Marguerite de La Rocque

She became well known after her subsequent rescue and return to France; her story was recounted in the Heptaméron by Queen Marguerite of Navarre, and in later histories by François de Belleforest and André Thévet.

Marguerite de La Rocque's place and date of birth are unknown, but records attest to her declaration of fealty and homage in 1536 for her lands in Périgord and Languedoc.

[1] While possibly motivated by his strong Calvinist morals, it is likely he was also driven by financial greed, since his debts were high, and Marguerite's death would be to his benefit.

Marguerite's lover is intentionally unidentified in early histories; while presented in the Queen of Navarre's work as an unskilled labourer, this was, in part, to hide his identity, preserving the reputation of his aristocratic family.

The Queen of Navarre's account of Marguerite's adventures was a romantic tale, based on information provided by "Captain Roberval"; Thevet, who claimed he was told the story by the cast-away herself, offered more precise details, describing the journey, the colonists on board the ships, and the location of the Île des Démons.

In 1949, Dinah Silveira de Queiroz published Margarida La Rocque: a ilha do demônios, inspired by Thevet's Cosmography; the Brazilian novel was translated into Spanish and French.

[10] In 1975, historian Elizabeth Boyer wrote the novel Marguerite de la Roque: A Story of Survival;[11] and in 1983, A Colony of One: The History of a Brave Woman.

In 1995, Donald Wilson Stanley Ryan republished George Martin's The Legend of Marguerite, over a century after its appearance, adding an explanatory introduction for the Breakwater Books edition.

[17] The Swedish author Karolina Ramqvist references Marguerite's marooning, as well as de la Navarre's and Trevet's accounts, in her Björnkvinnan[18] (The Bear Woman[19]) from 2019.