Alexandrine Laval-Blois
| File:File:Alexportrait.jpg | |
| Portrayed by Imogen Poots / Mary MacDonald Chichester "Miss Constable" | |
| Full Name | Alexandrine Solome Priscilla Christine Laval-Blois |
|---|---|
| Associated Noble House(s) | House du Laval, House d'Aubin |
| Date of Birth | 30th December 1793 |
| Father | Comte Jean-Baptiste Laval-Blois |
| Father's Rank | Comte du Laval |
| Mother | Charlotte Laval-Blois (née Poitiers) |
| Mother's Rank | Lady Charlotte |
| Town Residence | {{{residence}}} |
| Year of Debut | 1810 |
| Dowry | £60,000 |
Alex Laval-Blois is the youngest daughter of Comte Jean-Baptiste Laval-Blois and his wife, Charlotte. She is 17 years old and has a dowry of £60,000 due to her uncle and her sister. New to England, the fierce and sharp Lady Alexandrine is determined to avoid being married off by her sister for as long as possible. Alex is played by Perry.
Family
- Jean-Baptiste Christian Laval-Blois, Comte du Laval b. 1743-1793 - father - deceased.
- Charlotte Magdelene Laval-Blois, née Poitiers, Comtesse du Laval b. 1760-1798 - mother - deceased.
- Emile August Laval-Blois, Baron du Laval, b. 1760 - uncle
- Margot Laval-Blois b 1783 - sister -
- François Jean-Laurent Baptiste d’Aubin, Comte d’Aubin b. 1750 - Cousin by marriage.
- Marie-Claire d’Aubin, née de Razillac, Comtesse d'Aubin b. 1760 - Mother's cousin.
- Jean-Laurent d'Aubin, Vicomte d’Aubin b. 1785 - Cousin.
- Lunete d'Aubin, b. 1795 - cousin.
Background
1793 - 1811: France
Alex was born into the world bloody and screaming and among terror, and she fully intends to go out the same way. The second daughter of Comte du Laval born after his death, Alex grew up with a sick mother, a distant political uncle, and a protective sister. Alex was kept in the country house until her mother’s death and as a young girl, she followed the workmen and gardeners outside to learn how to take care of the land, fish, set traps for animals, and any number of tricks unsuited to young women.
After her mother’s death, Alex gave up all pretense of being a lady, preferring trousers to dresses and caps to pinned up coiled curls. Her sister Margot was too busy to bother curbing Alex’s boyishness and Uncle Emile didn’t care to look past Paris to see how his nieces were really getting on. So, Alex spent the next decade back and forth between the country and Paris, back and forth between freedom and trouble.
At the age of six she traveled with Margot to Paris for the very first time to stay in her uncle’s house their. Coming from the lonely country to a place filled with people, Alex understood why her uncle kept locked up in his rooms at all hours unless needed by one faction or some other figure of import whose occupation quite went over Alex’s small head. It must be quite difficult to find peace in a place so loud, she thought, but lonely too.
A hunter from an early age, she received a series of hunting dogs from her uncle, though half of them technically belonged to her sister Margot. She took to them better than she did to any of the village children in the country or any of the playmates her uncle’s assistant set up with children in Paris. She was quite relieved to be allowed to start lessons for the chance to at least converse with someone not her sister or the spoilt, irritating children of peers. This relief didn’t last long as one tutor or governess after another was chased off or ignored.
The farther afield Margot went, the great Alex’s attempts at some form of attention. Having run off every governess she’d ever had, Uncle Emile decided that at fifteen, Alex was educated enough, and now she had more free time than ever before. Her childhood companion and now lady’s maid, Esmé, took to helping her sneak out of the house, dressed as a boy, and covered for Alex’s absences. She, now referred to primarily as he, thought this was how it must have been for Uncle Emile as a young man, before he grew boring and distant, to have been filled up with anger and love for all his countrymen to go so far as to revolt. Alex thought that would be her someday, using all her unsavory connections for a greater purpose, to make France free of kings and emperors for the sake of the little people.
It wasn’t until Alex’s lover Petite, a prostitute, was killed that she recognized her games weren’t merely that and her dreams had consequences she’d yet to see.. A concerned associate of hers and rival of her sister Margot, René Valois who once had proposed to Margot only to be laughed off, informed the elder Laval-Blois of the activities Alex was getting into and their likely outcome, thus Margot used her connections to drag them both to England with relatives to find Alex a match she hadn’t already thoroughly driven off. Alex thought René to be jealous of her network and connections, wishing her out of the way of his own schemes, but there was little she could do for it with Margot in a tizzy about Alex’s ruined prospects in France.
1811: Current Season
Personality
Alex is, to put it politely, a rude, mean brat. She pulls punches neither verbally or physically and finds polite conversation a bore. If you’re a pretty young woman, you may hold her attention about as long as it takes for Alex to determine if you’re open to a bit of ruining. Young men will find her cold, stand-offish and sharp, unless they treat her as a peer, then long discussions of hunting and sport commence until either the young man retreats, or says something that makes her angry.
Alex would rather spend time with the dogs than people, but if she must socialize, you can likely find her near the misters and misses. Out about town, she can be found in the park with the dogs, questioning local workmen, or merely walking about, all after having evaded her chaperone. If Alex can find a quiet enough place, or somewhere up high to climb up, she could be caught reading legends or practicing her parries.
She knows enough English to get by, and is uninterested in learning more. Alex does not have her sister’s knack for European languages, but knows a mixed bag of immigrant tongues. She has little more than disdain for the Church, and even less for God.
Alex will eventually marry for she knows she must, but she’ll give any potential suitor the run of a lifetime for her hand. She will not be cowed or stowed away, and she will likely wear the trousers in any potential relationship.