Pleasure and Privilege: Life in France, Naples, and America, 1770-1790

by Olivier Bernier

"Only those who lived before the Revolution know how sweet life can be," Talleyrand wrote, many years before the event. Those who dip into Olivier Bernier's lively pages will discover just how sweet, how deep the pleasure, how precious the privilege. For he has populated this book with real people and offers real facts about them and their societies, all based on personal letters, memoirs, diaries, and biographies. The result is fascinating history, filled with irony and contradiction.

French culture during the 1770s and 1780s bloomed as it never had before (or never has since), producing the most etiquette-ridden, frivolous, glittering, and useless aristocracy since Louis XVI carried the court off to Versailles a hundred years earlier. Yet this spendthrift culture also produced the beginnings of just about everything "modern" we take for granted - fast communications, fast foods, and mass production, to name only a few.

It was a remarkable era by any standards, giving rise to ideas of liberty that in the end buried the very monarchy that sacrificed to make them a reality in the United States. It was an era that saw the rise of the colony of San Leucio, boasting an elected assembly with nobility, required education, and vaccination - all in the midst of the kingdom of Naples, ruled over by Marie Antoinette's slightly more clever sister and a court as irresponsible and even more disorganized (with candelabra but no plates for dining) than the French model it slavishly aped.

Bernier has given us a marvelously spirited view of those two pivotal decades when modern history began, when royalty and revolution, ironically, joined unwilling and violent hands to usher in a new age.

Genres: History, France, Italy, 18th Century, Nonfiction, Research, Historical

325 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1981

Reviews

[Carol Dobson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Detailed and interesting.

[Sarah Epton · Rating 3 out of 5]

There was a lot that was very interesting and worthwhile about this book, and it was perfect to read in tandem with Hilary Mantel's A Place of Greater Safety. However, there were four very annoying aspects of this book which prevented me from thoroughly enjoying it: 1. The author spent an ungodly number of pages describing furnishings and paintings. You ever heard that old saw, a picture is worth a thousand words, man? He spent a whole paragraph describing a chair, in tones of capital E Ecstasy, and I had no clearer picture in my mind of the chair after than before, the nature and limitations of the written word being what they are. 2. The whole book was soaked in unmeasured sentimentality. I mean, I get it, it's a lost world, and it's easy to see lost worlds through a rose tinted lens, but Jesus, man. 3. To that point, a lot is made of the utter freedom of Americans in the 1780's and '90's, and the general lack of poverty and very, very, very little is made of, oh, you know, SLAVERY. He also extols the freedom and equality of women in America at this time without even touching on their political and economic disenfranchisement. Oh, they got to mind the shops while their husbands were out whaling?! Fantastic! Why did we ever demand the vote, then? 4. He spouts off a lot of prices for things throughout the book, with head-spinning inconsistency. Sometimes it's sous, sometimes livres, sometimes shillings. All have appeared in the same paragraph. Every now and again he throws the reader a bone and puts something in modern dollars for reference but it's a rare enough event to highlight how rare it is.
So while I learned heaps from this book, and while it enhanced my understanding of a historical novel, it was also at times an infuriating read.

[Sherwood Smith]

This enjoyable book is like an extended conversation about life in the Ancien Regime on the verge of the Revolution. It can frustrate the reader who wants deeper insight (with sources) but it conveys a picture that, read in juxtaposition with other books, is reliable.

It is also interesting for its portrayal of French influence in the nascent United States of America.

[Jim Swike · Rating 4 out of 5]

Well written about life and culture in Europe and America. Great text book. Enjoy!

[David Samuels · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bernier spends a disproportionate percent of the book on France (~70%) but redeems himself by selecting intriguing facts about all three areas.

[Snail in Danger (Sid) Nicolaides · Rating 2 out of 5]

Okay so. This book is old, as history books go. It doesn't cite its sources, and I ran into at least one thing that was old and that most historians don't think happened anymore. If you're the kind of person that likes footnotes, then this book will drive you a little nuts. I think that the author is being truthful and honest, at least as far as I got (about 40 pages in). If you are reading this for fun, or basic background, then you're probably safe. If you are intense about historical accuracy, or doing a school project, you should probably consult something else, or try to find what's here in other sources. There is a bibliography at the back.

I did enjoy the anecdotes about Vigée-Lebrun painting Marie Antoinette, and the mention that Louis XIV enjoyed locksmithing and carpentry and had drawers of scientific instruments (most likely for display, granted) made me think he was kind of a proto-hacker/nerd. Which is an interesting mental image.

[Scott K · Rating 4 out of 5]

An enjoyable read and one with a most definite point of view, with which the reasonably informed reader might sometimes disagree—but I would suggest that readers approach this work in the spirit of the French salons of the 18th century which are so charmingly described in these pages.

All in all I found this book to be pleasurably thought-provoking and will definitely read it again at some point down the road.

[Steven Lazaroff · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely fantastic description of the Ancien Regime. A must read for anyone ever interested in this era. The description of daily life, how society was structured, the description of every day furniture, it was evocative.

If you want to learn more about the Ancien Regime before the French revolution, this book is it.

[JW · Rating 4 out of 5]

An easy read. Written in a breezy, conversational style, it's a good introduction to life in pre-revolutionary France and Naples. Its coverage of America concentrates on the reactions of French visitors. For the general reader.

[Madeleine McLaughlin · Rating 5 out of 5]

So Interesting

For any student of the eighteenth century, this is the book to read. It covers France, Naples, and America with lively stories and simple language.

[Marie Capet]

Funny, deftly written. I wish more of his asides were cited, but it offers a great sense of the good life in France.