The Women of Chateau Lafayette

Written in 2021 by New York Times and USA Today best-selling author Stephanie Dray, The Women of Chateau Lafayette is a multi-timeline historical fiction novel that recounts the intertwined and trepidatious lives of three women across four different wars through their connection to Chavaniac, the famous castle of the revolutionary hero Lafayette. The novel joins Dray’s growing number of award-winning historical fiction titles, such as the Cleopatra’s Daughter trilogy, which was nominated for a RITA Award and won the Golden Leaf Award in 2012, and America’s First Daughter, which was nominated for the Audie Award in 2017. Fascinated by history, revolutions, and republics, Dray often delves into the lives of the overshadowed women in history and the inconceivable odds they faced; her narratives seek to reinstate these women as crucial figures in historical events. 

This study guide refers to the Penguin eBook edition distributed by Google Play Books and published in 2021.

Content Warning: This guide describes and discusses the source text’s depiction of alcohol addiction and suicidal ideation. The novel also alludes to antisemitic beliefs and sentiments in line with the propagation of Nazi ideology during World War II; such concepts are replicated in this guide only in direct quotes from the source material.

Plot Summary

In the south-central region of France, a castle is nestled in the forests of Chavaniac-Lafayette commune: Chateau Chavaniac, the birthplace of Gilbert du Moitier, Marquis de Lafayette, an intrepid figure of both the American and French Revolutions. However, Lafayette is not the only hero to have walked its halls; across the centuries, Chavaniac has seen three women who also faced the harrowing realities of war and emerged as heroes in their own right.

In the 18th century, young Adrienne de Noailles marries the still fresh-faced Gilbert du Moitier. Though initially an arranged marriage, theirs quickly becomes a love match. Across the ocean, however, a revolution has begun, and, inspired by the Americans who demand their freedom, both Gilbert and Adrienne have battles to fight, he with guns across the sea with the Americans and she with words and courtly maneuvers in French high society. During their years apart, Adrienne does her utmost to bolster her husband’s reputation in court, manages their estates to support the war effort, and takes part in settling American envoys to facilitate international allyship. When the revolution succeeds and Gilbert returns, Adrienne and her family retire from Paris’s hedonistic court to settle in Gilbert’s family home in Chavaniac. Soon, however, the corruption and oppression in French society are too much to ignore. They return to Paris, and as both Gilbert and Adrienne work to demand reforms and a constitutional monarchy, the French Revolution begins in earnest. Faced with the mobs’ growing anger and a frightening attempt on her life, Adrienne escapes to Chavaniac with her family. However, France has use for Gilbert and sends him to fight counterrevolutionaries. When he is captured by the Austrian Empire, Adrienne is left to defend Chavaniac on her own. She is imprisoned and nearly faces the guillotine, but after months of incarceration, she survives and goes to rescue her husband. When she gains an audience with the Austrian emperor, he denies Gilbert’s release. Out of loyalty and love, she demands to be imprisoned with him. Years go by, and Adrienne contracts a blood infection that garners international sympathy, which pressures the emperor to relent and allow them to return home. For the next 10 years, Adrienne rebuilds her life in Chavaniac, and when she dies, it is in her home and with her loving husband at her side.

On the cusp of the 20th century, Beatrice Winthrop Chanler is chasing her injured husband, Willie, in France to try and salvage their marriage. Soon, the assassination of the archbishop in Sarajevo sends Europe to war. As she, her children, her nephew Victor, and her friend Emily try to escape on the last train out of Paris, they witness the horrific casualties in Amiens. While Victor decides to remain in Paris to fight, Beatrice and Emily devise a war effort charity fund named after the American ally and French revolutionary Lafayette. In New York, Beatrice uses every single connection she has in order to elicit donations. However, news of Victor being shot sends Beatrice back to France, where she convinces him to become an aviator instead of fighting in the trenches. While there, she meets a handsome French captain by the name of Max Furlaud and finds herself falling in love. When Willie’s injured leg must be amputated, she leaves her newfound love behind and resolves to take care of her husband in New York. When Victor dies and the phantom pains of Willie’s missing leg have him reaching for alcohol too frequently, Beatrice leaves him to focus on her work and becomes an American delegate. In France, she and Max reconnect and plan a future together. Willie tries to regain Beatrice’s favor by buying her Chavaniac castle. As she witnesses the carnage, Beatrice takes on the impossible task of refurbishing the castle and transforming it into an orphanage, a museum, and, eventually, a preventorium. There, Beatrice finds her purpose and decides to live her life by her own rules. Leaving both Willie and Max, she dedicates herself to the castle after the war and welcomes its first resident, a baby girl named Marthe.

On the eve of World War II, Marthe Simone, an orphan who has always resided at Chavaniac castle, hopes to win an art scholarship and leave Chavaniac behind. However, when Germany overtakes France and her fiancé, Henri, is taken as a prisoner of war, Marthe remains at the castle to help with the children and soon rekindles a childhood friendship with baroness Emily de LaGrange’s daughter, Anna. Faced with the ever-growing oppression from the Vichy government and the Nazi regime, the baroness charges Marthe to redecorate the castle in Adrienne de Noailles-Lafayette’s saintlier image instead of her husband Lafayette’s revolutionary one. Months pass, and Marthe feels isolated in the castle. She develops guilt-inducing romantic feelings for Anna. When she later visits Henri’s mother for the first time, she finds her harboring a Jewish family, the daughter of which is showing signs of tuberculosis. When the secretary-general of the castle is forced to resign due to her Jewish heritage, Marthe decides to use her artistic skills to falsify her first set of documents and admits the girl to the castle’s preventorium. As the Riom trials loom, devastating news arrives: Henri has died. Devastated, Marthe is listless. When more people are rounded up and sent to concentration camps, Marthe fortifies herself and creates forged papers for the other children at Madame Pinton’s—garnering the attention of the local gendarme, Sergeant Travert, who offers her a deal: marry him, and he will help her with her forgeries. Marthe nervously accepts, and soon she is working with the Resistance to smuggle more children out of the country. As the Allies approach, the Nazi regime occupies the Free Zone. While on a routine run for supplies, Marthe encounters Obersturmführer Konrad Wolff, a Gestapo officer who beats a young German soldier to death for hassling Marthe. Shaken, Marthe nevertheless commits to saving as many people as possible, and when 15 Jewish girls are targeted by the Gestapo, Marthe succeeds in having them admitted to the preventorium—only for one of her fellow teachers to report their presence. Marthe scrambles, leading the girls to secret passages in the castle where they might escape before the Gestapo arrive. She then goes back to confront the Gestapo. To divert their attention, she publicly confesses her smuggling, and as Obersturmführer Wolff attempts to kill her, Travert and the boys from the orphanage save her, killing the Gestapo officers in the process. Marthe hides with Travert at Madame Pinton’s home, and when the war is finally over, they leave France to go to New York, where Marthe can begin her art scholarship and a new life with her husband.