In Part 2, Goodman highlights how Marguerite’s relationship with Roberval exemplifies The Personal Impact of Gender and Class Inequality. The author positions Marguerite’s attempts to question his motives and behavior as the first steps toward reclaiming her own independence and autonomy. Roberval keeps Marguerite in the dark about her future, which prompts Marguerite to ask Auguste about the purpose of this secrecy, saying: “The servants understand my guardian is in debt—and they know his commission too. Why, then, does your master behave secretly?” (68). Marguerite notices that Roberval’s secrecy appears targeted at her alone and realizes that he actively weaponizes her ignorance to manipulate her.

Goodman positions Madame D’Artois and Claire as examples for Marguerite of how to stay informed and combat Roberval’s attempts to subjugate her. Both women use a network of servants to gather information about Roberval’s plan to leave them behind. Marguerite follows their example and pays Alys for information about the house and Roberval, which helps her learn about his plans to travel to New France. Marguerite’s relationship with Alys gives her a vision of a life in which she is free to traverse the world on her own, allowing her to feel less confined. Marguerite notes: “I learned verses to recite to Damienne, but in the passageway and outside the kitchen door, I sought Alys, who enjoyed the world and all the people in it” (75). With Auguste, Marguerite appeals to his kindness, leveraging his sympathy to get information. After crying from Roberval’s rough treatment, she yells at Auguste, “You know his plans and keep them from me even when you see I’m hurt,” prompting Auguste to reveal Roberval’s plan to sail in May (89). Marguerite’s conduct in this scene—specifically her willingness to be alone with Auguste despite the impropriety—underscores her tendency to prioritize personal agency over socially prescribed decorum.

Roberval—like the punishing Canadian wilderness—represents a hostile force that Marguerite must find a way to survive, pointing to the novel’s thematic interest in Survival Conditions as a Catalyst for Personal Growth. Marguerite’s lessons with Roberval expose his cruelty and the emotional and physical abuse she endures at his hands. Marguerite’s evolving understanding of Roberval’s true character mirrors her arc from innocence to experience over the course of the novel. Initially, Marguerite wants Roberval to instruct her, believing he’ll “treat [her] as a daughter,” praising her and treating her kindly. However, once Marguerite is enraptured with his charm, Roberval reveals his true temper, verbally and physically accosting her for her mistakes. Marguerite notes: “If I missed notes, my guardian rapped my knuckles with a wooden rule. My fingers smarted, but if I cried out, he called me a fool. Hesitating, I enraged him” (86). Roberval uses not only his position as Marguerite’s superior but his physical size to threaten her into submission. When Roberval holds Marguerite’s arms until she recites the psalms precisely, Marguerite understands Roberval’s desire for dominance: “His pleasure was to give and take away again, to reassure and then unsettle” (88). Roberval’s wild changeability—pairing affection and violence—keeps Marguerite obedient; she never knows when he will snap, so she must always try to please him.

A key tool of Roberval’s manipulation is the book of psalms—a symbol within the text of The Use of Christian Faith to Reinforce Patriarchal Power. Roberval first gives Marguerite the psalms instead of money as a cruel joke about sustenance. Marguerite reads the psalms not to feed her soul or find comfort in the divine, but to avoid Roberval’s punishments. The psalms become a form of punishment themselves, as Roberval also uses their words to threaten and shame Marguerite. For example, after Roberval discovers Marguerite’s letter to Madame D’Artois, he forces her to read psalms about God’s punishment for liars, sitting “close and [telling her] what the Psalmist meant, which was that God hates evildoers, and he will snare and drown them” (99). Roberval weaponizes the psalms to humiliate Marguerite for her betrayal.

Goodman connects Roberval’s desire to dominate Marguerite to the broader ethos of exploration and colonization in 16th-century Europe. At La Rochelle, Marguerite meets a group of voyagers—like Roberval—who exemplify the period’s obsession with discovering, claiming, and colonizing. Marguerite listens to their conversations, and grandiose descriptions of exploration full of the idealism and lust for expansion that dominated this era. For example, Captain Jacques Cartier describes the wilderness of New France in hyperbolically exotic terms:

This gulf was so big that it would require many hands to chart it properly. Its banks were timbered, so you could not see an end of trees. In the water were more fish than any fleet could ever catch, and these were cod. In this country, he had found seal, beaver, sable—furs fit for kings. (59-60)

These new territories are at once extremely dangerous and extremely valuable, and the men dream of conquering them to expand their own power and wealth. Goodman also highlights how little explorers knew about the New World, despite their bravado. As a visual example, Auguste shows Marguerite a map of New France, and Marguerite is struck by how blank it is, noting that “waterways were finely drawn in ink with swirling currents and miniature ships, but the lands were bare except for a few trees and scattered mountains” (78). In a moment of dramatic irony, Cartier explains that the Indigenous people assured him that the Saint Lawrence River leads to China—a statement a modern readership knows to be false. Goodman includes this example to illustrate the excitement, danger, entitlement, and ignorance that saturated the Age of Exploration.