After the fire that destroyed the Cahill house and killed their father on 1507, the Cahill children parted ways, leaving their mother Olivia Cahill behind. They were not aware, however, that Olivia had been pregnant with Madeleine before the fire. Madeleine was born in 1507. She was named after her great-great-great-grandmother, Madeleine the Matriarch because her mother believed that she would reunite the Cahill family. Olivia and Madeleine later went into a self-imposed exile to the mainland, living under the surname of Babbitt, to avoid Damien Vesper. Though her siblings were not aware of her existence, Olivia told her about them, also teaching her that:
a) Nothing is more important than reuniting their family.
b) She must prevent any single branch of the family from obtaining all the Clues.
c) Gideon's gold ring must not fall into the hands of Damien Vesper, for as Olivia said, "the world will be his" if that were to happen.
When Olivia died in 1526, Madeleine swore on her deathbed that she would reunite their family. Afterwards, however, she was left in a mildly depressed emotional state, questioning what her mother had taught her.
To this day, the Madrigals continue to pursue the aim of their ancestor, constantly, secretly attempting to reunite the branches of the Cahill family. More than five centuries later in the 21st century, Madeleine’s wish to reunite the family came true after all the branches decided to make amends thanks to her descendants Amy and Dan’s actions of stopping Isabel from taking the Master Serum.
Card 249: Madeleine's Book reads, "In the year of our Lord 1507, a terrible fire." It appears that she was married to a man in Britain named Robert Arden sometime before 1537. In 1537, she gave birth to Mary Shakespeare (née Arden) who later gave birth to the famous poet William Shakespeare.
Madeleine was a beautiful young woman with thin, shoulder-length, curly reddish-gold hair, heart-shaped lips, pale skin, and brown eyes (as shown in The Black Book of Buried Secrets). She was shown also wearing a white pearl hair-loop and a thin black choker. She wore a tan dress that had a bear, a dragon, two snakes, and a wolf design on it, representing the four Cahill Branches. In The Emperor's Code, Dan Cahill thought that she looked like his mother Hope, but with hair and clothes from a different time.
Madeleine was taught from an early age to try to reunite her family, which most likely caused her much stress. Being the founder of the covert Madrigals and having lived most of her life in secret, she was adept in secrecy, much like Fiske Cahill. Similar to Amy Cahill, she was rather shy, worried more than she should, and spoke with a mild stutter. Later, when she decided to commit herself to her cause and later to create the organization that would later become the Madrigals, she became braver and more confident, again similar to Amy.
The woman in the picture is revealed to be Madeleine. Madeleine's entire history is explained to Amy and Dan by the Man In Black, Fiske Cahill, Grace's younger brother.
She is featured in the section named Madeleine Cahill. In it, she tries to convince Luke to reunite with his siblings, but he thinks she's a Vesper spy and throws her in the dungeons.
Online[]
There is a bonus video about Madeleine on the website - Video 3: Madeleine.
