What do you think?
Rate this book
Mémoires de la marquise de La Tour du Pin: JOURNAL D'UNE FEMME DE CINQUANTE ANS
Née en 1770, appartenant à la noblesse la plus ancienne, Henriette-Lucy Dillon épouse en 1787 le comte de Gouvernet qui deviendra marquis de La Tour du Pin en 1825. Grâce au dévouement de la future Madame Tallien, la comtesse de Gouvernet échappe à la Terreur, s'embarque à Bordeaux pour l'Amérique avec sa famille. Son Journal apporte quantité d'informations, de scènes et de portraits sur la fin de l'ancien régime, la Révolution, la vie sous le Consulat et l'Empire. Des pages très singulières et amusantes relatent l'exil en Amérique, où Henriette-Lucy, s'écartant de la vie mondaine des autres émigrés, se fait fermière, marque à ses armes ses mottes de beurre, se lie d'amitié avec les Indiens.Les Mémoires de la marquise de La Tour du Pin s'arrêtent en 1815. Afin de couvrir la période comprise en 1815 et la mort de l'auteur (1853), Christian de Liedekerke Beaufort publie ici des pages de la Correspondance de la marquise avec ses amis, comme par exemple la comtesse de La Rochejacquelein et Madame de Staël.
611 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1985
5 people are currently reading
162 people want to read
About the author
Henriette-Lucy de La Tour du Pin Gouvernet
11 books1 followerHenriette-Lucy, Marquise de La Tour du Pin-Gouvernet, (also known as Lucie), was a French aristocrat famous for her memoirs entitled Journal d'une femme de 50 ans. The memoirs are a first-hand account of her life through the Ancien Regime, the French Revolution, and the Imperial court of Napoleon, ending in March 1815 with Napoleon’s return from exile on Elba. Madame de la Tour du Pin, as she is frequently called, was a witness to the private lives of the royals, and her memoirs serve as unique testimony to much unchronicled history.
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
June 5, 2014
The Memoirs of Madame de La Tour du Pin is one of my most favourite books of all time. It is as though you were sitting there with the authoress in a chair opposite you, and she is relating her life to you personally. Her Memoirs are engaging, thrilling, informative and never dull. This is one of only two books that I would take on my desert island - were I ever exiled there. Everyone should read it.
February 14, 2022
C’est la vie d’une femme racontée par elle-même, une vie qui est un roman d’aventures au milieu des tourmentes politiques de la Révolution, la Terreur et plus tard Napoléon. On découvre surtout une femme forte, qui s’adapte aux aléas de l’Histoire qu’on apprend au passage. Une femme bonne avant tout qui, si elle perçoit les gens au travers de la vison qu’en a son siècle, n’en a pas moins son ressenti personnel qui n’est, d’une façon, pas supérieur.
Avec le titre Mémoires de la Marquise de la Tour du Pin, écrites par elle-même, on peut avoir un a priori du genre: C’est bon, la marquise est née avec une cuillère en argent, on ne va pas la plaindre alors que le peuple n’était pas dans l’opulence. Oui, c’est vrai.
Mais que dire de son enfance et adolescence sous la coupe d’une grand-mère méchante tant psychologiquement que physiquement? D’oncles évêques débauchés et corrompus qui donnaient le pire des exemples? D’un mariage qu’elle accepte parce que le nom du futur et son allure, qu’elle aperçoit, cachée derrière un rideau, ne lui déplaisent pas?
Henriette-Lucy a soif d’apprendre dans les livres, mais aussi tout ce qui est à sa portée dans les cuisines, la buanderie, le jardin. Elle n’hésite pas à cuisiner, coudre, bêcher. Cela lui servira quand elle devra partir en exil aux États-Unis, fuyant les Révolutionnaires Républicains et leur guillotine implacable et aveugle. Elle aura sa propre ferme, non pas comme une Marie-Antoinette dans son Petit Trianon, mais comme une vraie fermière, levée et couchée en même temps que le soleil, faisant elle-même sa lessive, sa crème, son beurre, son cidre, fabricant et cousant les vêtements de toute la famille, travailleurs inclus….
La marquise détaille son quotidien, les tractations des notaires avant son mariage, les conditions des voyages en France, l’étiquette de la cour de Marie-Antoinette dont elle devient une des dames de compagnie, les mœurs dépravées des hauts personnages d’Église, les enfantements longs et douloureux, enfant mort-né ou mort subitement de maladie âgé de deux ans, les fausses couches qui entraînent des fièvres puerpérales, les femmes réclamant du pain arrivant à Versailles, les voyages longs et éprouvants alors qu’elle est enceinte, la Terreur qui guillotine un mari et père devant sa femme coincée dans un carcan de bois juste en face pour l’obliger à regarder, et ses enfants attachés à leur mère. Puis Napoléon et Joséphine la veulent dans leurs salons et elle côtoie intimement. De tant d’autres faits historiques, mœurs d’époque, la Marquise de la Tour du Pin est le témoin direct.
Historiquement, c’est passionnant et surprenant, ça se lit comme un Dumas, même mieux parce que c’est du vécu et qu’il y a la bonté d’une femme, sa compassion, sa compréhension de sa société et des personnes qu’elle croise, malgré une vision de son siècle: ses "amis les sauvages", Indiens d’Amérique avec lesquels elle commerce en bonne intelligence, ses voisines les fermières, desquelles elle adopte les jupes rustiques et solides, les esclaves: elle en aura trois, qu’elle achète à un horrible maître, grâce à quoi elle réunit une famille, mari, femme, enfant, père, séparés depuis trois ans et auxquels elle offrira officiellement la liberté avant de rentrer en France, ce qui ne sera pas du goût de tous. C’est pour ces raisons, que je disais au début qu’elle ne se sentait pas supérieure. Par contre, elle ne supporte pas les personnes paresseuses, négligées, mal élevées, d’où choix strictes sur les personnes qu’elle invite. Par exemple, elle note, alors qu’elle a 40 ans qu’elle n’accepte pas dans son cercle des femmes et leurs maris qui s’appellent tout haut (trop haut !) et en public "mon rat" ou "ma poule". Note perso: je n’ai encore jamais appelé mon conjoint "mon rat", mais chaque époque ses mots doux! Puis vient le temps de Napoléon, trahisons, faux-semblants, ralliement, il faut survivre dans ce monde pour assurer son présent et surtout l’avenir de ses enfants.
La grande qualité de cette femme est quel que soit le temps ou le lieu, elle s’adapte avec détermination et intelligence. Son seul bémol, à mon avis, est une trop grande obéissance de femme.
Bref, je lis, je me régale et je me dis: Mais pourquoi n’est-elle pas dans les manuels scolaires des sections littéraires? Mais pourquoi ne montre-t-on pas cet exemple d’écriture intelligente et fine, de force, de volonté, d’adaptabilité, d’amour, de courage, de ténacité, de bonté? Pourquoi toujours Dumas, Flaubert, Hugo, Balzac? Pourquoi le passionnant témoignage de cette femme est-il ignoré? Parce qu’elle a servi Marie-Antoinette puis Joséphine? Je ne suis ni royaliste, ni Bonapartiste, je déteste la politique. Mais et de quel droit et qui se permet d’occulter une partie des témoignages d’une époque? Ça m’énerve!
Avec le titre Mémoires de la Marquise de la Tour du Pin, écrites par elle-même, on peut avoir un a priori du genre: C’est bon, la marquise est née avec une cuillère en argent, on ne va pas la plaindre alors que le peuple n’était pas dans l’opulence. Oui, c’est vrai.
Mais que dire de son enfance et adolescence sous la coupe d’une grand-mère méchante tant psychologiquement que physiquement? D’oncles évêques débauchés et corrompus qui donnaient le pire des exemples? D’un mariage qu’elle accepte parce que le nom du futur et son allure, qu’elle aperçoit, cachée derrière un rideau, ne lui déplaisent pas?
Henriette-Lucy a soif d’apprendre dans les livres, mais aussi tout ce qui est à sa portée dans les cuisines, la buanderie, le jardin. Elle n’hésite pas à cuisiner, coudre, bêcher. Cela lui servira quand elle devra partir en exil aux États-Unis, fuyant les Révolutionnaires Républicains et leur guillotine implacable et aveugle. Elle aura sa propre ferme, non pas comme une Marie-Antoinette dans son Petit Trianon, mais comme une vraie fermière, levée et couchée en même temps que le soleil, faisant elle-même sa lessive, sa crème, son beurre, son cidre, fabricant et cousant les vêtements de toute la famille, travailleurs inclus….
La marquise détaille son quotidien, les tractations des notaires avant son mariage, les conditions des voyages en France, l’étiquette de la cour de Marie-Antoinette dont elle devient une des dames de compagnie, les mœurs dépravées des hauts personnages d’Église, les enfantements longs et douloureux, enfant mort-né ou mort subitement de maladie âgé de deux ans, les fausses couches qui entraînent des fièvres puerpérales, les femmes réclamant du pain arrivant à Versailles, les voyages longs et éprouvants alors qu’elle est enceinte, la Terreur qui guillotine un mari et père devant sa femme coincée dans un carcan de bois juste en face pour l’obliger à regarder, et ses enfants attachés à leur mère. Puis Napoléon et Joséphine la veulent dans leurs salons et elle côtoie intimement. De tant d’autres faits historiques, mœurs d’époque, la Marquise de la Tour du Pin est le témoin direct.
Historiquement, c’est passionnant et surprenant, ça se lit comme un Dumas, même mieux parce que c’est du vécu et qu’il y a la bonté d’une femme, sa compassion, sa compréhension de sa société et des personnes qu’elle croise, malgré une vision de son siècle: ses "amis les sauvages", Indiens d’Amérique avec lesquels elle commerce en bonne intelligence, ses voisines les fermières, desquelles elle adopte les jupes rustiques et solides, les esclaves: elle en aura trois, qu’elle achète à un horrible maître, grâce à quoi elle réunit une famille, mari, femme, enfant, père, séparés depuis trois ans et auxquels elle offrira officiellement la liberté avant de rentrer en France, ce qui ne sera pas du goût de tous. C’est pour ces raisons, que je disais au début qu’elle ne se sentait pas supérieure. Par contre, elle ne supporte pas les personnes paresseuses, négligées, mal élevées, d’où choix strictes sur les personnes qu’elle invite. Par exemple, elle note, alors qu’elle a 40 ans qu’elle n’accepte pas dans son cercle des femmes et leurs maris qui s’appellent tout haut (trop haut !) et en public "mon rat" ou "ma poule". Note perso: je n’ai encore jamais appelé mon conjoint "mon rat", mais chaque époque ses mots doux! Puis vient le temps de Napoléon, trahisons, faux-semblants, ralliement, il faut survivre dans ce monde pour assurer son présent et surtout l’avenir de ses enfants.
La grande qualité de cette femme est quel que soit le temps ou le lieu, elle s’adapte avec détermination et intelligence. Son seul bémol, à mon avis, est une trop grande obéissance de femme.
Bref, je lis, je me régale et je me dis: Mais pourquoi n’est-elle pas dans les manuels scolaires des sections littéraires? Mais pourquoi ne montre-t-on pas cet exemple d’écriture intelligente et fine, de force, de volonté, d’adaptabilité, d’amour, de courage, de ténacité, de bonté? Pourquoi toujours Dumas, Flaubert, Hugo, Balzac? Pourquoi le passionnant témoignage de cette femme est-il ignoré? Parce qu’elle a servi Marie-Antoinette puis Joséphine? Je ne suis ni royaliste, ni Bonapartiste, je déteste la politique. Mais et de quel droit et qui se permet d’occulter une partie des témoignages d’une époque? Ça m’énerve!
June 28, 2017
Henrietta-Lucy Dillon was born in Paris in 1770. In 1787 she married the Comte de Gouvernet who later became the Marquis de la Tour du Pin and she the Marquise. She died in 1853 and so she experienced the Revolution, the Terror, the Empire, the Restoration, the 1830 and 1848 Revolution, the reign of Louis-Philippe and the advent of Louis-Napoleon.
Her memoirs encompass the time-span of her childhood until 1815, and were intended for her son, Aymar, the only one of her six children to survive. She had not intended them to be published, but when they were, in 1906, they were greeted with great acclaim and 16 editions were quickly published.
She saw life from the view-point of an aristocrat, and as she herself wrote, "I do not claim to be qualified to describe the state of society in France before the Revolution. It would be beyond my skill."
She considered the Revolution "the just punishment of the vices of the upper classes," and never turns her curiosity and intellect towards an examination of the misery of the peasantry. She is, however, wonderfully descriptive, of her own section of society and of her own experiences.
She describes Louis XVI as resembling" a peasant rambling along behind his plough; there was nothing proud or regal about him. His sword was a continual embarrassment to him and he never knew what to do with his hat."
When she left Antwerp she went in her carriage through the entire French army and describes:
"These conquerors .... Most of them lacked a uniform. After requisitioning everything in all the cloth shops in Paris and other big cities, the Convention had hurriedly had cloaks made from materials of every imaginable hue. This medley, a vast human rainbow, stood out clearly against the snow which covered the ground; the camp looked like some gigantic and very vivid flower-bed."
She and her husband had to flee France. They went to America and bought a farm near Albany and we are treated to beautiful descriptions of of the north American countryside, such as that of the unbroken forest, fifty miles wide, which separated Connecticut from New York:
"In the more open areas there were thickets of flowering rhododendrons, some of them purple, others pale lilac, and roses of every kind. The flowers made a vivid splash of color against the grassland, which was itself studded with mosses and flowering plants."
She became a very proficient farmer.
"My butter was much in demand. I cut it carefully into small pieces, stamped them with our monogram and arranged them daintily in a very clean basket on a fine cloth."
Henrietta-Lucy was a courageous and intelligent woman who survived partly by good fortune and partly by her own actions. This is a delightful book written by a delightful person.
Her memoirs encompass the time-span of her childhood until 1815, and were intended for her son, Aymar, the only one of her six children to survive. She had not intended them to be published, but when they were, in 1906, they were greeted with great acclaim and 16 editions were quickly published.
She saw life from the view-point of an aristocrat, and as she herself wrote, "I do not claim to be qualified to describe the state of society in France before the Revolution. It would be beyond my skill."
She considered the Revolution "the just punishment of the vices of the upper classes," and never turns her curiosity and intellect towards an examination of the misery of the peasantry. She is, however, wonderfully descriptive, of her own section of society and of her own experiences.
She describes Louis XVI as resembling" a peasant rambling along behind his plough; there was nothing proud or regal about him. His sword was a continual embarrassment to him and he never knew what to do with his hat."
When she left Antwerp she went in her carriage through the entire French army and describes:
"These conquerors .... Most of them lacked a uniform. After requisitioning everything in all the cloth shops in Paris and other big cities, the Convention had hurriedly had cloaks made from materials of every imaginable hue. This medley, a vast human rainbow, stood out clearly against the snow which covered the ground; the camp looked like some gigantic and very vivid flower-bed."
She and her husband had to flee France. They went to America and bought a farm near Albany and we are treated to beautiful descriptions of of the north American countryside, such as that of the unbroken forest, fifty miles wide, which separated Connecticut from New York:
"In the more open areas there were thickets of flowering rhododendrons, some of them purple, others pale lilac, and roses of every kind. The flowers made a vivid splash of color against the grassland, which was itself studded with mosses and flowering plants."
She became a very proficient farmer.
"My butter was much in demand. I cut it carefully into small pieces, stamped them with our monogram and arranged them daintily in a very clean basket on a fine cloth."
Henrietta-Lucy was a courageous and intelligent woman who survived partly by good fortune and partly by her own actions. This is a delightful book written by a delightful person.
February 9, 2014
This is a dazzling memoir that brings you into the sumptuous world of Louis XVI's France, written by a woman of the aristocracy whose life plunges into poverty and despair during the Revolution. What makes it so wonderful is how this woman's true, determined character nobly rides out the treacherous currents of the time and comes out a truly shining example of a courage. A great read.
December 27, 2017
At about the age of 50, Mme. de La Tour du Pin (who was born in Paris in 1770) began to record her memoirs for her two surviving children (soon for her only surviving child). The recollections record her life up to Napoleon's return from Elba. I actually read them online in a sloppily translated early C20 edition supplemented, when I discovered it, by the original French edition and lots of enjoyable googling of the historical background, the many places we visit and the many characters we meet.
Mme. de La Tour du Pin, as an emotionally neglected child, kept her head down and her mouth shut. She bloomed into a clever, elegant and physically striking young woman who was, says Fanny Burney, a star of pre-revolutionary Versailles and, by her own account, was immediately accepted into the society of the more intellectual Parisiennes. She a dashing rider and a famous dancer. She fell passionately and enduringly in love with the noble soldier she chose, unseen, on the advice of her father. She was unusual for her time and class in that her concern from then on was all for her husband and her children for whom her love was powerful and unconditional.
But this paragon of a wife and mother was also a ball of activity, strong-minded, resourceful and adaptable - we hear of her experiences when in hiding from the Terror in Bordeaux, when in flight to America, as a dairy farmer in Upper New York State, in flight again from the Directory, broke in England, as wife of a Napoleonic Préfet in Brussels, as an ambassadress .... And she knew everyone. In her memoirs we make a clear-eyed, sometimes ironic, acquaintance with Marie Antoinette, Josephine, Talleyrand, Napoleon, the Duke of Wellington, Mme. de Staël, Alexander Hamilton, Tallien and dozens more famous personalities. The interest never flags.
Above all, I liked and admired Mme. de La Tour du Pin. There is plenty of sentiment in her recollections but no repining, no sentimentality. She is a heroine, not a victim, of a frightening period of French history.
Mme. de La Tour du Pin, as an emotionally neglected child, kept her head down and her mouth shut. She bloomed into a clever, elegant and physically striking young woman who was, says Fanny Burney, a star of pre-revolutionary Versailles and, by her own account, was immediately accepted into the society of the more intellectual Parisiennes. She a dashing rider and a famous dancer. She fell passionately and enduringly in love with the noble soldier she chose, unseen, on the advice of her father. She was unusual for her time and class in that her concern from then on was all for her husband and her children for whom her love was powerful and unconditional.
But this paragon of a wife and mother was also a ball of activity, strong-minded, resourceful and adaptable - we hear of her experiences when in hiding from the Terror in Bordeaux, when in flight to America, as a dairy farmer in Upper New York State, in flight again from the Directory, broke in England, as wife of a Napoleonic Préfet in Brussels, as an ambassadress .... And she knew everyone. In her memoirs we make a clear-eyed, sometimes ironic, acquaintance with Marie Antoinette, Josephine, Talleyrand, Napoleon, the Duke of Wellington, Mme. de Staël, Alexander Hamilton, Tallien and dozens more famous personalities. The interest never flags.
Above all, I liked and admired Mme. de La Tour du Pin. There is plenty of sentiment in her recollections but no repining, no sentimentality. She is a heroine, not a victim, of a frightening period of French history.
July 19, 2012
One of my favorite books...EVER!
October 14, 2020
One of the best books that I have read in a long time. It brought so much history to life. So many biographies that I have read were interconnected here.
My only complaint is that it ended to soon.....unfortunately the author died. I guess that I really can’t complain about that though.
My only complaint is that it ended to soon.....unfortunately the author died. I guess that I really can’t complain about that though.
March 15, 2011
The Marquise de la Tour du Pin Gouvernet is one of my favourite characters from history. Her first name was Lucy, but I always think of this redoubtable woman by her grand French surname.
Of Irish descent, she married into the French aristocracy and took her place at the extravagant, doomed court of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette. Fleeing the guillotine, she and her husband started over again as farmers in North America. There, she learned how to chop wood and draw water from the well, as well as doing her own cooking and washing. She met French emigrés, Dutch colonialists, Quakers and native Americans.
Dictated shortly before her death aged 83, her memoirs cover everything from political intrigue to domestic detail. Nothing was too trivial to record and I find her diary a treasure trove.
She was a flawed character. Buying her first slave in America, she describes with no compassion that his personal possessions would “fit inside a hat”. When the upstart dictator Napoleon looked round for aristocrats to give his new court legitimacy, she and her husband hastened back to France to resume a life of privilege.
Yet she had a talent for survival. Whatever life threw at her, she hitched up her skirts and got on with it – including her own multiple pregnancies. Whether bartering homemade butter for winter necessities, or assisting at a roadside birth, she was ever resourceful. I might not have liked her, but I would like to have known her.
Of Irish descent, she married into the French aristocracy and took her place at the extravagant, doomed court of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette. Fleeing the guillotine, she and her husband started over again as farmers in North America. There, she learned how to chop wood and draw water from the well, as well as doing her own cooking and washing. She met French emigrés, Dutch colonialists, Quakers and native Americans.
Dictated shortly before her death aged 83, her memoirs cover everything from political intrigue to domestic detail. Nothing was too trivial to record and I find her diary a treasure trove.
She was a flawed character. Buying her first slave in America, she describes with no compassion that his personal possessions would “fit inside a hat”. When the upstart dictator Napoleon looked round for aristocrats to give his new court legitimacy, she and her husband hastened back to France to resume a life of privilege.
Yet she had a talent for survival. Whatever life threw at her, she hitched up her skirts and got on with it – including her own multiple pregnancies. Whether bartering homemade butter for winter necessities, or assisting at a roadside birth, she was ever resourceful. I might not have liked her, but I would like to have known her.
May 29, 2022
One of my absolute favorite books.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews