About the Book
The recently-discovered letters of the wealthy counter-revolutionary aristocrat, Innocente-Catherine de Rougé, dowager duchess d’Elbeuf (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 duchess’s 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.
Table of Contents:
Introduction: The Duchesse d’Elbeuf before 1789
The Duchesse d’Elbeuf’s Revolution
The hôtel d’Elbeuf 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: 1788–89
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 4–19 June 1790
Letter 23. Moreuil, Friday, 21 June 1790
NOTES 28 June–4 July 1790
Letter 24. Moreuil, Monday, 5 July 1790
NOTES 8–28 July 1790
Letter 25. Moreuil, Saturday, 31 July 1790
NOTES 4–28 August 1790
DELETED NOTES 3–9 September 1790
Letter 26. Moreuil, Monday, 30 August 1790
NOTES 31 August–28 December 1790
Letter 27. Moreuil, Wednesday, 29 December 1790
SECTION 3: 1791
Summary
NOTES 2 January–7 February 1791
Letter 28. Saturday, Moreuil, 12 February 1791
NOTES 15 February–19 March 1791
Letter 29. Paris, Saturday, 19 March 1791
NOTES 23 March–27 April 1791
Letter 30. Paris, Friday, 29 April 1791
NOTES 1–16 May 1791
Letter 31. Paris, Monday, 16 May 1791
NOTES 21 May–30 June 1791
Letter 32. Paris, Thursday, 30 June 1791
NOTES 3–27 July 1791
Letter 33. Paris, Friday, 29 July 1791
NOTES 1–25 August 1791
Letter 34. Paris, Saturday, 27 August 1791
NOTES 29 August–3 September 1791
Letter 35. Paris, Monday, 5 September 1791
NOTES 8–14 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 11–26 April 1792
Letter 44. Paris, Monday, 16 April 1792
NOTES 17–28 April 1792
Letter 45. Paris, Tuesday, 24 April 1792
NOTES 25 April–25 May 1792
Letter 46. Paris, Thursday, 25 May 1792
NOTES 28–30 May 1792
Letter 47. Paris, Thursday, 31 May 1792
NOTES 31 May–16 June 1792
Letter 48. Paris, Saturday, 16 June 1792
NOTES 18 June–7 July 1792
Letter 49. Paris, Monday, 9 July 1792
NOTES 10–20 July 1792
Letter 50. Paris, Wednesday, 18 July 1792
NOTES 16–28 July 1792
Letter 51. Paris, Wednesday, 25 July 1792
NOTES 25 July–13 August 1792
Letter 52. Paris, Tuesday, 14 August 1792
NOTES 15–23 August 1792
Letter 53. Paris, Friday, 24 August 1792
NOTES 24 August–3 September 1792
Letter 54. Paris, Tuesday, 4 September 1792
NOTES 4–21 September 1792
Letter 55. Paris, Saturday, 22 September 1792
NOTES 25 September–13 October
Letter 56. Paris, Saturday, 15 October 1792
NOTES 16 October–20 November 1792
Letter 57. Paris, Thursday, 22 November 1792
NOTES 23 November–13 December 1792
Letter 58. Paris, Saturday, 15 December 1792
NOTES 16–26 December 1792
Section 5: 1793–94
Summary
NOTES 4–21 January 1793
Letter 59. Paris, Tuesday, 22 January 1793
NOTES 24 January–1 March 1793
Letter 60. Paris, Friday, 1 March 1793
NOTES 3–29 March 1793
Letter 61. Paris, Friday, 29 March 1793
NOTES 1–9 April 1793
Letter 62. Paris, Wednesday, 10 April 1793
NOTES 12 April–13 May 1793
Letter 63. Paris, Tuesday, 14 May 1793
NOTES 16 May–5 June 1793
Letter 64. Paris, Wednesday, 5 June 1793
NOTES 10 June–6 July 1793
Letter 65. Paris, Wednesday, 10 July 1793
NOTES 13–31 July 1793
Letter 66. Paris, Friday, 31 July 1793
NOTES 1 August–20 September 1793
Letter 67. Paris, Friday, 20 September 1793
NOTES 24 September–20 October 1793
Letter 68. Paris, Monday, 22 October 1793
NOTES 31 October–5 November 1793
Letter 69. Paris, Wednesday, 6 November 1793
NOTES 7 November 1793–8 January 1794
APPENDIX: Other d’Elbeuf letters, 1793-4
1.To Jules-François Paré, minister of the Interior, 11 October 1793
2.To Georgette de Rougé du Plessis-Bellière, 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
About the Author :
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 siècle (Paris: Éditions de la Sorbonne, 2020).
Review :
'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
