Maria Pasqua - Magdalen Goffin

Based on family diaries and letters, Maria Pasqua tells the story of a beautiful, unhappy woman who achieved fame in Paris as a child, and whose later life consisted of a hopeless and frustrated longing to return to the scenes of her childhood.

Born in 1856, Maria Pasqua was blessed with an exceptional and unfading beauty. From an early age she was modelling for artists in Rome. When six her father took her to Paris where she was adopted by the Comtesse de Noailles, a member of the Baring family. The Comtesse was domineering and eccentric on the grand scale. She had an invincible faith in the salubrious benefit of the breath of cattle, and would keep a cow tethered to every ground floor window so that its wholesome breath could infuse the room. When she married a doctor turned country gentleman some twenty years her senior, Maria Pasqua , whilst still subject to the constant interference of the Comtesse, found herself cocooned within the enervating routine of a typical country house of that time.

Madgalen Goffin has written a haunting and entirely delightful memoir which combines, to an extraordinary extent, humour, vitality and a most attractive sympathy for the tragedy of life.

The book has an interesting genesis. The first draft was written by Magdalen Goffin's mother, who sent it to Evelyn Waugh: he was haunted by what he considered to be a unique and poignant story, and the suggestions he made for its improvement and presentation proved invaluable when Madgalen Goffin herself took up the task following her mother's death.