The Paris Daughter

Juliette Foulon is the second of the novel’s protagonists, and like Elise, her experiences and perspectives play an important role in the narrative. Juliette undergoes the most extreme character development over the course of the story; her personality changes dramatically in the aftermath of the bombing of her bookstore, and she never recovers from the trauma of the event. She is a round and dynamic character, changing throughout the course of the novel.

At the beginning of the novel, she is a kind, welcoming, and friendly person, which is evidenced from the outset by her desire to help Elise and the consideration she shows in easing Elise’s discomfort. She is happy in her marriage and in her role as a mother and defines herself by her sense of maternal love and duty. She is deeply wounded by the loss of her daughter Antoinette, but with a strong support network in both Ruth and Paul, and the consolation of her surviving children, she is able to bear the loss and mourn in a healthy way.

She was willing to hide the Levy family from persecution and provides a safe refuge for Mathilde despite the risk. Her attitude towards Mathilde prior to the bombing is warm and motherly, although her desire to incorporate Mathilde fully into her family with the increasing expectation, and even hope, that Elise would not return to reclaim her gives the kindness a sinister undertone. Similarly, Juliette’s positive characterization tarnishes slightly as she breaks her promise to Elise by encouraging Mathilde to forget her true parents and further with her lack of understanding or sympathy for Elise’s difficult decision to part from Mathilde.

Juliette is a changed woman after the bombardment that kills her family, and her actions illustrate the theme of Trauma and Its Impact on Memory. She is unable to accept that the surviving girl is not Lucie and actively works to suppress Mathilde’s memories and the traits that hint at her true identity. She is cold and resentful towards “Lucie,” neither supportive of her daughter’s interests nor seemingly invested in her emotional wellbeing. She is cold towards Ruth and cruel towards Elise and lives a life of cordial convenience with a new husband that she does not love. Her only apparent consolation is in the recreated bookshop and in the voices of her dead family, which she still hears. As a result of the lasting psychological trauma of the bombing, as well as the all-encompassing grief of her loss and the implied traumatic head injury, Juliette is entirely unable and unwilling to leave the past behind her and move on from her loss.

Only after she is fatally injured does Juliette come to terms with her grief and with the wrongdoings she has committed. Although the narrative condemns her as having done more bad than good over the years, she ultimately receives her heart’s wish to join her deceased family in the afterlife.

Mathilde LeClair, referred to as “Lucie” through most of the final part of the novel, is the daughter of Elise and Olivier. Prior to the time skip separating Parts 2 and 3, she grows from a newborn infant to a three-year-old-girl. She’s a typical, if particularly sweet-tempered, child, who is very close with both her mother and her playmate Lucie. She already has an appreciation of art as evidenced by her fondness for Elise’s painted studio and is deeply affected by Elise’s decision to leave her behind with the Foulons.

After the time skip, “Lucie” (as she is now known) is a young woman coming of age and trying to come to terms with her repressed memories of Paris while navigating her fraught relationship with Juliette. Despite Juliette’s efforts to suppress the elements of Lucie’s character that hint at her true identity, Lucie follows in her original parents’ footsteps by retaining a love of art and becoming a skilled artist in her own right. She is inquisitive, independent, and strong willed. She is a round and dynamic character.