As she stared out the window at the pouring rain, Danielle Ravine couldn't help but think to herself that her life was no longer worth living. Tears began to trail down her cheeks while she wept silently. Her family had disowned her and sent her to be married to a common seaman. Danielle loved the sea whenever her family had taken summer vacations in Marseilles. However, this time her trip was north of Paris, to Normandy, not south. And the seaman might have been an exciting match except for the fact that he was a widower who was twenty two years older than her.
At first, Danielle had hoped for the best, maybe Monsieur de Mer would be handsome and charming, a respectable sea merchant who brought in various imports on his grand ship. She soon learned that this was only a dream. Monsieur de Mer was just a common sailor aboard a very sketchy looking schooner. He had a small shack on the outskirts of the main town that he had introduced as "home sweet home." His ragged beard hid the few crooked teeth that he had left, and every inch of his ruddy face and clothes were covered in dirt and filth. When Danielle arrived, she was put to work. At home in Paris, the house staff had taken care of everything that needed to be done. The twenty year old had never learned the basic housewife skills that Monsieur de Mer now expected her to know. She was forced to cook and clean until her hands looked worse than Monsieur's. And whenever she protested she received a sharp slap from her new husband. New tears came to her eyes as she thought of the first night when Monsieur de Mer had forced himself on her. She gave up resistance the next time it happened, knowing that it would hurt less if she submitted. She knew now that this was her life, life as Madame de Mer.
She quickly crossed the bedroom to the desk and shuffled blindly through the drawers. Finally, she found what she was looking for. The knife was small, but it would serve its purpose if she used it properly. Sobbing, Danielle held the weapon to her wrist, but as she looked out the window at the waves crashing on the shore, she saw a better idea. A small ship was anchored just off shore, and as she squinted she could see a small rowboat making its way towards the docks. If she went quickly, she could possibly get herself out of the wretched shack before Monsieur de Mer returned.
She rushed to find suitable traveling attire, if she could gain passage on one of the ships in the harbor, she would be free of Monsieur de Mer's tyrannical ravaging. She had just put her surly husband's laundry out to dry, and she almost wondered if this plan was in her subconscious ever since she came to the little shack by the sea. She thought back to her home in the bustling Paris metropolis, and her parents. They had been quick to disown her after the last time she had tried to pull a trick like this. She could still see her father's livid face when he discovered that she had dressed up in her brother Henry's clothing and had gone gallivanting through the city. "You're lucky that you didn't end up in an opium den or worse, dead!" he had yelled at her. He told her that she was lucky he could find a man who would give money to take her as his wife. Fresh tears came to her eyes as she remembered looking back at the stone buildings of her beloved city, l'amore de sa vie. All she had wanted to do that night was to freely explore the love of her life, her home, her Paris.