Dancing to the Precipice

Born Lucie Dillon, to a half-French mother and an Anglo-Irish father, her world was Versailles and the court of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. She married a French aristocrat, and narrowly survived the French Revolution, escaping to America at the time of Washington and Jefferson. Here, she lived a life of milking cows and chopping wood, having previously been accustomed to the lavish life of the French court. Returning to France prematurely, Lucie had to flee again, this time to England, where she took up sewing in order to support herself and her family. Repeatedly in the right place at the right time, Lucie saw the Battle of Waterloo, the fall of Napoleon and the return of Louis XVIII, and the Restoration.She was an outstanding diarist and a remarkable woman, who witnessed one of the most dramatic and brutal periods of history, playing the part of observer, commentator and, often, participant. For the last years of her life she was ambassadress to Holland and the Kingdom of Sardinia. Her friends included Wellington, Lafayette, Alexander Hamilton, Talleyrand and Madame de Stael. She died, aged 83, in Pisa. Mixing politics and court intrigue, social observation and everyday details about food, work, illness, children, manners and clothes, Caroline Moorehead paints a vivid and memorable portrait of an era - lasting three-quarters of a century - that saw the fortunes of France, as well as those of Lucie herself, rise and fall and rise again. Both as a witness and as a survivor, Lucie is a superb subject for an exemplary biographer.

ISBN 070117904X   Pages 496 ISBN13 9780701179045 (What's this?)   Weight (grammes) 892 Publisher Vintage   Published in London Imprint Chatto & Windus   Height (mm) 238 Format Hardback   Width (mm) 158 Publication date 05 Mar 2009   Spine width (mm) 43 DEWEY 944.04092   Academic level General DEWEY edition DC22

		List of Illustrations
		Characters in the book
		Foreword		1
1		This Magnificent Age		5
2		A Talent for Deception		27
3		A Sparkling Picture		44
4		The Colour of Hope		77
5		The Dismantling of Paris		102
6		Deep and Dark Shades		124
7		Standing on a Vast Volcano		144
8		Heads Falling like Tiles		169
9		Mrs Latour from the Old Country		195
10		Incroyables and Merveilleuses		229
11		Hordes of Vagabond French		248
12		Toothless Dogs and Clawless Cats		276
13		Not a Court, but a Power		308
14		Oh Unhappy France!		339
15		Embarking on a Career of Grief		366
16		A Pocket Tyranny		381
17		A Warm Heart		404
18		The Rhapsodies of Life		430
		Afterword		435
		Acknowledgements		437
		Bibliography		439
		Source notes		445
		Time line		463
		Index		467

 Be the first to write a customer review