In history, there are no mysteries, only truths that have yet to be revealed.

En histoire il n’existe pas de mystère, il n’y a que des vérités différées.

— Michel Missoff, 1951

In 1777 a teenage Catherine Worlée, the future wife of Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-Périgord, was given a new servant by her father: a six-year-old girl called Caroline. This was the same year that Catherine married her first husband, Georges François Grand, and it is possible that Caroline had been a wedding present.

Born in Bengal in 1771, Caroline had spent her infancy in Chandernagore but knew almost nothing about her background—neither her family name nor the day or month of her birth. When she was nine or ten, Caroline accompanied Catherine on a long and taxing journey to Europe and, by late 1781, the pair had settled in Paris.

To the best of my knowledge, Caroline’s name has not surfaced in the quite voluminous scholarship that exists on Catherine, though it is perhaps not surprising. Caroline was female, a child, non-White, and a servant—all factors that count against her preservation in the historical record.

That we know her name at all is because it was recorded, along with the basic details of her life, as part of an annuity that was drawn up for Catherine by a charitable benefactor, a widow called Marie-Jeanne-Elisabeth Morin. Caroline, whom the annuity document described as an “Indienne de couleur noire,” would benefit from the annuity in the event of Catherine’s death, irrespective of whether she went on to marry or become a nun—the latter a possibility because she had been raised as a Catholic.

What was Caroline’s future? Did she stay with Catherine and flee with her to London when the Revolution came? I would love to know what happened next, but this is one rabbit hole I will leave for someone else to explore. Do keep me posted!