Jean Amilcar (c. 1781–1796) was the adopted son (foster child) of King

Louis XVI Louis XVI (''Louis-Auguste''; ; 23 August 175421 January 1793) was the last King of France before the fall of the monarchy during the French Revolution. He was referred to as ''Citizen Louis Capet'' during the four months just before he was ...

and Queen

Marie Antoinette Marie Antoinette Josèphe Jeanne (; ; née Maria Antonia Josepha Johanna; 2 November 1755 – 16 October 1793) was the last queen of France before the French Revolution. She was born an archduchess of Austria, and was the penultimate child a ...

of France.Philippe Huisman, Marguerite Jallut: ''Marie Antoinette'', Stephens, 1971 Jean Amilcar was from

French Senegal The history of Senegal is commonly divided into a number of periods, encompassing the prehistoric era, the precolonial period, colonialism, and the contemporary era. Paleolithic The earliest evidence of human life is found in the valley of the ...

. He was enslaved as a child and then bought from local slavers by the French official

Chevalier de Boufflers Stanislas Jean, chevalier de Boufflers (31 May 1738, Nancy – 18 January 1815) was a French statesman and writer. Biography He was born near Nancy, Meurthe-et-Moselle, the son of Louis François, marquis de Boufflers. His mother, Marie Cathe ...

, who wished to spare him the deadly transatlantic crossing. When Chevalier de Boufflers returned to France in 1787, he brought with him Amilcar, and presented him to queen Marie Antoinette as a "gift". The queen had him

manumitted Manumission, or enfranchisement, is the act of freeing enslaved people by their enslavers. Different approaches to manumission were developed, each specific to the time and place of a particular society. Historian Verene Shepherd states that t ...

, baptized and adopted; that is, he became her foster child. He was not the first child taken in as a foster child to the queen, since paying for poor foster children was a normal part of the charity expected from a queen. In contrast to the queen's foster children

Armand Gagné Armand Gagné (''François-Michel Gagné'', 1771–1792) was the adopted son (and/or foster son) of King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette of France.Philippe Huisman, Marguerite Jallut: ''Marie Antoinette'', Stephens, 1971 Adoption One day in ...

Ernestine Lambriquet Ernestine de Lambriquet (''Marie-Philippine Lambriquet'', 31 July 1778 – 31 December 1813) was the adopted/foster daughter of King Louis XVI and Queen Marie Antoinette of France. Biography Playmate of the Princess She was born at Versailles as ...

, and

"Zoë" Jeanne Louise Victoire Jeanne Louise Victoire "Zoë" (1787 – after 1792) was the adopted daughter of King Louis XVI (1754–1793) and Queen Marie-Antoinette (1755–1793) of France.Philippe Huisman, Marguerite Jallut: ''Marie Antoinette'', Stephens, 1971 ...

, however, he was not kept to be raised with the queen at court. The queen had him placed in a boarding school at Saint-Cloud on her expense. Marie Antoinette kept paying for him even after the outbreak of the

French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are considere ...

of 1789, and he remained at the boarding school. When Marie Antoinette was imprisoned in 1792, she could no longer pay his fee. This resulted in Jean Amilcar being expelled from his school. The traditional assumption has been that he died after he was turned out from the boarding school and starved to death on the street. However later research has proven this to be false. Jean, by that time eleven years old, was taken care of by one of his teachers, Quentin Beldon, who successfully applied to the government to provide for Jean's schooling with reference to the support the revolutionary government granted to people who had been enslaved during the former regime. Displaying a talent for drawing, Jean Amilcar was able to enroll at the Liancourt Academy in Paris with state support in 1796. However, he died from an illness in a hospital in Paris later that same year.
Une autre histoire
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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Amilcar, Jean 1780s births 1796 deaths 18th-century French people Household of Marie Antoinette French adoptees French slaves 18th-century slaves Children of Louis XVI French people of Senegalese descent Freedmen

See also

References