Amour: Amour & Revolution

No matter the place, the time, or the bloodline-there is always a bastard child who changes history.

My name is Destin-Marie de Gouze, but before the world acknowledged the blood of my father, I was simply Destin Gouze. I am the illegitimate daughter of Gouze Pierre, a French nobleman, and a woman enslaved in Saint-Domingue, a French colony on the island of Hispaniola.

In 1768, my father arrived in Saint-Domingue for the first time, staying for a mere six months before returning to France. He made many more trips back and forth, each time torn between his wife and his lover. Over time, despite his shipmates' opinions, he fell in love with my mother. 1770 was the year I was born, but my arrival was no blessing to the world around me. My father's affections for my mother were fleeting in the eyes of society.

By the time I was 8 years old, my father left Saint-Domingue for what I believed was the last time. He returned to his other family in France, leaving me behind. For three long years, I lived in the shadows of his absence, until 1774, when, at the age of 11, he came back. This time, he took me with him-my life forever changed as I crossed the sea to a new world, to a new family I had never known.

Upon my arrival, I met the half-sister Marie Gouze-and my stepmother. My existence, once dismissed in Saint-Domingue, was now a complication in France, one that forced me to find a place in a world that never intended for me to belong.

But history is shaped by the forgotten, and revolution is a force that no one can ignore.

In 1789, the French Revolution began, and everything would change. I only hope I live long enough to witness it.
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Author's Note: A rewriting of my original story.