The legend is said to have inspired a novel, which I was not able to find in the colony; it is perhaps long out of print. The pages of M. Sidney Daney,[1] who treats the story as a historical event, probably form the best authority for it. According to this writer Mademoiselle Aimée Dubuc Dérivry was born on the Pointe Royale plantation at Robert in December, 1766,—three years later than Josephine. She was the child of one of the oldest and most distinguished creole families of Martinique. She was sent to France at an early age to be educated, and passed several years in a convent school at Nantes. At the age of eighteen she was called home, and embarked from the same port in charge of a governess. The vessel was attacked and captured by an Algerian corsair, and Aimée, her governess, and other passengers were taken to Algiers and sold as slaves. The beauty of the young creole attracted the notice of the Dey, who, desiring to gain the friendship of the Sultan, bought the girl and sent her as a present to Selim III at Constantinople. There, it was alleged, she became first the favorite, and afterward Sultana-Validé—as the mother, in 1785, of Mahmoud II, who ascended the Ottoman throne in 1808. Such is the legend, in its briefest possible form.
To those familiar with Turkish history, the narrative is palpably absurd. But it is still believed in the colony, notwithstanding its disproval by a more careful writer than Daney,—M. Pierre Régis Dessalles, in a note attached to one of the chapters of his 'Annales du Conseil Souverain de la Martinique.'[2] Dessalles, disciplined to exactitude by his legal profession, never set down a statement without thorough examination of fact, and had to aid him all the Archives de la Marine,—among which are preserved in France all important colonial documents, since climate and insects render the perfect conservation of papers impossible in the tropics. From these he found the history of the De Rivéry, or Dérivry family,—the latter spelling being the official one. The father was Henri Jacob Dubuc Dérivry, of the parish of Robert, who married (24th May, 1773) Demoiselle Marie Anne Arbousset, belonging to a family illustrious in Martinique history. By this marriage he had three children:—
1. Marie-Anne, born April 5, 1774; died November 28, 1775.
2. Rose-Henriette-Germaine, born February 6, 1778. There is no documentary evidence in existence as to what became of Rose-Henriette-Germaine. This is probably the girl alleged to have entered the seraglio at Constantinople, and to have had her brother (captured with her) created a pasha—Mehemet-Ali, father of Ibrahim Pasha.
3. Marie—Alexandrine—Louise—Victoire, born June 24, 1780, and married January 15, 1806, to a Monsieur Malet.
Thus the legend evaporates! Allowing for the precocity of creole women, it is still quite evident that, as Rose-Henriette-Germaine was born February 6, 1778, and the Sultan Mahmoud (her alleged son!) on July 20, 1785, the story is impossible according to the records, which allow an interval of only twelve years between the marriage of M. Dérivry and the birth of Mahmoud, at which time Rose could have been only seven or eight years old. M. Daney says she was born at Robert, December i, 1755; but M. Dérivry was married only in 1773. Furthermore, Mahmoud II was not the son of Selim III! Yet, in spite of these hard facts, the legend is still believed; the colony still boasts of its Aimée Dérivry as a mother of Sultans; and faded MS. documents—some of which I have read, and copied myself—are shown to strangers as proof of the romantic story.
All that is certain is that about a hundred years ago some young creole girl of the Dubuc family was sent to France for her education, and was never seen again by her parents; that many strange stories were related accounting for the mystery of her disappearance, some cruel, some improbable, all false; that her relatives went to Europe and spent years in vain efforts to discover a trace of her; and that meanwhile there sprang up this legend of her fate, still told with pride to strangers in the colony, over a glass of sugar syrup and rum, by hospitable planters.
[1] Histoire de la Martinique, depuis la colonization jusqu'en 1815. Par M. Sidney Daney, Membre du Conseil Colonial de la Martinique. Fort-Royal: 1844. See vol. iv, p. 234.
[2] Vol. H, pp. 285, 286.