I have to say I was completely surprised by Katherine Neville's interpretation of Mireille's character. Especially in her relationship with Valentine; Katherine Neville seems to be saying that Valentine was the dominant one there, but I had exactly the opposite impression. I thought Mireille was the one in charge. Valentine acts like a child: complaining all the time, making rude remarks without meaning to be rude, etc. Mireille is the more mature and level-headed of the two, and she is just correcting Valentine like a mother or older sister would correct a child.
Also, I never thought of Mireille's actions at the prison as an attempt at suicide; I thought she was trying to save Valentine's life! I e-mailed Katherine Neville about this, and she said Mireille might not consciously have wanted to die, but she was willing to die.
And I think Mireille did love Talleyrand, her children, Nim and Solarin, and their mother. Just because she never expressed her feelings, it doesn't mean she didn't love them. Mireille does seem very reserved, so I thought she was just having trouble expressing her feelings.
Just a little detail: Katherine Neville says Mireille is a year older than Valentine. I had always thought they were the same age. When I asked Katherine Neville about this, she said it does say in the book that Mireille was a year older. Well, I went back and looked, and I couldn't find any specific statement about this. Maybe I just missed it. (If any of you can find one, please let me know.) Actually, if Mireille was a year older, it means she was 19 instead of 18 when she killed Marat. I know this will sound awfully silly, but I liked the idea of her being 18, probably because it has an 8 in it. :-)
The self-defense thing: I still think it was self-defense in a way. After all, Marat threatened her life ("You'll never leave this place alive" or whatever; Katherine Neville still hasn't told us what he meant by that). And Mireille knew all along that her life was in danger from him. I looked up the meaning of self-defense in a legal dictionary, and I thought the meaning could be applied to Mireille's situation, but I can't be sure. But I'm glad to see that Katherine Neville doesn't think it was premeditated. I agree with her about why Mireille bought the knife: that it was for protection, and she didn't intend to kill Marat when she bought the knife.
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