An Account of a Savage Girl, Caught Wild in the Woods of Champagne/Preface

by James Burnett, Lord Monboddo

PREFACE.

THE public is here presented with a translation of a pamphlet, of which, it is believed, there are very few copies in this island, and these not to be found in the booksellers shops, but in the possession of some curious persons. Nor is it commonly to be met with even in France, where it was first published, most of the copies being in the hands of Madamoiselle Le Blanc, the extraordinary personage whose history it contains, who makes a small profit by the sale of them.

This narrative was drawn up under the immediate inspection of M. de la Condamine, whose curiosity and accuracy, in matters of this sort, is universally known; and the commencement of whose acquaintance and connection with Madamoiselle Le Blanc will be found in page 22. It not only bears in its bosom the plainest marks of truth and authenticity; but if any doubt on this head remained, the facts it relates could be still attested by many living witnesses. The woman herself is yet alive, at least she was so in the year 1765,^[1] when the translator had an opportunity of seeing her in several different conversations that she had with a Scotch gentleman of distinction then at Paris, who was introduced to her by M. de la Condamine, and who again mentioned her to most of the British persons of distinction then at Paris, to some of whom he likeways introduced her. To that gentleman Le Blanc confirmed with her own mouth, in the hearing of the translator, every circumstance in this relation; mentioning at the same time several particulars not here taken notice of. The translator likewise attended the same gentleman in a journey which he made, merely with a view of searching to the bottom every circumstance of this curious history, all the way from Rheims to Chalons, in a convent of which town Le Blanc was placed very soon after being taken; and from thence to Songi, the place of her capture. In that journey he had occasion to hear all these particulars amply confirmed, both by the abbess of the convent in which she had resided at Chalons, as well as by several other persons of that place, and likewise by several of the inhabitants of the village of Songi, who had been witnesses to her capture, and to the facts which immediately followed. These persons too, particularly the abbess, mentioned several little anecdotes of Le Blanc omitted in this narrative; such as some instances of her surprising agility in climbing walls, and running on the tops of houses, and of her imitating the notes of singing birds, such as the nightingale, and that so naturally, as often to deceive the people of the convent. One of the chief objects of this gentleman's journey to Songi, was to view the bludgeon used by Le Blanc as her principal weapon, in her wild state, which she said was in the possession of the Viscount d'Epinoy, the proprietor of Songi. From some characters which Le Blanc informed him were engraved on this bludgeon, this gentleman hoped to have been able to form more certain conjectures about her native country, and the more early part of her history and adventures. Unluckily, however, the Viscount had set out from his seat at Songi about half an hour before our arrival, and no body appeared who could give any information about the bludgeon.

The particulars above mentioned, which the gentleman whom I attended, learned in the several conversations he had with Madamoiselle, and which make no part of the following narrative, are chiefly these.—That she remembered the country she came from was a very cold country, covered with snow a great part of the year: That the children there are accustomed to the water from the moment of their birth, and learn to swim as soon as to walk.—That they are also taught very early to climb trees; and a child of a year old there, is able to climb a tree. That the people live in little huts above the water, like beavers, and subsist chiefly by fishing. She herself was so much used to the water, that when she first came to France, she could not live without it, and was in use to plunge into it over head and ears, and to continue in it swimming about and diving like an otter, or any other amphibious animal: And when they restrained her from this practice, after she was a little tamed and civilized, she thought her health suffered for want of it.

She supposes she was a child only about seven or eight years of age, when she was carried away from her own country; yet, by that time, she had learnt to swim, to fish, to shoot with the bow and arrow, to climb, and to leap from one tree to another like a squirrel. She was taken up at sea, where she was, with other children, set in a little round canoe, which was covered with a skin that drew about her middle like a purse, and prevented the water from getting in: For she says, it is the manner in her country, to put the children early out to sea in such canoes, in order to accustom them to bear the sea, which breaks over them; and tho' it may overturn the canoe, does not sink it.—When she was taken up, she was put aboard a great ship, and was carried to a warm country, where she was sold for a slave; the person who sold her having first painted her all over black, with a view, no doubt, to make her pass for a negroe.

She says further of the country from which she was thus carried away, that the people there had no cloathing but skins, and had no use of fire at all, so that when she came to France, she could not bear the fire, and hardly even the close air of a room, or the breaths of persons who were near her. There were, she says, another sort of men in this country, who were bigger and stronger than her people, and all covered with hair; and those people were at war with her people, and used to eat them when they could catch them.

In the hot country to which she was first carried, she says she was re-embarked, and perform'd a very long voyage, during which the master, to whom she had been sold, wanted to make her work, particularly, at a sort of needle work; which obliged her to crouch and then look up; and when she would not work, he beat her; but her mistress, who, she thinks, spoke French, was very kind to her, and would hide her when her master was seeking her to make her work.—That the ship having been wreck'd, the crew took to the boat; but she, and a negroe girl that was on board, were left to shift for themselves. The negroe girl, she says, could not swim so well as she, and therefore she was obliged to assist her, and she kept herself above water, by taking hold of Le Blanc's foot; and, in this way, they both got on shore.—They then traversed a great tract of country, commonly travelling all night, and sleeping in the day-time on the tops of trees: And they subsisted upon roots which she dug out of the ground with her fingers, and particularly with her thumb, which by that, and by the use she made of it in climbing and leaping from tree to tree, was much broader, and every way larger than the thumbs of other people.—They also catch'd as much game as they could, which they eat raw with the warm blood in it, in the same manner as a hawk or wild beast does; and she remembers particularly, that they kill'd a fox, of which they only suck'd the blood, finding the flesh very disagreeable. She remembers also that they catch'd a hind.—She says farther, that besides the being able to subsist herself in the manner above mentioned, she had learn'd the use of several roots and herbs, which were good for the stomach and head, and could cure wounds.—She had also learnt to imitate the notes of birds, which was the only music known in her country.

The change of life which she underwent, after she was taken and tamed, agreed very ill with her. For besides what she suffered by being restrained from the water, as is mentioned above, the victuals prepared with fire she could not digest, by which she was reduced to very great extremity: And a physician being call'd to her, he, to mend the matter, blooded her severely, saying, that it was necessary to change her habit, and put French blood into her veins: And whether it be the effect of the change of her life, or of the prescription of this doctor, or of both, she is at present, at least was in the 1765, in a poor state of health, having lost all her extraordinary bodily faculties, and retaining nothing of the savage, but a certain wildness in her look, and a very great stomach.

She has lost almost entirely the language of her country, remembering only the tone of it, and manner of speaking, and some wild cries, with which she used to frighten the French people first after she was caught; and it was by these cries, and by signs, that she conversed with her companion the negro girl, who did not speak nor understand her language, but had a language of her own, of which Le Blanc only remembered one word, viz. Broutut, signifying any thing that was eatable.—As to her own language, she says it was all spoken from the throat, with very little use of the tongue, and none at all of the lips; and this she represented in a very lively manner, so as to convince every body who heard her, that her language was no more than a collection of guttural sounds with very little articulation. Her mouth, she says, when she was caught, was much less than it is now, and almost round; and when she laughed, she did not open her mouth as we do, but made a little motion with her upper lip and a noise in her throat, by drawing her breath inwards.—She remembers some of the idioms of her language, such as, for "wounding a man," to make him red; and, instead of "killing." she used the phrase, to make him sleep long; and that the common salutation in her country, is, I see you.—She remembered also a good deal of the funeral ceremonies used in her country; and, particularly, that the dead man was set up in a kind of case, something like an arm chair, and was addrest by his nearest relation, in a speech, of which she gave the substance in French, importing, that he had eyes, yet could not see; ears, yet could not hear; legs, yet could not walk; a mouth, yet could not eat; what then was become of him? and whither was he gone? And the ceremony was concluded with what she call'd un cri de tristesse, which was a horrid shriek that she used first when she was caught, upon every occasion of surprize or distress, to the terror and astonishment of every body that heard her.

She had, when she was caught at Songi, the bludgeon above mentioned, which she wore in a pouch by her side; she called it boutou, and said, that it had some characters engraved upon the handle of it; And besides this, she had a longer stick, with three pieces of iron at the end of it, one in the middle sharp and pointed, and the other two upon the sides hooked; and the use she made of it, was to stab any wild beast that attack'd her, with the sharp point; and with the hooks she assisted herself in climbing trees, by catching hold of the branches; and she says it was particularly useful to her, in defending her against the bears, when they attempted to follow her up the trees. This weapon, she says, she brought with her from the hot country, but the other from her own.

From the above particulars which I learnt from her own mouth, I think I am able to fix, with some certainty, the country of which she is a native. The author of the following relatiou makes her to be an Esquimaux. But her appearance is sufficient to refute this notion; for she is of a fair complexion, a smooth skin, and features as soft as those of an European. whereas the people of the Esquimaux nation, are, by the accounts of all travellers, the ugliest of men, of the harshest and most disagreeable features, and all covered with hair. But tho' our author is mistaken as to the race of people, yet I think she is not mistaken in the situation of the country which she gives to her, for it certainly is a very cold country; and the people, which she describes as living in the neighbourhood of her nation, can be no other than the Esquimaux: And when we add to this, what travellers tell us of a certain race of people, who are fair, of smooth skins, and soft features, living in the country of Labrador, upon the East side of Hudson's bay, in the neighbourhood of the Esquimaux,^[2] we can hardly doubt that Madamoiselle le Blanc is one of that race of people, and that her country is the coast of Hudson's bay. And I think it is highly probable, that the girls mentioned in the letter of Madame Duplessis de St. Helene, which is subjoined to this relation, who are said to have lived at Quebec, and to have died in the hospital there, were of this race of people, tho' they are, by mistake, called Esquimaudes by Madame Duplessis.

But further, I think there is the greatest reason to believe, from the account which she gives of the language of her country, that she is originally of Huron race, or at least, of a nation speaking the Huron language, the use of which, we know, is very wide spread over all the continent of North America. This appears from the account of that language given us by two authors, who have both furnished us with a sort of grammar and dictionary of the language. The one is Gabriel Sagat, a recollect of the order of St. François, who was the first ecclesiastic that went among the Hurons about the year 1630. His book is exceeding rare, and not to be found anywhere, so far as I know, except in the French King's library. The other is an author better known, namely, the Baron La Hontan, who travelled a great deal in North America, and appears to have studied very diligently, both the language, and the manners of the inhabitants. These two authors both agree, that the Hurons have no use of labial consonants, such as B, P, M, &c. and La Hotan says, that they never shut their lips in speaking; and he says that he has employed four days in endeavouring to teach a Huron the pronunciation of our labial letters, but to no purpose.—^[3]Gabriel Sagat says, that they could not pronounce the G, which is a lingual consonant, and therefore, they could not pronounce his name of Gabriel, but call'd it Aieueil; and the consonants they used most were guttural consonants, such as K, Q, X. From which account it is plain, that the Huron is just such a language, as Madamoiselle Le Blanc described her native language, namely, cries in the throat, a little broken and articulated by some guttural consonants, with very little use of the tongue, and none at all of the lips.

As to the country to which she was first carried, I can discover it with still greater certainty from the name which she gave to her bludgeon, viz. Boutou; and the characters which she said were engraved upon it. For there is an account published by the Sieur La Beaud of the Caribbee islands, in which he tells us, that the Caribbees use a weapon of this sort, which they call Boutou: And he observes particularly, that they have gravings upon it, by way of ornament, which they fill up with paint. It therefore appears to me certain, that the warm country to which Madamoiselle Le Blanc was first carried, was one of the Caribbees or Antilles islands; and that though she may have brought with her the bludgeon from her own country, yet she certainly learned the name of it among the Caribbees. Her other weapon, above described, she called Tribié, which I think is very probably a word of the Caribbee language. And it is very natural to suppose, that she should remember more terms of that language than of her own, having come last from that country; and having, as I imagine, staid some considerable time in it: For though, as she says, she was only seven or eight years of age when she was carried away from her own country, she appeared to be of the age of thirteen or fourteen, when she was taken in the woods of Champagne, as the people of Songi informed me.

And thus the history of Madamoiselle Le Blanc seems shortly to be, that she is originally of a white race of people, living somewhere upon the coast of Hudson's Bay.—That she was carried off when a child by a French ship trading in that bay, with an intention to make a slave of her, and to pass her for a negroe girl; for which purpose she was painted black.—That she was first carried to one of the Caribbee islands belonging to the French, from whence she was brought to Europe in a ship which was wrecked probably somewhere upon the coast of France.

The learned who have read what the ancient authors, and particularly Diodorus Siculus in his third book of Universal History, have told us of the savage nations of those times, will not be much surprised with the account here given of this wild girl; and the facts are so attested, that they cannot be doubted of, except by those who rejecting all testimony, ancient or modern, to the contrary, are resolved to believe that man, the most various of all animals, in the many different states through which he passes, continues still the very same animal, endued with the same powers of mind and body, living in the same manner, and governed by the same notions and opinions; a proposition which appears to me incredible in itself, though it were not contradicted by the whole history of mankind.

The vulgar will be entertained with this relation much in the same manner as they are with the history of Robinson Crusoe; but to the philosopher it will appear matter of curious speculation; and he will draw from it consequences not so obvious to the generality of readers. He will observe with amazement the progression of our species from an animal so wild, to men such as we. He will see evidently, by this example, that though man is by his natural bent and inclination disposed to society, like many other animals, yet he is not by natural necessity social, nor obliged to live upon a joint stock, like ants or bees; but is enabled, by his natural powers, to provide for his own subsistence, as much as any other animal, and more than most, as his means of subsistence are more various. In tracing back the long line of man's progression, he will discover another state of our nature, even beyond that in which this girl was, however near it may seem to the original, I mean the state before language was invented, that is, the communication of general ideas, by the articulation of the voice, when men were literally, as the poet describes them, mutum et turpe pecus: For it is impossible to suppose, that language, the most wonderful art among men, should have been born with us, and practised by us from mere instinct, unless we could at the same time suppose, that other arts came into the world with us in the same manner; nor can we believe that it was sooner invented than other arts much less difficult, and more obvious.

In this manner, the philosopher will discover a state of nature, very different from what is commonly known by that name: And from this point of view, he will see,—That those superior faculties of mind, which distinguish our nature from that of any other animal on this earth, are not congenial with it, as to the exercise or energy, but adventitious and acquired, being only at first latent powers in our nature, which have been evolved and brought into exertion by degrees, in the course of our progression above mentioned, from one state to another.—That the rational man has grown out of the mere animal, and that reason and animal sensation, however distinct we may imagine them, run into one another by such insensible degrees, that it is as difficult, or perhaps more difficult, to draw the line betwixt these two, than betwixt the animal and vegetable.—That nature will not submit to be confined by our definitions and divisions, and therefore, in the study of man, as well as of other animals, and, in general, of every natural thing, we ought to attend to facts and experience, and not to systems or opinions.—That if we will have a distinguishing characteristic of our nature, the most certain seems to be, that we are more capable than any other animal yet known, of improvement in the mental faculties: And, accordingly, it was by this capability, that the antient peripatetic school defined our nature, when they said, that man was an animal capable of understanding and science.

I will only say further, that to trace this progress of our species thro' all its various stages:—To mark by what flow and insensible degrees we have past from the mere animal to the savage, and from the savage to the civilized man:—To enquire, whether, by the improvement of our faculties, we have mended our condition, and become happier as well as wiser, is the magnum opus in the philosophy^[4] of man, of which only one philosopher of our times has had an idea, but none hitherto has executed.

 

1. For the satisfaction of any of the readers of this pamphlet who may happen to be at Paris, and have the curiosity of paying a visit to Madamoiselle Le Blanc, I here give her address in the year 1765; but whether she has since changed her lodgings, I do not know. It was thus: "Rue St. Antoine presque vis a vis la vieille rue du Temple aut troisième etage, sur le Devant."
2. See a collection of French voyages to the North.
3. La Houtan's memoirs, vol. 2d, p. 219.
4. Monsieur J. J. Rousseau.