With Paris Fashion Week beginning September 24, lovers of style
and all things French turn their eyes to the City of Lights. In addition to
producing iconic clothing, France's twists, turns and sometime abrupt societal
changes—from monarchy to revolution to empire--have long inspired historical
novelists.
Moving chronologically, we start with MADAME TUSSAUD: A NOVEL by
best-selling author Michelle Moran. Trained by a Swiss doctor she calls her
uncle, Marie Grosholtz becomes a skilled artist in the sculpting of wax and an
astute businesswoman who helps run the family firm, Salon de Cire, which
displays wax portraits and tableaux of the foremost personalities in France.
Although her family's home is a meeting place for budding revolutionaries like
Desmoulins, Marat and Robespierre, when the royal family, impressed by her
artistry, invites her to become a tutor to Princess Elizabeth, she cannot
refuse. But as she gets to know her student, the king, and the queen better,
she finds herself balancing a fine line between sympathy for her royal employers
and the increasingly strident demands of the reformers. And when reform becomes
the madness of the Reign of Terror, she must put pragmatism before loyalty and
do what is necessary to insure that her art, and her family, survive—including
making death masks of guillotined aristocrats, some of whom were formerly
friends. Moran presents readers with a vivid portrait of an extraordinary woman
and a desperate time.
We now jump from Revolution to the Empire with THE AMBITIOUS MADAME BONEPARTE by Ruth Hull Chatlien.
Baltimore Belle Betsy Patterson believes herself destined for more than a
mundane marriage with some rich planter in the fledgling United States. Her
dream of a glamorous life in the courts of Europe seems destined to be fulfilled
when she falls in love with dashing young French lieutenant Jerome Bonaparte,
youngest brother of Napoleon. But the general who plans to expand his power by
marrying his family into all the royal houses of Europe has no use for a brash
American. Refusing to recognize the marriage or the son produced from it,
Napoleon becomes an adversary Betsy fights bitterly her whole life, battling for
the recognition of her status that never comes. Along the way, this witty,
bold, confident woman scandalizes Washington with her daring fashions, dines
with Presidents, dances with the aristocracy, survives shipwreck, attacks by
French and British ships, and the Battle of Baltimore in 1814. Full of rich
period detail, Chatlien's novel illumines the life of one of the Napoleonic
Age's lesser-known but no less fascinating figures.
BECOMING JOSEPHINE by
Heather Webb features another female from the New World who had much greater
success at achieving wealth and fame--Creole beauty Marie-Josèphe-Rose Tascher
de la Pagerie of Martinique, who became known to the world as the Empress
Josephine, Napoleon's first wife. Her first, arranged marriage to Eugène de
Beauharnais, unhappy and leading to a separation, gave her two children. After
being imprisoned during the Terror—during which her husband was guillotined—Rose
survived to become a beautiful but indigent socialite who survived by having
affairs with a number of prominent men. In 1795 she was introduced to rising
soldier and politician Napoleon Bonaparte, who became enraptured by her and
married her in 1796 over the objections of his family. Though both would go on
to take other lovers, the fiery sexual passion and genuine love between them
never died. But in one of history's great paradoxes, the brilliant general of
the revolutionary republic that executed its last hereditary king went on to
overthrow that republic and install himself as emperor, obsessed with creating a
new hereditary dynasty—his own. And the one thing Josephine could not give him
was a son. And so she cedes her place, agreeing to a divorce so that Napoleon
can have his heir, earning his gratitude and a permanent place in his heart.
Webb's pen illumines the life of this beautiful, complex woman, who like so many
others of her age, was supremely a survivor.
We close this look at the women of Revolution with the wife who succeeded
Josephine in Michelle Moran's THE SECOND EMPRESS. Chosen
from the list of the most advantageous political matches available to him is a
Hapsburg princess, eighteen-year-old Marie-Louise, daughter of the Emperor of
Austria. Famously quoted as saying "I married a womb," Napoleon offers his new
wife titles and riches, but not fidelity nor his confidence. For her part,
agreeing to the marriage on the urging of her father to avoid war, Marie-Louise
tries to be a good wife to her distant, mercurial husband. Despite the fact
that she soon becomes pregnant, her influence at Court is held in check by
Napoleon's powerful, capricious—and extremely jealous sister, Pauline. And when
the political alliances fail to prevent the outbreak of another war,
Marie-Louise is faced with an agonizing choice between her duty to her
husband—and to the infant son she must at all costs protect.
While we observe the safety of fashion fireworks, we can thank these authors for
giving us vivid glimpses into an era when the "bombs bursting in air" were all
too real—and when intrepid women had to rely on their courage and ingenuity to
find ways to survive. Vive les femmes!
Real, intense, passionate historical romance
After twelve years as a vagabond Navy wife, an adventure that took her from
Virginia Beach, VA, to Monterrey, CA, to Tunis, Tunisia to Oslo, Norway and
back, Julia Justiss followed her husband to his family's East Texas
homeland. On a hill above a pond with a view of pasture land, they built an
English Georgian-style home. Sitting at her desk there, if she ignores the
summer heat, she can almost imagine herself in Jane Austen's Regency
England.
In between teaching high school French and making jaunts to visit
her three children (a Seabee in Gulfport, MS, a clothing buyer in Houston and a
mechanical engineer in Austin, TX) she pursues her first love—writing
historical fiction.
Series: Regency Silk & Scandal | Hadley’s Hellions | Ransleigh Rogues
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