuff. And you say like, that's what was happening in Haiti. And I was like,
00:26:38.040that comparison just really sat with me because, you know, there's been all these discussions
00:26:41.220about Bridgerton and with Queen Charlotte and stuff. And just what does it mean that that show,
00:26:46.060which presents a fantasy world, a fantasy version of England where black people are in the aristocracy0.73
00:26:50.200And you're saying, well, in Haiti, that was what was happening.0.98
00:26:54.800Exactly. I love Bridgerton because there's something magical about seeing this diverse cast and seeing love is love on the big screen.
00:27:06.220Right. It's incredibly magical. It's escapism and the fabrics and the beauty.
00:27:12.280And but that's fantasy. They take bits of truth. And like some of this, you know, like the fashions aren't even, you know, if you weren't be a stickler, the fashions aren't exactly Regency-esque or, you know, but that's not why we go to Bridget.
00:27:29.400We go for pure enjoyment. We want to watch the story evolve. We want to root for our people.
00:27:36.620But when we look at history, there are people to root for. There are stories to be told.
00:27:42.720And Haiti is a special place. And what they had for the exact same nine years as the Regency from 1811 to 1820 was magical.
00:28:01.180And all the lovely, intriguing court life that you love in Bridgerton, it was happening over here in Haiti.
00:28:09.620So with the same levels of opulence and the crazies and the balls and they would bring in opera troops.
00:28:16.580I mean, it was just when you read it and you realize the culture aspect that was happening, it just blows your mind.
00:28:26.300To me, I was I I constantly was like mouth open and I'm like, nobody's going to believe this.
00:28:36.180And so, you know, like I said, I that's one of the reasons I highly document things.
00:28:40.880I don't believe me. You go look at the bibliography.
00:28:43.420I mean, you look at that. There's a newspaper. Make of it what you will. But I don't know how we do it. But somehow we're going to have to evolve where the facts matter. And we can't just write things off or close our minds to things because we assume it's it would have to be this way, particularly on the acceptance of a royal woman coming from the Haitian court.
00:29:09.600One of my favorite antidotes was Prince Saunders, who was an American, went to England and actually had breakfast with the Prince Regent because his name was Prince.
00:29:21.280Prince Regent and his people didn't realize that Prince Saunders, Prince was his first name and not an honorific.
00:29:30.000And so but once again, if you come and you have titles and you have money, you are accepted into the fold.
00:29:37.420Now, it doesn't mean you're exempt from scandal or they're looking for scandal.
00:29:41.500You know, they're waiting for you to do something.
00:29:43.440But it doesn't mean you're not exempt from scandal.
00:29:45.960But there's a level of acceptance that money has bought.
00:29:49.040So this is a thing that I don't think people really realize.
00:29:53.360And then the whole history of Haiti, it was amazing.
00:29:59.200And to me, it always asks that questions.
00:33:47.060And that's the way you're describing Haiti and the way it's in the book.
00:33:49.280it's just like it was you know and that's another thing i appreciate about the way you wrote the
00:33:55.440book which is not in chronological order so in the scenes that are set during that sort of glory time
00:34:01.300when the kingdom was thriving like you're sitting there in that moment and there's not a sense of
00:34:06.900you're right there it's live it's happening you're not thinking like oh it was just a short period of
00:34:11.960time oh you know things got bad afterwards it's you can sit there and be like this is basically
00:34:16.860it felt to me so much a reading about regency england you know it's just princess and princesses
00:34:22.840and like you know who's gonna marry who and all this courtly intrigue it's not the people in it
00:34:28.040didn't know it was going to end so soon so they were just living like this was going to go on
00:34:31.860forever exactly as one would right yeah yeah because the you know the the the sugar money
00:34:39.280still coming in uh it's still funding this lifestyle um and they are are getting on with
00:34:45.940it their lives so you know they're still rebuilding pieces of haiti because of the you know the years
00:34:52.740of war they have these moments of of very high culture that to me is exciting and it's a discovery
00:35:00.100that i wanted to share and and bring you in and and you're right i wrote it so you don't feel that
00:35:06.600dread that this is oh you know looking at the clock oh only five more years only three more
00:35:11.560you. No, I wanted you to be there and to see the problems that they had within the kingdom.
00:35:17.880And then when you jump back, you see the problems outside of the kingdom.
00:35:22.120And I did want to also mention, so two other important characters in the book are her two
00:35:26.100daughters who leave Haiti with her, who are with her in exile. Can you just talk about them,
00:35:32.560their stories and how you learned about them and which details you included in the book?
00:35:36.940So she has two daughters who flee with her. The younger daughter is of a sickly nature. She's very curious about the world, very supportive of her mom.
00:35:48.580The older daughter was, I would say, the beautiful one in Haiti. She was getting the acclaim within her father's construct. She's a princess royal. And now you come to England and you want to have that social life. And this is before they're able to really reclaim their money.
00:36:10.720And so they're only put in the little boxes here. But the world begins to slowly as the money starts being recovered, beginning to expand. And, you know, they're going to parties and balls and they're wearing these expensive gowns and whatnot. And they're fitting in or so they think they're fitting in in England because, you know, they're these are very old peerages. Peerages older than your peerage. That begins to be applied.
00:36:38.220And then that whole identity of what is beauty? You know, what is what is the standard of beauty? You know, in that particular time frame, a healthy blonde girl is a is is the is the ultimate. It wasn't these little skinny things that we see right now. It's healthy girl because you can bear some babies. That was the standard of beauty. Black is not on the scale. It's not that people didn't find black beautiful. There's always been an appetite for black bodies.
00:37:06.100but this is something that's being wrestled with and so how as a mother how do you give
00:37:15.400the world to your kids how do you give society how do you and then when she gets rejected
00:37:22.620because of who she is how do you deal with and then there's always that you know like the Moses
00:37:27.600looking back with people like we we had bread back in in Egypt maybe we should go back because
00:37:34.280people thought I was beautiful and I fit in back in my Haitian world. And it's like, go back to
00:37:39.680what? They're killing anybody associated with us. And if you marry somebody with political
00:37:46.560intentions, your husband and your children will also be at risk because they're fearful
00:37:53.220that the Christophe line will reign again. There is no future for you in Haiti, not as it is.0.94
00:37:58.840how do you deal with that? And so when they finally begin to travel, the world opens up1.00
00:38:05.460more than when they were in England. And in the European stage, because now they have their full
00:38:11.760access to the money and they can go to the various places, it is back to peerages matter more than
00:38:17.900race and standards, beauty. People see beauty in people at this point. And so that is showcased
00:38:25.640in these daughters. But at the same time, how does a mother who's dealt with tragedy,
00:38:31.820knowing that her youngest daughter is sickly and that one day she may not be able to breathe,
00:38:39.800she may not wake up. How do you give her enough of this new life so that you feel like you've
00:38:46.680done everything for her too? It's a trick. It's another balance. She's back to being in a balancing
00:38:51.400act? How do I show the proper amount of attention to each daughter? I love both of my daughters,0.96
00:38:56.560but because of their needs, they take different parts of me. They require different amounts of
00:39:01.720time. How do I balance that? While at the same time, I know the world is looking in,
00:39:06.300waiting for me to stumble. And I thought it was so interesting too, the way that you described,
00:39:10.220because the two girls, they grew up during this time of affluence in Haiti. So they grew up as
00:39:15.320princesses. And then to suddenly, so just, which is such a different childhood from what their
00:39:21.200mother lived so she's trying to understand their understanding of the world it was it's just a
00:39:28.860really interesting balance but again and i think you mentioned this a couple times in the book
00:39:32.260there's some parts where the main character herself is thinking about you know what does it
00:39:36.380mean to to be black and to be royal and to present a role model to these girls who don't have anyone
00:39:41.880else to look at look up to who is that and what does that mean and there's a part in the book
00:39:47.280where i forget the name of it but it's a book that was written in that time period about
00:39:51.560yes yes yes yes by clear i don't remember the name either or i'm afraid yes yes yeah or i'm
00:40:02.840afraid of mispronouncing it i'm very southern in my pronunciation so yeah that is a that's a true
00:40:08.460book and the connection um is the viscount uh who who befriends uh madame christophe and that book
00:40:17.760to me is like one of the most horrible books but it's what's the nice way to put this these are
00:40:24.520the kind of books that have been acceptable in publication for a long time it's kind of like i0.59
00:40:29.840call it the pain porn quantity right so you give enough black tragedy and black pain and that's a
00:40:36.400that's a winner right there because it just gets to the audience and people get to feel sorry0.98
00:40:41.900about things they didn't do and just jitter. And it's like written by someone who doesn't
00:40:49.160understand the beauty of black skin, who doesn't understand the journey or the walk when you are0.59
00:40:54.760black, trying to write a black person and coming up with, it must be sorrowful. It must be, you0.99
00:41:02.960don't want to be Black. You want to be anything other than Black. And then the descriptions of1.00
00:41:07.360this book about a devil and all the different stereotypes that have been characterized throughout0.98
00:41:13.920the years of a Black existence. You fight it in this book, and this book becomes like a number
00:41:18.200one seller in France. It's horrible. But to me, it's just another flashpoint of showing what they
00:41:27.940have to what they have to do to exist to go back to even Henri's perspective we have to show the
00:41:35.220world this so that they know this is what blacks can achieve so they know that they can be comfortable
00:41:40.560around us because we're just like everybody else and you get this book published in that same time
00:41:45.980frame and they would have access to it to me I had to put it in because it's it's a capstone it's
00:41:53.320It's a it's a it's a stake in the ground of this is what the world potentially could be thinking of you and your daughters and why we think you're going to fail and why I can't fail as Queen Louise.
00:42:05.080I have to make sure I succeed. I have to make sure my daughter succeed so that we don't become Eureka.
00:42:10.760Yeah, I just the moment where I forget it's one of the daughters, but they have been raised as princesses, you know, surrounded in a place with black nobles and aristocracy.
00:42:18.880and then she reads this book and she's like oh my god this is she didn't realize that that's how
00:42:24.180she is seen by other people and it's this sort of major moment for her but then you also say in your
00:42:29.440in your afterward of the book and you mentioned earlier in the interview as well you didn't want
00:42:33.360to write a book about tragedy and pain you wanted to find a story of hope so i thought that that was
00:42:38.560an interesting parallel that in the book it's a way that you can mention in the book you know that
00:42:44.220this is both your characters feel this way and you obviously feel this way. Why do black stories
00:42:50.220always have to be stories of grief and misery and pain? And why can't it be a story of triumph and0.74
00:42:55.620hope? And that's what this book is. And that's what this is. You've written so many books,
00:43:00.260all of them historical, I think. And that's very much what you're doing, right? In all of your
00:43:04.440bucks. Exactly. No one's figured that out yet. The little rebel Vanessa. But yeah, there is so much
00:43:17.200to the existence that is more than just pain. There are moments of joy. Even if you are suffering,
00:43:24.860you're in a bad situation, you can still find moments in the day to smile. Certain things will
00:43:30.940make you happy. You hang on to joy much more fiercely when you know sorrow. And I see that's
00:43:37.600what these people did. You know, Queen Louise, she lost a lot and then had to leave her homeland
00:43:43.400in order to make sure that her daughters were safe and that they could have a safe future.
00:43:49.820That is a great burden to put on someone. But I cannot see how you can go to every spa city
00:43:57.840in Europe and be unhappy. I'm like, come on now. So they found moments of joy. I'm convinced of
00:44:06.320that they found moments of joy. The fact that they still took to the opera, because if they
00:44:11.060stood in their depression or really were consumed with how much we lost, as opposed to what we have,
00:44:20.540they wouldn't go to opera. They wouldn't be concerned about what they wore. They wouldn't
00:44:25.560go to these various places and follow the royal tours like they did if they were worried about
00:44:31.960all of the pain that they had suffered they were trying to make their futures they were trying to
00:44:36.860move forward and to me that is what this book should show how they move forward it's like again
00:44:43.840like for me my experience reading this book was absolutely that it's that sense of just sort of
00:44:48.420very a strong woman who faces all these challenges but she's got this indomitable spirit about her
00:45:16.020You know, I was one of those kids that was glued to the TV when Roots came on.
00:45:20.260Roots is a very important story, but it's not the only story.
00:45:24.420But it seems like since that was successful, that told everybody in the world, oh, these are the kind of stories that everybody wants to see.
00:45:31.220We want to see some of those stories because it's important to remember.
00:45:33.880But we also want to see the heroes and the revolutionists.
00:45:37.840We want to see the people who just made discoveries, the inventors, the business people, the politicians, people who changed the world.
00:45:47.300And we want to see people who fell in love and had nice lives, you know, that weren't always characterized by suffering and misery.
00:45:56.120We want to see a full gambit perspective. Everybody is owed a full gambit of identity.
00:46:03.300We're everything. We can be warriors. We can be martyrs. We can be lovers. We can be on the picket lines.
00:46:09.400We can be everything. Everybody's owed a full humanity. And sometimes that has been lacking.
00:46:17.300And I think also, again, like the fact that you put the newspaper headings, again, which is a detail I love, but to really confirm for people who are reading this, like this is a real person. This is how she moved through the world. This is how she was seen. Because a flip side of this is sort of when people do start putting black people back into historical films, there's that pushback being like, oh, that's not accurate. Oh, there wasn't whatever. There wasn't black people in ancient Egypt. There wasn't black people in the Roman Empire or whatever, where it's like, what are you talking about?
00:46:46.280but so a book like this like it proves like you know black people weren't only enslaved for all
00:46:55.860of history you know like here's evidence and i love that your book is like here's every single
00:47:00.440chapter starts with like proof proof proof like you're not making this up so it just hopefully
00:47:05.820it can open people's minds when they see other stories you know that are not just all white
00:47:10.920people to show that exactly i i i know i'm breaking ground in a lot of in these stories
00:47:18.300and so i go to the nth degree of the full-on you know dissertation in the back of the book plus
00:47:24.360bibliography and whatnot and this was a new level of putting the the actual newspaper clippings
00:47:30.240uh in the story writers shouldn't have to go to that to tell these stories shouldn't have to go
00:47:36.260those links. I don't mind going to it because I know it's going to add to the enjoyment and
00:47:41.760discovery for my readers. But that shouldn't have to be the level that someone needs to do in order
00:47:49.500to make sure everybody understands this is a true, this is really based on a true story. This
00:47:54.320really happened to this woman and her daughters and her family. But, you know, hopefully you guys
00:48:01.580will go out and you'll get this book and you'll read it and you'll tell your friends about it and
00:48:05.960you'll tell more friends because when these types of books come into the mainstream it opens the
00:48:11.820door for more books it makes the job of historical fiction writers easier it makes everything more
00:48:18.000accessible and everybody's story gets gets to get told that's what i really hope for this like
00:48:25.240you're seeing you're breaking new ground you have this and like listeners like the bibliography
00:48:29.140there's pages and pages and pages like you've got as though it is an academic non-fiction book like
00:48:35.480you've got all of your facts straight but hopefully exactly like as the as figures like
00:48:41.380this become more known then more people can write about them in different ways and the next person
00:48:45.680who writes about her won't have to prove as much because maybe the story will be better
00:48:49.680more people will know it a bit already yeah exactly exactly or even some of these new new
00:48:57.300figures you know there's there's so many people who need their stories told who need to be brought
00:49:02.560back into our consciousness and if this can open more doors because we need the whole story we need
00:49:10.060everybody and everyone's story is important so we need all of it and you know we shouldn't be afraid
00:49:17.520of letting these stories be told so this episode is coming out just at the same week that your book
00:49:24.260is being published so can you tell people i assume you're going to be doing events you're
00:49:27.920going to be where can people keep up with where they can find you and and that sort of thing
00:49:32.060my website vanessareilly.com has all the events listed if you're on social media my instagram my
00:49:40.740link tree has all the events linked so you can go because we we've got some fabulous events
00:49:46.220from from everything from launch it at foxtails uh and all of the venues you can you can order
00:49:53.320books you i will sign them personalize them for you and they ship everybody does everything all
00:49:58.460over the country so it's it's going to be great but yeah vanessareilly.com or my instagram i have
00:50:04.200the most up-to-date of what's going on follow me there it's going to be fun i should get my
00:50:09.240newsletter i i might have even more tea yeah newsletter fabulous i love i love that there's
00:50:14.840a way i yeah i love that just in this era there's a really way for readers to connect with authors
00:50:20.500and see what they're up to and and to follow you and i'm going to be at columbus i'm going to be
00:50:26.100in New York. I'm going to be in Aiken, South Carolina. I'm going to be all over Atlanta.
00:50:34.100So there's a number of venues to catch me or order books. It's going to be great. But check
00:50:40.800my website out. That's the mothership of all. Perfect. Well, thank you so, so much for taking
00:50:45.800the time to talk to me today. It was sometimes when I read a book, I'm just so thankful I have
00:50:52.280this podcast. So I have a reason that I can talk to the author and ask questions and learn more,
00:50:56.460but also just let you know how much I enjoyed the book and how much I appreciate what you do.
00:51:00.860Oh, thank you. And thank you for having me and have me back. I'll probably have more books.
00:51:10.340So we're joined by Vanessa Riley, who you just heard her talking about her book,
00:51:15.040Queen of Exiles. And she's back. She's back. It's like a year or two later. And I just wanted to
00:51:20.700check in with you. Actually, what we're going to do is we're going to go through Queen Marie Louise
00:51:25.220and just give her some scores and a few categories. But first, I want to ask you,
00:51:29.340because when we talked about this book last, the book was just coming out. What was the response
00:51:33.200like when you were touring around and talking to people about this story?
00:51:36.760They had never heard of her story. A lot of people were shocked at the level of the opulence,
00:51:44.780the level of culture, the scale of movement that this woman had. Many people were like,0.81
00:51:52.020Bridgerton and, you know, Queen Charlotte. And that is exciting. You have this real queen
00:52:00.600who is every bit of her skin color. She is black. She's a black, beautiful queen who was loved by1.00
00:52:09.080her husband, but the kingdom has fallen and she's got to reinvent herself for the third time in her0.87
00:52:16.900life. And she's got two princesses that she must make sure are healthy and happy because in her
00:52:23.700mind, that's the only way to honor her husband. So, you know, they're shocked that this story
00:52:29.300was always there. Like for me, this was one of those, you love research. The news articles
00:52:36.660on this woman are insane insane they are tracking her everywhere she's going who she's with what1.00
00:52:45.720she's wearing she's like what to me she's probably the first media stock royal hands down but yet1.00
00:52:53.380many modern historians forgot to look at this record and just assume because she was black0.78
00:52:59.140that she must be poor and she must be ostracized the only thing to get right is she was black
00:53:06.660She was not poor. She rebuilt Henri's fortune because there are too many little blue plaques in London that says she and her daughters lived here.
00:53:15.000They own this property here that's very close to Mayfair. They own this property in Hastings, which is off on the seacoast.
00:53:23.280I mean, it was gorgeous. I actually got to go in that house.
00:53:26.460Yeah. And touch the banister because everything was period restored.
00:53:30.300touched the banister that her hand up sliding up and down walking the state the bounce and the pine
00:53:36.480boards girl was amazing it's amazing to be there and you could feel her you could feel it it was
00:53:43.120this a love one of the most gorgeous houses restored and you could see her going I could
00:53:49.140picture her going into her garden in the mornings the sea air coming in or just walking the path
00:53:55.400behind her townhouse and just seeing the ocean or seeing the sea I think it is absolutely amazing so
00:54:02.800there was a lot of gee I didn't know and why didn't I know um and in just love of just this
00:54:10.680woman who found her way onto the world stage and claimed it for the every every ounce of her life1.00
00:54:18.540so you're joining me again so we can go through and so we can sort of induct her into like the
00:54:23.940Hall of Fame for this podcast. So there's four categories and I sent them to you in advance.
00:54:30.400So everything is a score from like zero to 10. So the, you know, the highest possible score is a 40.
00:54:36.080And so the first category is scandalousness. How scandalous did people find her in her time0.99
00:54:42.800and place? Okay. This is very subjective. So I'm going to go with an eight because she did0.99
00:54:50.200scandalous things that that would be considered scandalous like wearing pants on a horse to lead1.00
00:54:57.080a parade or or practicing she never actually got to do the parade but practicing to lead a parade
00:55:02.920that's scandalous you know having an affair with with the prince in you know in in in Germany that
00:55:11.100might have been scary but I'm not sure the scandals got out so because they didn't actually0.90
00:55:14.980get out we're gonna go with eight yeah because it still takes some cojones to do all that0.94
00:55:20.860absolutely fair especially i mean for for a woman in the time for a black woman in that time i think1.00
00:55:26.740yeah absolutely like she was and with every they were people were looking for her to falter and to1.00
00:55:33.000be scandalous so they could run an article in in in the in the london morning post they wanted her
00:55:38.740to be scandalous they wanted her to be caught so to do all these things knowing that yeah girl you0.69
00:55:44.360get an eight on that one. Absolutely. The next category is scheminess. How it's sort of like,
00:55:51.040how much was she able to like come up with a plan to execute the plan? Like how much was she thinking
00:55:55.040like 10 steps ahead? And I think this is also a pretty high score for her because she, she made
00:55:59.680it out. She kept going. She's able to travel. So what do you think for this one? As you phrase it
00:56:05.580now, cause I'm actually going to go low on that, but now that the way you've phrased it, I would0.63
00:56:09.400and nine because she figured things out she put the teams together she she kept the the the friends0.86
00:56:18.480who her husband made and then she made more she was very diplomatic very cultured very you know
00:56:25.040people who would who would like especially like some of the French diplomats you know Haiti is
00:56:30.860not a happy place for France at this moment in time when she's meeting them uh because of the
00:56:36.240defeat um and for her to be able to navigate that plane and keep those connections and build upon
00:56:45.100friendships oh man she was she was thinking that was 4d chess she was making sure because she made
00:56:51.400you know in in my version of of the queen she never disrespected her people her the place she
00:56:58.160came from she was very proud but she understood what she was working with so you've got to play
00:57:02.34040 chest in order to do that. I think just the fact that she survived as well as she did, I agree.
00:57:08.200I think a nine is very fair for her, for scheminess. The next category, and I feel like
00:57:13.200you're going to go high and I am, I would too, is significance, like her historical significance.
00:57:18.280A 10. A 10. I thought so. Yeah. I mean, we, we need to, it's a shame we don't know her.
00:57:24.780You know, my earliest references for her was in Thomas Matteo's The French.
00:57:33.160He's telling the history of Haiti, and she's a background player in that.
00:57:39.420Just a simple name. But the fact is, even background player, her name is there.
00:57:45.760She's a woman of consequence. She is a woman of culture.
00:57:48.740she was a woman fighting for her children and and the rights of this dream of what haiti could be
00:57:56.800and so yes we need to know her name absolutely that's a 10 it's a 10 and i think in her time
00:58:03.100like you were saying she's in all these newspapers and stuff like she's she's an incredibly famous
00:58:06.680person at that time too time which makes you wonder like what happened yeah
00:58:12.920exactly it's so funny when yeah in my research too when you go back to see
00:58:19.880like you found with her that there's so many newspaper articles everybody was talking about
00:58:23.880her and then suddenly it's just like and then suddenly just everyone forgot she ever existed
00:58:27.320like what how so that's why it's so good you're bringing her back and then the final category
00:58:34.140is um so we call it the sexism bonus it's just imagining how many extra points can we give this
00:58:39.600person because what more could they have achieved if they weren't living in this patriarchal world
00:58:44.000uh that would be a 10 i think she was much more diplomatic than her husband uh but everybody1.00
00:58:50.280deferred at that point even her husband there's a there's a level of sexism of of controlling her
00:58:56.240role of not listening to her until it's almost too late that i think that had he listened0.91
00:59:04.820that that kingdom may have lasted and we would see a different haiti exactly if people it's so
00:59:13.000frustrating when you see somebody like that in history where it's like if you just listened0.80
00:59:17.020to this one person everything exactly yeah so what this gives her is uh her score is a 37 out
00:59:25.420of 40 which puts her in the top 10 of all time on this podcast so congratulations and well deserved
00:59:33.700i'm just gonna thank you thank you do you know um and jinga the queen from indongo and matamba
00:59:41.240she's yeah she's up there too she's got a she's got a 37 as well so that's the company she's
00:59:48.440keeping on this scale i love it warrior queens together well thank you so much yes exactly thank
00:59:55.860you so much for joining me again and thank you for for for revisiting queen marie louise i think
01:00:01.280she's such an important person and I think she the episodes that we're doing right now about like
01:00:06.040the regency period and stuff like she's there like wheeling and dealing with all these people
01:00:10.540we're talking about so I just want to make sure everybody remembers her name yes absolutely