Marie-Angélique Memmie Le Blanc

Marie-Angélique Memmie Le Blanc (1712 – 15 December 1775), also known as the Wild Child of Champagne, The Maid of Châlons, and Wild Child of Songy, was a feral child. She was born in Wisconsin—at the time a French colony—into the Native American Fox Tribe (La Nation des Renards in French).

Her story is known through separate accounts by Julia Douthwaite^[1] and French surgeon Serge Aroles, who unearthed hundreds of documents concerning her, and published 30 of them in a 2004 biography^[2].

She survived outside of society for ten years between November, 1721 and September, 1731—longer than any other confirmed feral child, perhaps owing to her age^{[citation needed]}. After her entrance into society she succeeded in learning to read and write, also unique among feral children^[3].

While the primary sources for this case are in French, many factual errors circulated in English, German, and Spanish publications, such as that she was an Eskimo or Inuit, that she was 10 years old when discovered, and that she died "poor at the age of thirty".^{[citation needed]}

Following a battle in 1716 between the French and the Amerindians which took place one hundred miles west of Chicago in which her tribe was defeated, she and many children were sold as servants, and she ended up in Canada. In 1718 she was purchased by Madame de Courtemanche—described by Aroles as a "lady of quality", who loved her as her own daughter and brought her to Labrador.^{[citation needed]}

Following the battle between the Eskimos (Inuit) and the fragile French colony in Labrador, the family embarked on the vessel "L'Aventurier", which sailed for France on the 11th of September.^{[citation needed]}

Upon arriving at Marseille on October 20, Western Europe was enduring a plague which claimed the lives of half of Marseille's population. Marie-Angelique was held in quarantine for a year. She escaped into the woods of Provence, in November 1721 and was captured ten years later in village of Songy at the age of 19 years. She died in Paris at the age of 63 (15 December 1775), then a pensioner of the queen of France.^{[citation needed]}

References

1. ^ Douthwaite, Julia V. (2002). The wild girl, natural man, and the monster: dangerous experiments in the Age of Enlightenment. Chicago History of American Civilization Series. University of Chicago Press. pp. 314. ISBN 9780226160566. 
2. ^ The biography of Marie-Angélique, with 30 facsimile of archives documents and shelfmarks of hundreds other archives hold in France Aroles, Serge (2004) (in fr). Marie-Angélique (Haut-Mississippi, 1712 - Paris, 1775). Survie et résurrection d'une enfant perdue dix années en forêt. ISBN 2 915587 019. 
3. ^ Concerning the mental deficiency of all other feral children (none of them could have learned to read and to write), first opportune critical approach based on archives : Serge Aroles, L'Enigme des enfants-loups (The Enigma of wolf-children), 2007. ISBN 2748339096.

Persondata
Name	Le Blanc, Marie-Angelique Memmie
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1721
Place of birth
Date of death	15 December 1775
Place of death