Alcide Bolduc—Marie-Ange D’Anjou

Alcide Bolduc and Marie-Ange D’Anjou’s marriage is revealed chiefly through its abrupt ending: during the night Japan surrendered in 1945, Marie-Ange went into a dangerous labor, gave birth to Loïc, and died. The birth leaves Alcide bereaved and Loïc close to death; it also sets in motion the child’s adoption by Guillaume D’Anjou and Marie-Louise D’Anjou. The relationship’s surviving shape is therefore carried less by scenes of married life than by grief, paternal consent, and the family arrangements made in the immediate aftermath.

Marriage Interrupted by Childbirth

On the night news of Japan’s surrender reached Touladi, people gathered at a lakeside hotel to celebrate. Alcide was among them when word spread that his wife was in labor and in danger. The celebration stopped as people urgently sought a doctor. The narrative places their private catastrophe against the public relief of the war’s end: a village rejoicing over peace learns, almost at the same moment, that a young mother’s life is at risk.

Marie-Ange was under chloroform when she briefly opened her turquoise-blue eyes. The priest had not arrived before she died. Loïc, still unnamed and barely breathing, lay beside her; Marie-Ange was twenty-five. The account does not establish a specific medical cause for her death, but makes childbirth the setting of the fatal emergency. In Alcide and Marie-Ange’s story, the birth of their child and the loss of his mother cannot be separated.

Alcide’s Grief and Self-Blame

Alcide was intoxicated when the news reached him. When told that Marie-Ange was gone, he struggled to understand; relatives had to shake him, scold him, and splash cold water on him before the loss fully registered. Once it did, he cried out that her death was his fault. The narrative records this as his grief-stricken conviction, not as proof that he caused her death.

He then broke away from those trying to hold him and ran blindly through the fields in the dark. He stumbled over fences, embankments, stones, and scraps of wood before collapsing in a marshy hollow, exhausted and weeping. The scene gives his bereavement a physical course: first shock and incomprehension, then an anguished accusation against himself, and finally a flight into the night that leaves him unable to remain in the house where Marie-Ange lies dead. At daybreak, the church bell tolled; her body was taken for embalming and returned to Touladi for the customary three-day viewing.

Their Child and the Family’s Decision

Loïc’s precarious condition made the loss still more urgent. He was bluish and limp, took in little milk, and seemed for days to hover between life and death. While Marie-Ange’s body remained in the family home, the German shepherd Prince howled repeatedly. The newborn seemed to stir from his lethargy whenever he heard the dog. The narrative links the two scenes through sound: the household’s mourning continues while the child, scarcely able to respond to the world, registers the repeated cry.

Amid the relatives gathered in the small house, it was agreed that Guillaume and his daughter Laurette would take the baby home so he could receive better care. Guillaume then summoned his family and solemnly urged them to look after Marie-Ange’s child. Because Loïc appeared so fragile, he was baptized without delay. Guillaume and Marie-Louise served as his godparents and decided to adopt him, with Alcide’s consent while he was still recovering from his intoxication, and with the general agreement of the Bolduc family. The other two children were shared among the Bolducs. This arrangement does not erase Alcide’s place as Loïc’s father; it shows how bereavement and the newborn’s immediate need for care reshaped the family’s responsibilities.

The Loss Revisited Through Loïc

Years later, a doctor told Loïc that there had been another fetus in his mother’s womb. The doctor had recognized it as stillborn but had chosen not to disclose the fact at the time, believing that the family had already suffered enough. This later revelation adds another loss to the circumstances of Marie-Ange’s death and Loïc’s birth, while also showing how much of that family history had remained unspoken.

The relationship between Alcide and Marie-Ange thus persists in the story through consequences rather than a developed account of their life together: Alcide’s lasting association with guilt and bereavement, Loïc’s near-fatal arrival, and the adoption that placed him in Guillaume and Marie-Louise’s household. The later disclosure of the stillborn twin deepens the tragedy surrounding the birth, but does not change the essential sequence: Marie-Ange died, Alcide survived her, and their surviving child was raised by relatives with his father’s consent.