New Zealand is misbehaving…

While I was watching the broadcast of the rugby match between the French team and the New Zealand All Blacks, I was reminded of this story about my great-grandfather Jack, a young farmer who in 1840 participated in the launching of a three-masted ship. His name is Comte de Paris. The Charente River rose as it left the port of Rochefort, and followed in the wake of the vases. Among the passengers, he recognized the gardener Malmanche, who wanted to try his luck in the colonies. But he was mainly there, talking with a beautiful woman named Adeline, who had arrived from Normandy with her father, who was shouting to him about how glad she was to move abroad. Jack suddenly found himself jealous of them and imagined himself joining them on this adventure. It was later learned that they arrived at the port of Akaroa in New Zealand after a long journey and settled there. What they didn't know was that the Union Jack flag had been flying there for a few weeks and that they would have to take up British citizenship, willy-nilly! Jack, a young farmer from the Lupine Marshes, had long wondered what happened to young Adeline in the Land of the Long White Cloud. While watching this match, I thought that among these great blacks, perhaps one of them was descended from a French “Count of Paris”? I heard Malmanche can still be found in New Zealand…