Character PB: Alison Sudol

Character Journal: v_victorious

Name: Victoire Chevalier
Birth date: June 6, 1918
Age: 22, soon to be 23.
Citizenship: French.
Loyalties: Resistance.
Occupation: “Bar-tender” (aka high-end hooker) at Fancy LaMorne’s place.

Appearance: Victoire is a 5’6 slender young woman with brilliant red hair and big green eyes. Her round face is completed by full lips, which are usually turned up into a mischievous grin (though not so much these days). Her wavy hair is long, past her shoulders, and kept down when she’s working (men seem to like it that way). When she’s not working, she usually will pin it up just to get it out of her way. Victoire’s sense of fashion has always been very good, having lived in Paris her entire life, and she always tries to look chic and fashionable, though she’s had trouble doing this recently considering the present condition of the country. Now her stockings are often ripped or worn, and she only has one good outfit left, which she is saving for the day the war is over. The only jewelry she wears is a silver band on a thin silver chain around her neck, which is her wedding band.

Personality: As fiery as her hair, Victoire has sharp wit and an even sharper tongue. She’s intelligent, despite the fact that she stopped going to school at age 14, but nobody cares about your education when you’re a prostitute. While Victoire is sarcastic and can often be abrasive, she is very emotional and passionate. However, not many people see this part of Victoire often – only her husband, Fancy, and a few of her fellow co-workers that she’s very close with.

Strengths: Musical talent, persuasion, and intelligence.

Weaknesses: Strong-willed (“stubborn as an ass,” her husband likes to say), quick temper, drinks too much, doesn’t follow her conscience sometimes.

Skills/Abilities: An ear for music – excellent on the piano and a decent singing voice, love-making, quite an actress (really, one needs to be in this profession), can speak not only her native language of French, but also Russian and a basic knowledge of English.

Background: Victoire is a born and bred Parisian. She grew up without a mother, who died in childbirth. Instead her father, Henri, raised her. He was a former military man who fought in WWI. They were not wealthy, and Henri had a problem with depression and post-traumatic stress disorder (although no one knew what that was). He had trouble finding and keeping jobs and took to drinking instead. His daughter taught herself piano in order to play him music to try and cheer him up. Victoire returned home from school one afternoon in 1932 and found her father in a pool of blood on the kitchen floor, his pistol next to his limp hand. After Henri’s suicide, the 14-year-old Victoire had no family left (her aunt in Italy refused to take her in) and was put in an orphanage on the other side of the city. Here she remained for two years. Conditions were not as bad as they could have been, but they weren’t anything spectacular, either. There weren’t really any teachers to teach, so after the little ones learned to read they were deemed educated enough. At 16, Victoire believed she was old enough to be on her own, and she could no longer take the poverty of the Catholic orphanage. She knew she could make her own money elsewhere and live a better life. So, one cool evening at the end of August, Victoire managed to run away.

Life outside the orphanage was not as easy as Victoire had thought. After failing to find work anywhere, she took to begging at cafes and street carts for food, and she slept in doorways and empty warehouses. One day a woman approached her on the street after Victoire was told to stop begging round a café. She told her that she could get her work as an actress. Victoire agreed and the pair of them went to a run-down house on the south side. Oh, sure, Victoire was acting, alright – acting like she loved the sweaty over-weight man who was paying her to sleep with him. The madam didn’t pay very well, but Victoire was one of her best girls. Soon she realized she could be her own employer and keep all of her own wages. Victoire became a solo prostitute. In 1936, when she was 18, Victoire met Yuri, a handsome Russian businessman who was in Paris on business. He had no idea she was a prostitute when they met, and they soon fell in love. They took up together in a flat. Victoire was the happiest she had ever been; she stopped being a prostitute. She’d play the piano for him and he taught her Russian. He was intelligent and accepting, and when he found out about Victoire’s past he made her promise that she would never return to that, that she was so much better than that, and that he would take care of her. They married not a year after living together.

The troubles began with the German occupation of France and the established Vichy government. Not only did the “Undesirables” include Jews, Freemasons, and Communists, but it also listed immigrants. Yuri, a Russian by birth, was lumped into this group. The couple tried to remain low and indiscreet, but one evening a Nazi officer assaulted Victoire when she and her husband were returning home from the market. Yuri, his nerves already wound tight, broke and began cursing the officer in rapid Russian before taking out his pistol and shooting him. The almost empty street was immediately filled with people and Yuri was arrested. The Nazi officials did not tell Victoire where he was taken, but they made threats that she had better get a good look at him because he was most likely going in front of the firing squad. Her last sight of Yuri was of him being taken roughly away.

Even though she had promised her husband she would not go back to her old ways, Victoire had no choice. She needed money and prostitution was the only thing she knew how to do. She found a job at Fancy LaMorne’s place, which was a much better brothel than the one she had previously worked at. Although Victoire was never informed of her husband’s fate, she is certain he is dead. However, she still wears her wedding band on a necklace in his memory and in the very small hope that he will return.