The unknown woman of the Seine

The Unknown Woman of the Seine

She was found at the dawn of a new century – a young girl, drowned, hauled from the Seine in the grim light of a grey autumn morning.

The custom for handling a pauper of the river was to quickly make a wax death mask before decay added to the depredations of the water, then store the body and retain the mask for a few months for viewing. If the victim remained unidentified and unclaimed, the wax from the mask would be used for another waif pulled from the waters, and the body buried in a pauper’s grave. Sadly, this was the girl’s most likely fate; even if her identity was discovered, it was unlikely that her family could afford to take her.

At least this one looked at peace – so few floaters did. And the wax death mask that was hastily cast was also hauntingly beautiful in its expression. The girl’s face had retained a small, serene, almost enigmatic smile, as though she knew a secret which not even death could wrest from her. She was a waxen Mona Lisa sprung from a watery grave on a cold October day.

The mask maker, unable to dismiss the sweetness of her face from his mind, took a journalist friend to the catacombs where the masks were kept – and so a legend was born. The tale was told thus: here was the face of an unknown girl who, for unknown reasons – perhaps a pain too great to bear, perhaps a cruel twist of fate – had been taken to the bosom of the great river to sleep her final sleep. Her remains were unclaimed, her identity unknown. In death, she was as sympathetic as she was mysterious.

Like all good legends at their inception, bare bones to be clothed in any way one chose, her story appealed to those who were moved by her fragile loveliness and the tragedy of her lonely death. As the tale spread, it caught the imagination of the continent. Replicas of the mask were made and remade, the girl’s story told and retold, novels written about the mystery of her short life and tragic death. It was said that her visage set the standard of beauty for a whole generation of young German women. On and on her legend rolled, until the Great War swept her aside in a tide of horror and blood and loss even more powerful than the heedless flow of the Seine.

And so for many years she rested – in neglected corners of old houses, propped in the dusty windows of junk shops, discarded, chipped, and dirty in boxes of bric-a-brac destined for the trash heap. Not exactly forgotten, not exactly remembered, her mortal remains long consigned to the Potter’s Field, her face relegated to the place in the Zeitgeist occupied by people in old photographs and unworshipped gods. A fitful sleep, but a sleep of sorts nonetheless.

But her tale, as it turned out, was far from over, and, although few as time went on would be aware of her history, her immortality would be ensured in a strangely fitting way.

The year was 1958. Doctor Peter Safar, a pioneer in the field of cardiopulmonary resuscitation, was on a lecture tour promoting his work. While speaking in Stavanger, Norway, he noted with regret that there was no easy way to teach people to perform his life-saving procedure – he himself had used heavily anaesthetised volunteers to perfect the method, but this was impractical for training others. While his new technique had been proven effective, it seemed doomed to remain obscure.

In the audience, another doctor, Bjorn Lind, had a sudden inspiration – why not use a manikin? His friend Asmund Laerdal, whose son, by chance, had almost drowned the previous year, was a toy manufacturer, and happened to be transitioning from wood to soft plastic. Lind thought that Laerdal’s knowledge of new materials and methods of manufacture might offer a solution, and knew that in any case the undertaking would be close to his heart.

Working together, the three men designed a life-sized manikin, Safar and Lind providing the knowledge of anatomy, Laerdal his knowledge of new materials and doll fabrication. Eventually, they created a prototype that was anatomically correct in articulation and in the resistance caused by the pressure of the human chest cavity.

While the device was functional, they felt it was unfinished – the manikin’s head had no features save for a mouth. Believing that a realistic appearance would better motivate students to learn the lifesaving procedure, they decided that their teaching aid needed a face.

Here, the river girl stirs in her slumber. The moment of her return to the stage is approaching and the gears of fate take one slow final turn as Laerdal, while visiting an elderly relative, encounters a ceramic replica of L’Inconnue de la Seine, and, on hearing her story, knows that the manikin is now complete – the river girl will provide its face.

The CPR manikin went into production in 1960, and Laerdal’s factory never made another toy. Since that time, countless people have labored to save a girl who was beyond help when she was first found, and in doing so, have learned to save those for whom there is still hope.

Perhaps, in her final moments, before the oblivious waters closed her eyes for the last time, L’Inconnue – we shall call her by the only name she will ever have – glimpsed a future where there was a rescue, and smiled.

L’Inconnue de la Seine – The unknown woman of the Seine

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