character introduction : modern AU
CHARACTER INFO
Name: Mireille Duroc (nèe Barrault)
Age: 26, born 12.09.1985
Canon: Silver Wolf (AU)
AU INFO:
Summary of the Original Musical
The main difference between canon and this modern AU is the change of era. The plot that takes place between Mireille and Jean Louis as characters is basically the same, Jean Louis killing her father and resuming a relationship with her afterwards - his corrupt politics making her question him while she remains unable to abandon the relation out of an unwillingness to be alone again and turning her back on the choice she has once made to support his position, as a politician and as her husband. Victorian Mireille was caught in a situation that she had to justify because she had no means of leaving it until Silver came into her life whereas modern Mireille has accepted her situation not because she does not have other opportunities, but because her sense of integrity cannot justify abandoning it - in both cases, her justification builds on the same motivations. Despite the differences in period setting, Mireille’s personality still sets her apart from others, although modern times allow her to pursue her intellectual interests and talents in a way that was impossible in Victorian times and as such, this one aspect of strangeness is lessened considerably. As a character, she is still defined by duality and self-contradiction, although the focus has moved from her feeling of inadequacy and weakness in canon to her doubts about her adherence to morality; what she otherwise considers her greatest strength. The marriage between Mireille and Jean Louis is still of an abusive nature, in modern times mostly in the form of domestic violence, and his corruption still a concern of hers that leads to both resentment and resignation. The difference between their interaction in canon and in the AU (where their relation is founded on an equally emotional investment from both parties involved) is caused by how they initiated their relationship; on a completely mutual attraction where Mireille’s desperation at her father’s death only became a factor later on. Finally, the main theme of loneliness from the play has retained its significance in the modern setting, seeing how Mireille’s attachment to Jean Louis is also upheld by her fear of being alone, although this loneliness is caused by different factors - a one-time occurrence and its consequences in canon versus her upbringing and general experience of life in the AU.
PERSONALITY:
i did not know and i could not see
The most descriptive word to ascribe to Mireille is ‘enigma’. In every aspect of her life, she possesses a duality that seems self-contradictory, but is the only way she can balance the way she lives her life and the background from which she origins. Her upbringing with its great admiration of and even greater loyalty to her father has grounded her in an intellectual and political environment with its appurtenant codex of law and ethics. While she has been infused with an almost fanatical dedication to the concept of truth and the strength of principle, she can appear surprisingly arrogant and self-centred, her worldview centred firmly on her own perception of reality. Seeing how her sharp intellect sets her apart from the general populace, she has a tendency to dismiss opinions and views that are not consistent with her own. At the same time, facts and situations that do not fall under her categorisation of correctness are often modified or justified into compliance, in order for her to accept what she calls ‘the given’. The aspects of her life where change would lead to consequences that she doesn’t want to suffer or which she deems outside her control. This is one of the consistent dualities in her personality; that while she does not accept irregularity and conscious endorsement of less than complete honesty (as she defines it) in others, acceptance remains a key element in her own experience of the world, even when it means sustaining an illogical, dishonest or unethical status quo. To her, it is a question of decisions and endurance. Once one has made a decision, one must carry it through. Abandoning it simply because it is difficult or hurtful would be the ultimate dishonesty, because you hold responsibility for your actions and since action causes reaction, you must handle the reaction you cause.
though i take my song from a withered limb
In two main areas of her life, this reasoning has tremendous impact. First, her academic focus and career choice. After a long period of estrangement from her native country, the death of her father forced her to make a final decision about where her loyalty should be directed. At her original ambitions or the nationalistic awareness that Barrault had upheld in his political work. Her choice was grounded in the notion that she would have to take full responsibility for her own ‘foreignness’ and either live up to it completely by leaving Luxembourg for good or commit herself fully to what is inherently Luxembourgian - like her father did, thus shaping her own identity around the same values. She chose the latter and has lived out this decision to the extreme, specialising in the Luxembourgish language and Luxembourgian literature. It is her way of bridging the distance that she had felt to Barrault, a distance she did not have the chance of addressing and rectifying before he died. Her way of staying consistent with her core beliefs and her own moral code. Most importantly, it is the only way she can soothe her feelings of guilt and avoid questioning the reasons for the development that took place between her father and herself. The very same sort of silence that she would never allow from anyone else. However, it is equally important to note that she is not necessarily unsympathetic as a person or unfriendly towards her peers - when others mirror situations that she knows from herself, she attempts to create an understanding between them, although it will rarely keep her from questioning their motives, their decisions and their perspective. Generally, she is patient with other people’s often defensive response to her approach, used as she is to them, as long as she feels that they are aiming for the same objectives that she herself seeks.
then he struck my heart with a deadly force
The second and major area of her life where her definition of responsibility becomes obvious is in her relationship to Jean Louis. Their relationship was first founded on a mutual attraction, for Mireille mainly based on how Jean Louis made her feel understood and recognised in a way that was entirely new to her. Having grown up with a constant sense of being different, apart from others, especially other women, loneliness had become an integrated part of her existence. Something she concluded was her own fault, considering her aversion to indulge others along with her refusal of personal change. Her insistence on staying true to her principles. Consequently it was also something she had come to accept. In certain situations, even prefer. Jean Louis removed the solitude from her life - challenging her where others would shy away from her sharp wit and reflecting her distanced approach to her surroundings in the same way that she reflected his obstinate and sometimes unforgiving attitude. The defining factor, though, became the death of her father. After a year’s separation from Jean Louis, Barrault’s death brought her back to Luxembourg, back to Jean Louis with a doubled feeling of loneliness, of alienation. When Jean Louis promised her a place to which she could return, she accepted. Not as a repeat of what they had before, but as an opportunity to recreate herself and her life, with him as a cornerstone. A choice born both out of desperation and determination. In the process of the de- and reconstruction that followed, Mireille has been able to create a life where she can freely nurture her abstract thinking and high level of reflection without explanations. This is the public image that she presents of herself and how the Luxembourgian people has come to know her - a cool voice of authority who meets sceptic inquiry with impenetrable logic and insisting arguments.
be the truth unsaid and the blessing gone
And here lies the battleground where her outward image and inward experience clashes. The conflict between her adherence to her morals and her loyalty to her choices remain the greatest duality in regards to Mireille. Those same standards of hers that others may experience as rigid, she modifies almost beyond recognition when she concludes that it is justifiable or simply necessary, because anything else would be a lack of grey nuances - a belief most notable in response to Jean Louis’ abuse of her. Despite how she logically recognises that she is being abused, she refuses to consider herself a victim and has actively decided to accept the physical outcome of their arguments. Thus, the very principles that would have made her unforgiving of any other woman accepting domestic violence create a framework for the continuation of her own abusive relationship. In her understanding, it is her responsibility to bear the consequences when she provokes him into hitting her since it is her choice to continue doing so; true weakness would be to abandon her marital vows and the usual functionality of their marriage - her genuine love for him - instead of just enduring an occasional slap. A slap which stings for five minutes, though the impact it has on her pride runs much deeper. The only way for her to tolerate this compromise of her morality is to continue questioning Jean Louis’ methods, to confront him and meet the resulting conflict unyieldingly. According to her frame of reference, she has negated the meaning of the abuse enough that it doesn’t matter, not in comparison to the importance of upholding her moral objections to his shadow business that contradicts everything her father stood for, although she is well aware that she neither would nor could betray Jean Louis by acting on the information she has. Even so, the inconsistency of her two differing approaches to him - the acceptance and the refusal of acceptance - leaves her constantly doubting her own judgement and her situation, beneath a surface of confidence and an attitude of directness. At the core, her main incentive to stay is that he still provides her with the one refuge she has ever known from her own strangeness, from the loneliness it causes. Also when he hits her.
i live my life in babylon
Conclusively, these aspects of her life make Mireille a catalogue of contradictions that all come down to her strongly analytical personality. An approach she believes to be necessary, if not always good.
BACKGROUND:
by the rivers dark i wandered on
Growing up as the only child of Philippe Barrault, who was later to become State Minister of Luxembourg, and his wife, Violette, Mireille has spent the entirety of her life, since the age of five, in some state of schooling. While her father was still climbing the political ladder, eventually rising to the position as head of his party (the Centre-Democratic Party), she attended a private primary school in Luxembourg from 1990 to 1996. Due to his career, Barrault was often absent from her daily life, but she maintained a high level of respect and admiration for him throughout her childhood and youth. In hindsight, this period of her life should come to be the one where they were most closely bonded, seeing how her school was within walking distance from Parliament, making it tradition for the two of them to meet up for lunch Monday through Friday. After graduating from primary school with distinctions, it was a natural choice for Mireille’s parents to have her attend one of the most expensive and exclusive all-girl boarding schools in France. Especially Barrault’s focus on granting her every opportunity for a quality education would come to have a huge impact on her outlook on and aspirations for academic life. It had been obvious from the beginning that she was intellectually gifted and her father continuously instructed her to pursue this talent; to use it for unification and fortification of human relations. Although he never explicitly voiced it, Barrault nurtured a hope that Mireille might someday follow in his footsteps and engage herself in politics, recognising that her dedication to debate and reflection would prove a great talent in this regard.
and he covered me and i saw within
Nevertheless, in the wake of moving away from Luxembourg and viewing her intellectuality in a much wider framework, Mireille’s focus shifted from her father’s (now State Minister) nationalistic interests that she felt increasingly estranged from, France functioning more as her home than Luxembourg and Luxembourgian high society boring her whenever she took leave from boarding school, to his academic ones which she still shared, planning to enrol with the Sorbonne University and study French literature. During this subtle state of secession, Mireille met Jean Louis, a high-profile political associate of her father’s - ten years her senior, and their mutual interest and investment in one another ensured that once she had moved to Paris to attend university, they initiated an affair, unbeknownst to Barrault. Both of them being public figures, their time together soon caught the interest of the press and 18 months into their romantic relationship, revealing pictures and the appurtenant gossip made the covers of various tabloids. Upon discovering that Jean Louis had been sleeping with his daughter without informing him and discovering that Mireille’s usual discipline was suffering under it, Barrault forbade Jean Louis from continuing the relationship until she had finished, at least, her Bachelor’s degree and took an equally severe discussion with Mireille on the matter. Despite her genuine feelings for Jean Louis, Mireille accepted her father’s authority and the rearrangement of her priorities, meeting only once with Jean Louis in the aftermath, to end their relation on a clean note before she started working on her Bachelor’s Dissertation. Almost a year passed in which she returned to her restricted life as a scholar at the Sorbonne, then her father was killed in a freak traffic accident staged by Jean Louis in order to remove the obstacle he represented, both in connection to Mireille and his ambitions for power.
my lawless heart and my wedding ring
Devastated at the passing of her father, Mireille returned to Luxembourg in time for the funeral, the many public arrangements around his death reuniting her with Jean Louis by proximity alone, seeing how he was unsurprisingly elected State Minister in succession. In the face of her loss, Mireille found herself at a crossroad, uncertain whether to return to France and leave Luxembourg behind indefinitely or honour her father’s memory by once more taking residence in the country to which he had devoted his life. A second time, Jean Louis became the defining factor - the person in whom she found refuge - and Mireille decided to move in with him while she finished her Bachelor’s degree with the Sorbonne over summer. Finally, enrolling officially with the University of Luxembourg for the duration of her Master’s and specializing in Luxembourgish and Luxembourgian literary tradition, she cut all ties to France, starting her life as a home-coming citizen by marrying Jean Louis in January of the following year.
Although married life suited Mireille well while she slowly created a name and a place for herself in Luxembourg, she soon began to notice certain irregularities in Jean Louis’ work. Amongst his many obligations as a politician in general and State Minister in particular, there were undeniable traces of ulterior motives. Indications of a business beneath the surface. Conversations would come to an abrupt end once she entered the room. He would leave for or host meetings in his office at home that weren’t discussed, neither in the newspapers nor amongst his fellow party members - not even by him, seeing how he dismissed her every time she inquired to their content, as if they’d never taken place. Files, folders and papers locked away. Cryptic phone calls at unholy hours. Initially, she settled with waiting. With not knowing and not questioning why she didn’t want to know. As time went by, however, she could no longer justify her own silence - her reluctance at scratching their beautiful surface - and their arguments over her suspicions would grow increasingly more aggressive.
and he cut my lip and he cut my heart
The first time he hit her, she packed her suitcase and locked herself away in the living room. Neither of them slept that night and the following evening, they had sex without making a single mention of the incident. She never threatened to leave, acknowledging that it would be a lie. She didn’t want to leave. She couldn’t, not in light of what bound them together. As the abuse continued, at irregular intervals first - later like a clockwork, she stopped keeping count. Settled with the occasional slap for her resentment and her persistence. Accepted it as something equally persistent that she would have to bear and was fully capable of enduring. Outwardly, they remained the embodiment of a modern relationship; two charismatic and successful individuals from very different paths in life, in a perfect union. Representatives of modern Luxembourg. Representatives of the new millennia and its social order. Inwardly, she insisted that it was much the same. Perfection, marred by a monthly mishap. The days in between each blow naturally meaning more than the five minutes humiliation.
both song and tree they sing for him
Not until four years into their marriage did she finally gain solid proof of Jean Louis’ connection in the underground world. In 2011, she accidentally stumbled across a receipt on a weapons deal in Africa - a supply of weapons for a country in the middle of a civil war. Another conflict broke out, between Jean Louis and her, but the timing forced the matter to settle - once more - before it could reach a definite conclusion. The State Ministry was in the middle of arranging an official state visit in the US, the first of its kind since WWII; the State Minister and First Lady to go on a tour across America, reconfirming old ties and relations. And again, Mireille allowed the standstill, welcomed it - pushing the abuse into the background in comparison to their many preparations for the American state visit, focusing on this development in another areas of their life together. Facing the sunny and admirable side of his ambitions.
TIMELINE:
1975 : Jean Louis is born, January 2nd
1985 : Mireille is born, September 12th | Jean Louis moves in with Marcel
1996: Mireille moves to France to attend Tressange Academy | Jean Louis and Marcel meet again
1997 : Barrault is elected State Minister | Jean Louis is elected into parliament
2001 : Barrault is re-elected State Minister, appointing Jean Louis as Foreign Minister | Mireille and Jean Louis are first introduced at the official re-election celebrations
2003 : Mireille moves to Paris to study literature at the Sorbonne University | Mireille and Jean Louis initiate their affair
2005 : Barrault puts an end to Jean Louis’ and Mireille’s relationship | He is re-elected State Minister in December
2006 : Barrault dies in March | Jean Louis takes over his position as State Minister | Mireille studies for her Masters in Luxembourgian linguistics and literature at Luxembourg University
2007 : Mireille and Jean Louis marry on the 2nd of January
2009 : Jean Louis hits Mireille for the first time | Mireille begins working on her Doctorate
2010 : Jean Louis is re-elected State Minister
2011 : Mireille is employed as a professor at Luxembourg University | Mireille finds vouchers of some of Jean Louis' weapons dealings in Africa
2012 : Jean Louis falls victim to an assassination attempt by African rebels | Mireille takes leave from her autumn/winter semester lectures
2014 : The Centre Democrats lose the government elections
2015 : Jean Louis and Marcel begin their expansion into Asia
2016 : Jean Louis' and Marcel's expansion project in Asia is wrecked | Jean Louis stops hitting Mireille
2022 : The Centre Democrats regain government leadership with Jean Louis as State Minister
2024 : Jean Louis resigns as State Minister, handing over the position to Anisette | Jean Louis begins officially establishing his weapons manufacturing company
2025 : Marcel plans to have Mireille killed and make a snuff video with her | Marcel is sent to the US to maintain the new branch of Jean Louis' company
2040 : Jean Louis dies | Marcel is ordered to take care of Mireille until her death
2050 : Mireille dies