The recently-discovered letters of the wealthy counter-revolutionary aristocrat, Innocente-Catherine de Rougé, dowager duchess dElbeuf (1707-94), offer a vivid and exciting new eye-witness perspective on the French Revolution and the Terror. Hostile witness to everything about the Revolution, from the noble revolt, the storming of the Bastille and the peasant revolution in 1788-91, through to the outbreak of war, the overthrow and trial of Louis XVI and the Terror in 1791-4, the duchesss letters to an unknown friend offer an unparalleled real-time narrative by an aristocratic woman struggling to understand radical change. Though tempted by emigration to the Low Countries, the duchess was unusual among her contemporary fellow-aristocrats in remaining in France down to her death in 1794, based in her two homes in Picardy and at the heart of Paris. As well as providing a detailed account of all she saw and read, the correspondence also portrays the anguished mental and spiritual odyssey of a highly devout octogenarian woman, who persisted inplangently declaring her outspokenly counter-revolutionary views even as she approached her own death in conditions of great personal danger. The letters constitute a remarkable example of female life-writing at the heart of the Age of Revolutions from a unique perspective.
Recenzijas
'The editors of a surviving fragment of her diary letters to an unknown correspondent, written between 1788 and 1794 and published here in the original French retrace her rise from already illustrious heights to the top of pre-revolutionary society.'
David Todd, LRB
Introduction: The Duchesse dElbeuf before 1789
The Duchesse dElbeufs Revolution
The hōtel dElbeuf and the Paris political world
Paris and Moreuil, 1788-91
Flirting with emigration, 1791-92
Paris under terror
The end of the line
The Text: form, style and genre
Note on the text
LETTERS AND NOTES
SECTION 1: 178889
Summary
Letter
1. Paris, Saturday, 13 December 1788
Letter
2. Paris, Thursday, 22 January 1789
Letter
3. Paris, Tuesday, 10 February 1789
Letter
4. Paris, Tuesday, 24 March 1789
Letter
5. Paris, Thursday, 31 April 1789
Letter
6. Paris, Saturday, 9 May 1789
Letter
7. Paris, Friday, 22 May 1789
Letter
8. Paris, Monday, 15 June 1789
Letter
9. Paris, Wednesday, 24 June 1789
Letter
10. Paris, Thursday, 1 July 1789
Letter
11. Paris, Thursday, 16 July 1789
Letter
12. Paris, Wednesday, 22 July 1789
Letter
13. Moreuil, Saturday, 8 August 1789
Letter
14. Moreuil, Thursday, 10 September 1789
Letter
15. Moreuil, Wednesday, 14 October 1789
Letter
16. Moreuil, Saturday, 17 October 1789
Letter
17. Moreuil, Wednesday, 18 November 1789
Letter
18. Moreuil, Tuesday, 22 December 1789
SECTION 2: 1790
Summary
Letter
19. Moreuil, Monday, 1 February 1790
Letter
20. Paris, Saturday, 10 March 1790
Letter
21. Moreuil, Thursday, 15 April 1790
Letter
22. Moreuil, Friday, 28 May 1790
NOTES 419 June 1790
Letter
23. Moreuil, Friday, 21 June 1790
NOTES 28 June4 July 1790
Letter
24. Moreuil, Monday, 5 July 1790
NOTES 828 July 1790
Letter
25. Moreuil, Saturday, 31 July 1790
NOTES 428 August 1790
DELETED NOTES 39 September 1790
Letter
26. Moreuil, Monday, 30 August 1790
NOTES 31 August28 December 1790
Letter
27. Moreuil, Wednesday, 29 December 1790
SECTION 3: 1791
Summary
NOTES 2 January7 February 1791
Letter
28. Saturday, Moreuil, 12 February 1791
NOTES 15 February19 March 1791
Letter
29. Paris, Saturday, 19 March 1791
NOTES 23 March27 April 1791
Letter
30. Paris, Friday, 29 April 1791
NOTES 116 May 1791
Letter
31. Paris, Monday, 16 May 1791
NOTES 21 May30 June 1791
Letter
32. Paris, Thursday, 30 June 1791
NOTES 327 July 1791
Letter
33. Paris, Friday, 29 July 1791
NOTES 125 August 1791
Letter
34. Paris, Saturday, 27 August 1791
NOTES 29 August3 September 1791
Letter
35. Paris, Monday, 5 September 1791
NOTES 814 September 1791
Letter
36. Tournai, Monday, 3 October 1791
Letter
37. Tournai, Monday, 7 November 1791
Letter
38. Tournai, Thursday, 25 December 1791
SECTION 4: 1792
Summary
Letter
39. Tournai, Saturday, 7 January 1792
Letter
40. Tournai, Wednesday, 31 January 1792
Letter
41. Tournai, Wednesday, 29 February 1792
NOTES March 1792
Letter
42. Paris, Thursday, 22 March 1792
NOTES 8 April 1792
Letter
43. Paris, Monday, 9 April 1792
NOTES 1126 April 1792
Letter
44. Paris, Monday, 16 April 1792
NOTES 1728 April 1792
Letter
45. Paris, Tuesday, 24 April 1792
NOTES 25 April25 May 1792
Letter
46. Paris, Thursday, 25 May 1792
NOTES 2830 May 1792
Letter
47. Paris, Thursday, 31 May 1792
NOTES 31 May16 June 1792
Letter
48. Paris, Saturday, 16 June 1792
NOTES 18 June7 July 1792
Letter
49. Paris, Monday, 9 July 1792
NOTES 1020 July 1792
Letter
50. Paris, Wednesday, 18 July 1792
NOTES 1628 July 1792
Letter
51. Paris, Wednesday, 25 July 1792
NOTES 25 July13 August 1792
Letter
52. Paris, Tuesday, 14 August 1792
NOTES 1523 August 1792
Letter
53. Paris, Friday, 24 August 1792
NOTES 24 August3 September 1792
Letter
54. Paris, Tuesday, 4 September 1792
NOTES 421 September 1792
Letter
55. Paris, Saturday, 22 September 1792
NOTES 25 September13 October
Letter
56. Paris, Saturday, 15 October 1792
NOTES 16 October20 November 1792
Letter
57. Paris, Thursday, 22 November 1792
NOTES 23 November13 December 1792
Letter
58. Paris, Saturday, 15 December 1792
NOTES 1626 December 1792
Section 5: 179394
Summary
NOTES 421 January 1793
Letter
59. Paris, Tuesday, 22 January 1793
NOTES 24 January1 March 1793
Letter
60. Paris, Friday, 1 March 1793
NOTES 329 March 1793
Letter
61. Paris, Friday, 29 March 1793
NOTES 19 April 1793
Letter
62. Paris, Wednesday, 10 April 1793
NOTES 12 April13 May 1793
Letter
63. Paris, Tuesday, 14 May 1793
NOTES 16 May5 June 1793
Letter
64. Paris, Wednesday, 5 June 1793
NOTES 10 June6 July 1793
Letter
65. Paris, Wednesday, 10 July 1793
NOTES 1331 July 1793
Letter
66. Paris, Friday, 31 July 1793
NOTES 1 August20 September 1793
Letter
67. Paris, Friday, 20 September 1793
NOTES 24 September20 October 1793
Letter
68. Paris, Monday, 22 October 1793
NOTES 31 October5 November 1793
Letter
69. Paris, Wednesday, 6 November 1793
NOTES 7 November 17938 January 1794
APPENDIX: Other dElbeuf letters, 1793-4
1.To Jules-Franēois Paré, minister of the Interior, 11 October 1793
2.To Georgette de Rougé du Plessis-Belličre, 26 October
1793.
3.To Paré, minister of the Interior, 11 December
1793.
4.To an unknown individual, early
1794.
5.To Rosalie de Rougé, 14 February
1794.
List of Persons Mentioned
Sources and Bibliography
Acknowledgements
Illustrations and Maps
Index
Colin Jones is Professor Emeritus, Queen Mary University of London and Visiting Professor, University of Chicago. He is the author of many books on French history, most recently Versailles (Head of Zeus, 2018) and The Fall of Robespierre: 24 Hours in Revolutionary Paris (Oxford University Press, 2021). Alex Fairfax-Cholmeley is Senior Lecturer in European History at the University of Exeter. He is the author of several articles on Revolutionary justice and the Terror during the French Revolution and he also researches the eighteenth-century transatlantic via Revolutionary connections between France and Saint-Domingue/Haiti. Simon Macdonald is an Associate Lecturer in Modern European History at University College London. His research focuses on transnational and cultural history, with particular reference to the French Revolution. He is the co-editor, with Pascal Bastien, of Paris et ses peuples au XVIIIe sičcle (Paris: Éditions de la Sorbonne, 2020).
