Isadora DeVille, The Fancy Gal. In Book Two, Isadora DeVille discovers that freedom isn’t free with or without papers, with or without money, and regardless of constitutional law. After the Civil War, when Mr. Lincoln set the enslaved free, this freedom stood unprotected by the citizens, the courts, and the Constitution of the United States as applied to the “negro” people, the colored people, the newly manumitted, and les gens de couleur libres of New Orleans who were born free before the War. Isadora soon realized that freedom itself could not and did not stand alone without strategy, alliances, and demands made upon her oppressors. Here again, although no longer a “fancy gal,” she was obliged to depend upon her intellect, platonic and sexual alliances, and yes, her heavenly alliances. Isadora DeVille could never afford or ever hope to have an uneventful life if she expected to advance her cause beyond freedom. A cause beyond freedom? True freedom thrives in tandem with equal access and opportunity, mutual respect for fellow citizenship rights, and laws that govern the whole of society justly irrespective of gender, social, political, or religious status or favor. Being a Creole or even a French Citizen accorded Isadora only that which she could demand in small portions. What is the worth of a woman if she is not allowed to claim it on her terms? Has her purpose and value been redirected and redefined by forces that would have her think her intelligence shallow; her beauty vain; her spirituality and intuition vestiges of witchcraft; her body for pleasure at best and ravaging by the worst of men; her opinion hollow outside of home life, children, pretty dresses, and patchwork quilts; her mindset fickle, or her virtues defined by Adam over Eve and “Proverbs you find the scripture?”