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Dancing to the Precipice: Lucie De La Tour Du Pin and the French Revolution
 
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Dancing to the Precipice: Lucie De La Tour Du Pin and the French Revolution (Hardcover)

by Caroline Moorehead (Author)
4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
RRP: £20.00
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Product details

  • Hardcover: 496 pages
  • Publisher: Chatto & Windus (5 Mar 2009)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 070117904X
  • ISBN-13: 978-0701179045
  • Product Dimensions: 23.6 x 15.6 x 4.6 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 32,026 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Product Description

Review

"A rich and satisfying book which [...] brings the whole tumultuous period and its characters to life." --The Spectator, March 2009


Review

"Caroline Moorhead has written an excellent, lively biography, full of background detail."
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Why isn't this a Misery Memoir?, 12 April 2009
By Dr. Michael Rowlands (UK/Algarve Portugal) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
Lucie de la Tour du Pin had a long life and she was near the centre of events in French Politics for fifty years, and as such, a witness to; revolution, the Napoleonic Empire, and the Restoration of the Bourbons. However, beneath the gloss of political maneuverings, she had great personal tragedy which she forbears with a positive, (if a bit pushy), state of mind. The bald facts of her life would lead to other conclusions - the early death of her mother, an absent father, who remarries and goes abroad, but is then guillotined (along with her father in law),the death of two children by TB, of a son in a duel, and two children in infancy, a husband who makes principled decisions, causing financial ruin and imprisonment, a grand mother - cold and unloving - who brings her up, but steals her fortune and who has an incestuous relationship with her great uncle.

She goes from a world of great excess at the court of Louis XVI, (ie taking forty servants to the country chateaux, to escaping the revolution with almost nothing, only to rise again under Napoleon, but end her life in dreadful poverty.

I enjoyed this book and I learnt a lot about French history, the social manners of the day, and how people lived or travelled before steamships and the railway.

Well written, if a bit dense, with a forrest of characters. It could have done with a more comprehensive list of characters and a detailed family tree. A timeline and a Bourbon family tree would also have helped.
To be recommended as a book which makes history come alive and to stimulate further reading of the period.
Dr Michael Rowlands
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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars A Real Thriller, 22 April 2009
By T. Jones - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Dr Terry Jones (Cheshire/UK)

Dancing to the Precipice

Lucie du Pin and the French Revolution

By Caroline Moorehead

This biography straddles the decadent period of the Eighteen century French aristocracy, the French Revolution, the aftermath of the rise and fall of the Napoleonic period with the theme of the loss and rise of the aristocracy. The events in Lucie du Pin's life make for exciting drama which could inturn make for a compelling movie. Highlights of this are her escape with husband and two children to America from the French port of Bordeaux, the strain on her as a woman and mother; survival farming in Upstate New York, following her husband to various consulates and the premature deaths of most of her children, ending with her dying in poverty.

By way of example of the fortitude of this woman is when her husband was dismissed from the consulate position in Holland arising from political intrigue, Lucie du Pin rides post hast to Paris. There she recovers over night from a bought of illness, announces to Napoleon's office that she wished to see him, while he is metaphorically reeling having just returned from the disastrous 1812 campaign against Russia with just one sixth of his original army and is on a short political time fuse. She manages to gain audience and describes the injustice done to her husband where upon Napoleon grants him another consulate post and then, unheard of, personally sees her to the door.

The aristocratic families are named in a detail that is clearly accurate but will be unappreciated by the average reader. Also major military events which set the seen of the period are covered in only a page or two: Peninsula Wars, the 1812 Russian Campaign, Waterloo and the rise of the French legal classes which were to set the agenda of "The Terror". To fully appreciate the book one ideally needs to have read around period through such books as:
Napoleon by Vincent Cronin
The French Revolution by Christopher Hibbert
Corunna by Christopher Hibbert
1812 Napoleon's Fatal March on Moscow by Adam Zamoyski
Fatal Purity Robespierre and the French Revolution by Ruth Scurr

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3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars A terrific read for French Revolution students, 8 April 2009
By S. Bull (UK) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This is a very good book indeed.
It gives a deal of detail about the period, especially concerning the way of life of rich aristocracy and bourgeois in Paris and their country estates. Lucie certainly seemed to be 'in the right place at right time' and knew many key players in the years around the end of the 18th Century. Could be read in conjunction with Christopher Hibbert's The French Revolution.
Well written non-fiction - overall a great read.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Good base for a movie !
Just read this book and I really enjoyed it. Being French and from Bordeaux where some of the action is taking place I found all the details very accurate though I noticed a few... Read more
Published 1 month ago by FPL

5.0 out of 5 stars Dancing to the Precipice: Lucie De La Tour Du Pin and the French Revolution
I bought the book for my grandfather who is a total bookworm.
He said that it was excellent. He is 97 and has read rather a lot of books
on the subject and judges... Read more
Published 7 months ago by K. Muir

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