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#1: Mademoiselle - a suitable head? Author: Clare, Location: Liverpool

Posted: Thu Oct 26, 2006 6:49 pm
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Mods, feel free to move if you think this is the wrong place for this.

I've started reading the series again, mainly so I could read Juliet in its context. I've just been reading Head Girl and started wondering whether Mademoiselle was really a good headteacher.

She is gentle, kind and fair. She looks after the Bettany girls, puts Simone and Renee through school and was the natural choice to succeed Madge as she is a partner in the school. But this, I feel, does not make her a good head.

I've just been reading about Cornelia's rebellion. She is given a punishment by Mademoiselle which is then recinded because she "does not want the old girls to see a new pupil in such disgrace." Mademoiselle seems not to notice things - she is preoccupied with her own thoughts after Madge gives birth and barely listens to Matron when she explains why Cornelia was removed from the table. She does not notice that Cornelia goes to bed willingly after the picnic. There are other examples but these are the ones I've just read.

At other times, Mademoiselle is over-emotional ("a distraught Mademoiselle with her hair untidy and her face white.") Her kind nature at times makes her seem like a 'soft touch' - Grizel knows she will be Head Girl when the final decision is given to Mademoiselle.

But then if she wasn't the Head, who would have replaced Madge? Does the stress of her headship contribute to her illness and eventual decline?

#2: Author: Alison H, Location: Manchester

Posted: Thu Oct 26, 2006 8:02 pm
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As you say, I assume that she took over as Head because she was Madge's partner, and had presumably put money into the school. They were sort of co-heads in Princess although it was all rather vague!

She doesn't really seem to have the right sort of personality to be Head. Being over-emotional seemed to be the defining French characteristic in the early books, like being obedient to your parents was the defining Austrian characteristic Laughing

! & she did seem to be a bit of soft touch.

I don't think that her illness is handled very well - it's never clear what's wrong with her, and it almost seems as if EBD decided she wasn't a good Head and wanted her out of the way so that Hilda could take over.

I would think that the most obvious alternative choice, at the time of Madge's marriage, was Mollie Maynard. I can't remember when we're told that Mollie has a fiancé though. That would have been interesting - Jack's sister as long-term head of the school!

#3: Author: patmac, Location: Yorkshire England

Posted: Thu Oct 26, 2006 8:15 pm
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I'm coming more and more to think that EBD actually had a lot more story in her head than she wrote. I'd not connected the incident with Corney and Corney's reaction to Mademoiselle's death. Was there a lot more contact in EBD's head than was written.

I think she would have been a lovely Head for a very small school which operated as an extended family - as in the first book - but the school grew fast and less malleable girls appeared (presumably to give the stories some spice) which would have been a problem for her.

I don't think she could have remained in place once the school grew so presumably that is why she was *disposed of*. To give EBD her due, she didn't kill many school members off - though she was not so kind to their relatives. Confused

#4: Author: Kate, Location: Ireland

Posted: Thu Oct 26, 2006 8:39 pm
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patmac wrote:

I'm coming more and more to think that EBD actually had a lot more story in her head than she wrote. I'd not connected the incident with Corney and Corney's reaction to Mademoiselle's death. Was there a lot more contact in EBD's head than was written.

I strongly believe that, in a lot of cases. I think EBD saw her characters as wholly real people, that had so many things happen to them that she couldn't write everything down. When we read the books and can't figure out why something happened (like for example Anne Seymour's demotion) I think that EBD had a story planned, but forgot she hadn't actually included it in the book. I have a bad habit of assuming that people are following my train of thought when I haven't actually articulated it - I think she was a bit like that at times.

*hopes that made sense*

#5: Author: KB, Location: Melbourne, Australia

Posted: Thu Oct 26, 2006 11:33 pm
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If you look through the part of the series when Mlle Lepattre is Head, she is often absent or ill when the most important events are taking place, so that we very rarely see her 'in action' as it were. It's left to one of the other mistresses or Matron or someone to take over.

#6: Author: Cath V-P, Location: Newcastle NSW

Posted: Fri Oct 27, 2006 1:42 am
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She seems to be curiously 'absent' in a number of ways and at a number of events - almost a shadow at times. She's also a lot older than the rest of the staff, and being head stands apart from them in that leadership position, so you don't see her really as a member of the group. Matey comments in a later book (Mary-Lou?) that Mademoiselle is in danger of being forgotten, which I find a very interesting remark.

I would agree with patmac that EBD had a lot of information about these characters that didn't find its way onto the page.

#7: Author: jennifer, Location: Taiwan

Posted: Fri Oct 27, 2006 3:32 am
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I think she was more of a place holder until someone more dynamic came along - there's a quote in one of the books about how the girls like and respect her, but don't give her the devotion and adoration that they give Madge. She seems like someone who might make a good solid mistress, but didn't have the force of personality or authority needed in a head.

And I would guess that she *was* deliberately killed off to make way for a younger, more vivid personality as head, possibly on the advice of the publishers.

#8: Author: Katherine, Location: London, UK

Posted: Fri Oct 27, 2006 9:48 am
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I think that EBD must have written so much that either she never put into a book or the publishers cut and this accounts for all the bits we feel we missed like Corney's mothering by Mademoiselle - they were in EBD's head. I have only drabbled a tiny bit and it's hard enough to keep track of what you have actually done in your story as opposed to just thought about.
I'm sure her view of what happened at the CS was rather different to what the reader ends up seeing.
As well as acocunting for missing scened, this sort of thing would explain why a girl sometimes gets a new, dissimilar surname: EBD gave her one name and then changed it.

On the subject of Mademoiselle as head, I think she was just the obvious person to take over as Madge's partner. Also at the start they were co-heads so Madge was still a head of sorts. I wonder how she felt about not being full head; probably okay as Mademoiselle wasn't the sort of person to need full control, but I can see some people struggling with having Madge parachuting in and being adored by the girls and seen as the 'proper' head.

#9: Author: Cath V-P, Location: Newcastle NSW

Posted: Sat Oct 28, 2006 12:16 am
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And of course this allowed Madge to maintain contact with the school at a time when she could have lost it. I don't mean this was a selfish choice on Madge's part, but something that evolved naturally. And I think it gave EBD a bit of a problem later when she had the younger, more appealing Hilda as head, ably assisted by Nell. Because I do see Madge as dropping into the background a lot more at this point.

#10: Author: Mel, Location: UP NORTH

Posted: Sat Oct 28, 2006 5:53 pm
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Doesn't it say in one of the books that Madge wanted Juliet to be Head eventually? This would keep it in the family as it were and Mademoiselle could keep it ticking over until Juliet was older. Then EBD marries Juliet off.

#11: Author: patmac, Location: Yorkshire England

Posted: Sat Oct 28, 2006 9:54 pm
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Quote:

I have only drabbled a tiny bit and it's hard enough to keep track of what you have actually done in your story as opposed to just thought about.

I so relate to that. I've had the problem with Village Boy. I'd never written fiction before and I keep having to go back and check whether I actually wrote something or whether it's just in my head. It is why I think EBD must have had lots of back story or plotlines in her head all the time - I have a lot more sympathy with EBDisms than I ever had before Confused

#12: Author: Lesley, Location: Allhallows, Kent

Posted: Sun Oct 29, 2006 8:08 am
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Agreed Pat - and it is far easier for us to check back on things than it was for EBD. I continually find myself having to refer back to previous episodes of RCS to check up names, dates, events. How much more difficult when you have to check through written notes and/or books?

Ref Mademoiselle - in writing Senior Mistress I have had to go back to a time when she was Head - and she really doesn't make very much of an impression. She's there for some of the incidents (Kitty having her ears boxed) but not for others (Science lab) - on some occasions she worries herself so much they have to dose her drink to get her to sleep - something that didn't really happen to any of the other Heads - at least until after the crisis was over (at least to my knowledge) and not without them knowing.

#13: Author: JayB, Location: SE England

Posted: Sun Oct 29, 2006 9:41 am
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Quote:

on some occasions she worries herself so much they have to dose her drink to get her to sleep

Foreshadowing her later health problems, perhaps?

Mademoiselle wasn't head very long, was she? Was it three years or four? She took over in the autumn term in which Jo was fifteen. Did Jo have her eighteenth birthday or her nineteenth in Jo Returns?

I don't think Mademoiselle ever was a very strong character. She was there in the beginning to act as a kind of chaperone and teach the subjects Madge couldn't, but she couldn't be allowed to develop to the point where she might overshadow Madge.

Then when EBD married Madge off and found there was still mileage in the CS, she had to make Mademoiselle head, as she was the senior mistress and a partner in the school. But she got rid of her as soon as she decently could, and as soon as one of the other mistresses had been there long enough to merit promotion.

Jay B.

#14: Author: jennifer, Location: Taiwan

Posted: Sun Oct 29, 2006 1:57 pm
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The Juliet as head idea always struck me as a bit out of left field. Madge is thinking of this in Princess, when Juliet is seventeen and headgirl. That seems a little early to designate someone as the future head of what was by that time becoming a fairly significant school. Maybe she just wanted to keep it in the family.

#15: Author: jonty, Location: Exeter

Posted: Sun Oct 29, 2006 4:22 pm
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patmac wrote:

I think she would have been a lovely Head for a very small school which operated as an extended family - as in the first book - but the school grew fast and less malleable girls appeared (presumably to give the stories some spice) which would have been a problem for her.

Yes, that's how I see it too. By the standards of the second half of the 20th century, Mademoiselle isn't made of the stuff of headmistresses at all. But the attributes we've come to think of as headmistressly - firm, in control at all times, inspiring awe as well as respect and so on - weren't necessarily the things that characterised headmistresses when EBD started writing. The headmistresses of school stories written until the early 30s seem to be a much more disparate bunch. They're a rather ad hoc group of women, whose competence and personal qualities vary considerably, and all they really have in common is the desire and wherewithal to found and/or lead a school.

Neither Madge nor Mademoiselle fits the 'wise counsellor' model. That came later with Hilda and Nell, and with EB's headmistresses. Madge comes fairly close, but only a decade or so later she would have been considered much too young to embody the virtues of a headmistress. After all, she's only a couple of years older than the baby Kathie Ferrars who arrives so unprepared for the challenges of mere class teaching, let alone running the whole caboodle.

I wonder what schools would now be like if they were customarily run by Mademoiselle types. Would they be unbearable hell-holes, where street-wise children and young people run wild because no-one could stop them, or would society be radically different because we'd all have grown up with a regime that disciplined us through love rather than firm rules and tough management? I love the Chalet School as it was in Tyrol, and I can't help feeling it was a nicer, more life-enhancing place to be, than it became under Hilda's leadership. This isn't to blame Hilda exactly (though I have to admit she's not a favourite of mine). But I'm not a fan of the 'new times' which produced the perceived need for a sterner headmistress than Mademoiselle, and which saw the CS becoming a more rigid, hidebound institution than it had been under its first two heads.

#16: Author: jennifer, Location: Taiwan

Posted: Mon Oct 30, 2006 2:57 am
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I remember reading that a lot of these small schools were run by women who were either widowed during the first world war, or who hadn't married afterwards due to the lack of men. They had to support themselves, and this was one of the more genteel ways to do so. I would guess that with someone like Madge or Mademoiselle in charge, they were well run, comfortable places with a good deal of attention paid to individual girls, but with an indifferent, incompetent or nasty headmistress they woud be totally useless, academically and/or rather chaotic and unpleasant. The standards appear to be very loose - Bill and Hilda have Master's degrees, and the later school only hires university educated instructors, while Madge only has high school.

I think the different types of headmistresses do well in different schools. In a small, family style school someone with charm, a great deal of personal magnetism and natural competence will do very well - she knows all the girls personally (and, often, their families), the girls know and love her and she is more like a mother or aunt figure than a distant authority.

In the Swiss Chalet school, they've got close to 400 girls, so the headmistress can't personally know most of the individual girls, and would have to rely on their form mistresses' reports and assessments. She knows very few of the parents, the administration load is higher so she doesn't teach much, and the girls only really interact with her as a distant figure on the dais, or as the voice of judgement when they've been bad.

What I've noticed in general is that in any given educational mode, the difference between an average and a spectacular school is the people. When you see amazing stories about schools or programs that work miracles with difficult students it's always due to dedicated, compentent, inspired instructors and leaders who care about the students. So the lead by nurturing mode would probably work very well in a modern school with the right person - someone who had personal charisma, drive, natural competence, and was good at dealing with the administrative end of things and could handle the discipline problems with the right amount of firmness.

#17: Author: LizB, Location: Oxon, England

Posted: Mon Oct 30, 2006 8:56 am
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I think Mademoiselle is described somewhere (can't remember where off the top of my head) as gentle, but a firm disciplinarian. She may have been soft-hearted in rescinding part of Corney's punishment in headgirl, but she deals with Thekla very effectively - not only being strong enough to expel her, but speaking words that stay with the girl and make her realise later how badly she's behaved. She also, in a behind-closed-doors scene, handles Jo when she has a falling out with Matron Besley.

Although quiet and often in the background, she has the respect and love of the girls - even if they don't know it:

Jo returns wrote:

They had always known that they respected and admired her; but many of them had not realised how they loved her till it seemed possible that they must lose her.

I think she was the right person to follow on from Madge, and also a very good headmistress.

#18: Mademoiselle Lepattre Author: Fiona Mc, Location: Bendigo, Australia

Posted: Tue Oct 31, 2006 10:52 pm
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I agree and Corney loves her as though she was her Mother, so she must have had an amazing influence over her to inspire that kind of devotion. I think she was more someone who worked behind the scenes rather than on display, which would also explain why the girls didn't realize they loved her so much. Madge and Hilda were both very obvious in their influence, Mademoiselle less so but still just as influential

#19: Author: Aparna, Location: India

Posted: Wed Nov 01, 2006 7:43 pm
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Yes. Somewhere it is mentioned that she was a firm disciplinarian and can give telling off's which even Madge (iron disciplinarian as she is called) could have bettered.
Although she does seem to take Madge's help at times, at others she seem to be perfectly capable.

But I have wished a number of times that Madge had continued as head.

May be it was not possible in those times. Wonder what would have happened if Jem was modern enough to admit it and they had only two kids instead of 6 so that Madge had enough time. After all, they seem to have a lot of maids to look after babies and house.

#20: Author: Loryat,

Posted: Thu Nov 02, 2006 1:41 pm
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I think Mademoiselle makes a good head, especially in the earlier books. She is more understated than Madge or Hilda but clearly has a powerful influence. Using the quartette as a comparison, Madge = Joey (though they are completely dissimilar in character) while Mademoiselle = Frieda - quiet, steady, but popular and with surprising influence to the good.

Mademoiselle tempers justice with mercy, but she is not weak. She is very practical and in the first books, before Madge leaves, she can be dicisive where Madge dithers. I'm thinking of the Matron Webb dismissal here, but I'm sure there are other examples.

In later books, I think Mademoiselle is downsized because EBD is already planning on replacing her with Hilda. When she has to be dosed Hilda takes over and is we get a preview of Hilda-as-Head. The question is, why is she getting rid of Mademoiselle? Personally I think it might have something to do with racism, not on EBD's part but on her publishers. In the early years foreigners (ie non-English girls) play a much more prominent role than they ever do later. In the War and Welsh books this is understandable, but not in the later Swiss books. In Rivals Miss Browne is scathing of the CS because it is 'run by a Frenchwoman'. This sort of attitude was probably prevalent in Britain at the time and maybe EBD was told or encouraged to limit the number of prominent foreigners?

Compare EBD's portrayal of foreigners to that of Enid Blyton. In St Clares and Malory Towers, the French mistresses are lovable but ridiculous, the French pupils likable but deceitful. Though EBD does use stereotypes, they are far more open minded and respectful than Blyton's.

One question which interests me is why does EBD choose Hilda to be the next head rather than Bill? As far as I can remember Bill is at first much more well developed than Hilda. Why does EBD then develop Hilda so she can replace Mademoiselle?

#21: Author: Clare, Location: Liverpool

Posted: Thu Nov 02, 2006 7:16 pm
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Loryat wrote:

Mademoiselle tempers justice with mercy, but she is not weak. She is very practical and in the first books, before Madge leaves, she can be dicisive where Madge dithers. I'm thinking of the Matron Webb dismissal here, but I'm sure there are other examples.

That's very true - in Princess Mademoiselle says she distrusts Senor Ternaki (sp?) and counsels Madge to contact Belsornia straight away.

Thanks for the replies. I think EBD is very uneven in her presentation of Mademoiselle and I've found it interseting reading other people's perspectives.

#22: Author: Alison H, Location: Manchester

Posted: Thu Nov 02, 2006 10:06 pm
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It's quite sad Crying or Very sad

the way Mademoiselle, who - whether or not she was a good choice as Head - was very popular, ends up being largely forgotten, apart from the odd reference to Simone's Tessa looking like her. The fact that she was a part-owner of the school is totally ignored after the school leaves Tyrol: Madge is always referred to as the owner/(after incorporation) the majority shareholder. & when the school has its 25th "birthday" someone suggests getting a picture/statue (forget which!) of Madge done, and whoever it is doesn't even seem to know that Mlle started the school with her.

Re Madge continuing teaching, I'm not sure if this is mentioned in the books or if it's a random thought, but I got the impression she might have done if it'd been easier to get from Die Rosen to the school and vice versa - the path sounds quite tricky (poor Jack always seems to be helping people up it!), especially in the winter, and she goes back to work part-time when the school moves up there in Exile. & does she do some teaching at the Annexe before that, or have I imagined that Rolling Eyes

? & she gives the impression that she might've gone back to work at least temporarily after Nell and Hilda's accident had she not been expecting (Ailie) at the time.

I really wish EBD'd let her carry on being more closely involved with the school and moved her & Jem out to Switzerland too. And not changed her from the lovely character she is in the early books to the person who makes Sybil & Josette go abroad with her when they don't want to!

#23: Author: JayB, Location: SE England

Posted: Thu Nov 02, 2006 10:34 pm
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Quote:

I really wish EBD'd let her carry on being more closely involved with the school and moved her & Jem out to Switzerland too. And not changed her from the lovely character she is in the early books to the person who makes Sybil & Josette go abroad with her when they don't want to!

I wish EBD hadn't married Madge off at all, or at least not so soon. Madge didn't at that point have to be shoved aside so Joey could take centre stage. I know she was twenty seven when she married, so not all that young, but it does mean we lose the element of the inexperienced woman bravely taking on the challenge of providing for herself and her sister, and the orphaned sisters going it alone with no-one else to turn to.

Jay B.

#24: Mademoiselle-a suitable head? Author: Fiona Mc, Location: Bendigo, Australia

Posted: Thu Nov 02, 2006 11:51 pm
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Quote:

One question which interests me is why does EBD choose Hilda to be the next head rather than Bill? As far as I can remember Bill is at first much more well developed than Hilda.

I think I read somewhere about this before and the answer I remember reading was that Bill was a strong character who could be used in all the adventures, such as getting stranded in a bus on the side of the road (United) and the trip to Switzerland (Exile). It's more that EBD wanted still use her in those story lines and it's only younger mistresses come along such as Hilary Burn or Biddy etc can she give Bill the back seat more and become Head. I don't think it was a reflection on her that she couldn't do it rather that EBD wanted to use her in more storylines. Hilda had barely rated much of a mention before becoming Head which suggests she would be easier to promote without losing someone she could use on all these adventures.

#25: Re: Mademoiselle-a suitable head? Author: Lesley, Location: Allhallows, Kent

Posted: Fri Nov 03, 2006 5:35 am
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Fiona Mc wrote:

Hilda had barely rated much of a mention before becoming Head which suggests she would be easier to promote without losing someone she could use on all these adventures.

Actually in the earliest books the Staff were not mentioned a great deal - other than Madge. Hilda had shown her leadership qualities quite early on - Eustacia being a point - as well as CS and Jo. Nell was that bit younger.

#26: Author: LizB, Location: Oxon, England

Posted: Fri Nov 03, 2006 1:34 pm
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Alison H wrote:

Re Madge continuing teaching, I'm not sure if this is mentioned in the books or if it's a random thought, but I got the impression she might have done if it'd been easier to get from Die Rosen to the school and vice versa - the path sounds quite tricky (poor Jack always seems to be helping people up it!), especially in the winter

I think she's initially up and down quite regularly and still teaching her raved-about English lit lessons, but the weather (and then presumably being busy) prevent her from continuing.

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