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Dancing to the Precipice: The Life of Lucie de la Tour du Pin, Eyewitness to an Era – A Remarkable Biography Spanning 80 Years in 18th-Century France
“[A] remarkable biography….Moorehead deftly wields periods detail…to tell the story of a captivating woman who kept her sense of self amid the vicissitudes of politics.”
— Vogue From acclaimed biographer Caroline Moorhead comes Dancing to the Precipice, a sweeping chronicle of the remarkable life of Lucie de la Tour du Pin—“an astute, thoroughly engaging biography of a formidable woman” ( Boston Globe ) who, over the span of some 80 years, was witness to, and often a participant in the major social upheavals of eighteenth-century French history.
— Vogue From acclaimed biographer Caroline Moorhead comes Dancing to the Precipice, a sweeping chronicle of the remarkable life of Lucie de la Tour du Pin—“an astute, thoroughly engaging biography of a formidable woman” ( Boston Globe ) who, over the span of some 80 years, was witness to, and often a participant in the major social upheavals of eighteenth-century French history.
512 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2009
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1955 people want to read
About the author
Caroline Moorehead
48 books260 followersCaroline Moorehead is the New York Times bestselling author of Village of Secrets: Defying the Nazis in Vichy France; A Train in Winter: An Extraordinary Story of Women, Friendship, and Resistance in Occupied France; and Human Cargo: A Journey Among Refugees, which was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. An acclaimed biographer, Moorehead has also written for the New York Review of Books, the Guardian, the Times, and the Independent. She lives in London and Italy.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 116 reviews
February 15, 2011
I can't recommend this biography highly enough. It's brilliant. It reads like a novel and Lucie was a strong, vibrant woman who puts all those anachronistic trying-to-be-tough-and-modern-but-coming-off-as-super-annoying historical fiction heroines to SHAME.
You couldn't make up Lucie's life. Any author that did would be accused of Forrest Gumping through history. Lucie was a lady-in-waiting to Marie Antoinette. She lived through the terror of the French Revolution, in Paris, in exile among the emigres and in the French countryside. While in the United States (to escape the Terror) she was friends with the exiled Talleyrand and entertained Alexander Hamilton. Her husband met George Washington. She attended Josephine Bonaparte at Napoleon's request. And when political enemies maneuvered her husband out of his job she rode from Belgium to Paris to personally demand a job for him from Napoleon (Napoleon apologized profusely to her and promptly gave her husband a new post). She lived in France, the Netherlands, the United States, England, Belgium and Italy. She survived the Revolution (at one point her husband had to be hidden or he would've likely been arrested and executed), worked on a farm in America, met royalty and emperors and did it all while nearly constantly pregnant.
Her childhood was lonely and sad. Her marriage was typical of the time, in a way: it was a love match in the sense that she had some choice, it was arranged in the sense that it was limited to eligible bachelors that were acceptable to her status. But she loved her husband Frederic and their marriage is touchingly supportive and stable. Her and her husband's fidelity to each other shocked many in the pre-Revolution French nobility, who hopped in and out of each other's beds like they were in Gossip Girl. Both Frederic and Lucie loved their children fiercely and perhaps the greatest tragedy of Lucie's life was the mournfully high death rate of her children (Moorehead notes that even for the time, Lucie's children had a very high mortality rate).
Lucie was a woman of true grit. She didn't complain. She was born to privilege and lost everything in the Revolution and had to fight to gain it back and she refused to wallow. In fact, she was ashamed of her fellow French exiles who refused to accept their reduced circumstances. She worked for years on her farm in America. Not overseeing it, but actual physical labor. And she loved it.
She was incredibly kind. She had an old-school grace and charm I strive to emulate and will never master. Contemporaries found her sweet and charming. While in America she bought slaves to work her farm and promptly freed them. She tracked down one of her ex-slave's family members and re-united them. She treated everyone with courtesy and kindness. And yet she truly believed the aristocracy was born to rule and could be rather classist (both she and Frederic supported a constitutional monarchy, not a republic).
I'm tired of (poorly written) historical fiction women who have to be "strong" by being anachronistic. Lucie de la Tour du Pin was strong, but completely a woman of her time. She supported her husband and raised her children and she did it with courage and strength of character. But she wasn't running around with ideas two hundred years before her time. I feel like all historical fiction authors should be forced to read this biography and learn what a strong woman of the time was actually like and use Lucie as their model.
And I mentioned this already, but I will reiterate: Moorehead does a brilliant job with Lucie's story. She does a masterful job interweaving Lucie's biography and a sense of the overall time period. She doesn't slow down the narrative with too many details but she gives you enough sense of the time and place that you really feel like you understand the world Lucie lived in. Not only do you learn about the amazing Lucie, but also truly learn the history of France in the 1700s & 1800s, as well as glimpses into the other countries Lucie lived in.
You couldn't make up Lucie's life. Any author that did would be accused of Forrest Gumping through history. Lucie was a lady-in-waiting to Marie Antoinette. She lived through the terror of the French Revolution, in Paris, in exile among the emigres and in the French countryside. While in the United States (to escape the Terror) she was friends with the exiled Talleyrand and entertained Alexander Hamilton. Her husband met George Washington. She attended Josephine Bonaparte at Napoleon's request. And when political enemies maneuvered her husband out of his job she rode from Belgium to Paris to personally demand a job for him from Napoleon (Napoleon apologized profusely to her and promptly gave her husband a new post). She lived in France, the Netherlands, the United States, England, Belgium and Italy. She survived the Revolution (at one point her husband had to be hidden or he would've likely been arrested and executed), worked on a farm in America, met royalty and emperors and did it all while nearly constantly pregnant.
Her childhood was lonely and sad. Her marriage was typical of the time, in a way: it was a love match in the sense that she had some choice, it was arranged in the sense that it was limited to eligible bachelors that were acceptable to her status. But she loved her husband Frederic and their marriage is touchingly supportive and stable. Her and her husband's fidelity to each other shocked many in the pre-Revolution French nobility, who hopped in and out of each other's beds like they were in Gossip Girl. Both Frederic and Lucie loved their children fiercely and perhaps the greatest tragedy of Lucie's life was the mournfully high death rate of her children (Moorehead notes that even for the time, Lucie's children had a very high mortality rate).
Lucie was a woman of true grit. She didn't complain. She was born to privilege and lost everything in the Revolution and had to fight to gain it back and she refused to wallow. In fact, she was ashamed of her fellow French exiles who refused to accept their reduced circumstances. She worked for years on her farm in America. Not overseeing it, but actual physical labor. And she loved it.
She was incredibly kind. She had an old-school grace and charm I strive to emulate and will never master. Contemporaries found her sweet and charming. While in America she bought slaves to work her farm and promptly freed them. She tracked down one of her ex-slave's family members and re-united them. She treated everyone with courtesy and kindness. And yet she truly believed the aristocracy was born to rule and could be rather classist (both she and Frederic supported a constitutional monarchy, not a republic).
I'm tired of (poorly written) historical fiction women who have to be "strong" by being anachronistic. Lucie de la Tour du Pin was strong, but completely a woman of her time. She supported her husband and raised her children and she did it with courage and strength of character. But she wasn't running around with ideas two hundred years before her time. I feel like all historical fiction authors should be forced to read this biography and learn what a strong woman of the time was actually like and use Lucie as their model.
And I mentioned this already, but I will reiterate: Moorehead does a brilliant job with Lucie's story. She does a masterful job interweaving Lucie's biography and a sense of the overall time period. She doesn't slow down the narrative with too many details but she gives you enough sense of the time and place that you really feel like you understand the world Lucie lived in. Not only do you learn about the amazing Lucie, but also truly learn the history of France in the 1700s & 1800s, as well as glimpses into the other countries Lucie lived in.
December 27, 2025
What a book and what a lady! Lucie Dillon, Marquise de la Tour du Pin lived more than the equivalent of several lives combined! But lest anyone envy her those vast experiences, which included living through the French Revolution, Napoleonic era, reign and downfall of Charles X, retirement to Lausanne Switzerland and Piza Italy, travel to many countries, a loving 50 year marriage, four children who survived to adulthood (amazing in those days) and grandchildren, it should be known that she also suffered horribly!
She was exiled from her homeland of France during the Revolution, returned when it was over, exiled again because aristocrats were still persons non-grata and because of her husband's hardline politics, which she supported whole heartedly throughout the vagaries of French history. They were exiled and or he was given diplomatic posts in Brussels, the Hague and Turin with occasional returns to Paris over the course of the years, with a few more exiles when Napolean was overthrown and finally when Charles X was deposed, they lost everything because they remained supporters to the Bourbon line of French kings and refused to recognize Louis-Philippe d’Orléans, a member of the Orléans branch of the family and son of Philippe Égalité who had voted the death of his cousin Louis XVI. Louis-Philippe ascended the throne in 1830, beginning the more liberal July Monarchy. Frédéric was thrown in jail and her youngest son, Aymar who had sided with some revolutionaries trying to overthrow the new king was banished from France for life. Lucie first joined her husband for his short prison stay and then the couple joined their son for the rest of their lives as French expats. The rest of her adult children she had already watched die.
And yet, except that she took every death hard and also mourned the loss of a good friend, Claire, who foolishly threw herself away chasing after a womanizer, Lucie remained strong throughout her life. She tried to dissuade Claire but to no avail. She was besotted and her passion overrode all reason. The friendship languished as a result. The two women made up just before Claire died but there were 20+ years of lonely estrangement, the one consolation being Claire's youngest daughter, Félicie, who was her goddaughter. She lacked maturity but Lucie overlooked that and saw in her only what she needed, which was a daughter to love.
After her husband's death, Lucie started writing her memoirs and they stand as some of the greatest ever written and certainly the greatest of this era of history having never been out of print since her great, great grandson had them published some years after her death. Caroline Moorehead's excellent distillation of Lucie's writings and the many letters she wrote over the course of her life make this book an easy first way to approach this amazing woman. I was glad that I knew so much about this time period because there are so many people and events it would be easy to get lost. The cast of characters is VAST! Even being familiar with the history, I was often at sea so to speak. All you can do is keep on swimming/reading, but it is worth it!
I am sad to leave Lucie. I admired her throughout her long life. She had intelligence, spunk, loyalty to those she loved and what she believed in despite all costs. She was an excellent wife and mother because she knew those people came first in her life, and again, though she was hurt, she never became bitter or resentful. She was a hard worker and faced many setbacks but just kept picking herself up and moving on, though she acknowledged that it got harder to do so as she got older. All in all, I would be honored to call her 'friend'.
Given the time, I would like very much to read her actual memoirs which are available on Kindle for free. Ah! Time will tell. But I'm very grateful for this introduction.
She was exiled from her homeland of France during the Revolution, returned when it was over, exiled again because aristocrats were still persons non-grata and because of her husband's hardline politics, which she supported whole heartedly throughout the vagaries of French history. They were exiled and or he was given diplomatic posts in Brussels, the Hague and Turin with occasional returns to Paris over the course of the years, with a few more exiles when Napolean was overthrown and finally when Charles X was deposed, they lost everything because they remained supporters to the Bourbon line of French kings and refused to recognize Louis-Philippe d’Orléans, a member of the Orléans branch of the family and son of Philippe Égalité who had voted the death of his cousin Louis XVI. Louis-Philippe ascended the throne in 1830, beginning the more liberal July Monarchy. Frédéric was thrown in jail and her youngest son, Aymar who had sided with some revolutionaries trying to overthrow the new king was banished from France for life. Lucie first joined her husband for his short prison stay and then the couple joined their son for the rest of their lives as French expats. The rest of her adult children she had already watched die.
And yet, except that she took every death hard and also mourned the loss of a good friend, Claire, who foolishly threw herself away chasing after a womanizer, Lucie remained strong throughout her life. She tried to dissuade Claire but to no avail. She was besotted and her passion overrode all reason. The friendship languished as a result. The two women made up just before Claire died but there were 20+ years of lonely estrangement, the one consolation being Claire's youngest daughter, Félicie, who was her goddaughter. She lacked maturity but Lucie overlooked that and saw in her only what she needed, which was a daughter to love.
After her husband's death, Lucie started writing her memoirs and they stand as some of the greatest ever written and certainly the greatest of this era of history having never been out of print since her great, great grandson had them published some years after her death. Caroline Moorehead's excellent distillation of Lucie's writings and the many letters she wrote over the course of her life make this book an easy first way to approach this amazing woman. I was glad that I knew so much about this time period because there are so many people and events it would be easy to get lost. The cast of characters is VAST! Even being familiar with the history, I was often at sea so to speak. All you can do is keep on swimming/reading, but it is worth it!
I am sad to leave Lucie. I admired her throughout her long life. She had intelligence, spunk, loyalty to those she loved and what she believed in despite all costs. She was an excellent wife and mother because she knew those people came first in her life, and again, though she was hurt, she never became bitter or resentful. She was a hard worker and faced many setbacks but just kept picking herself up and moving on, though she acknowledged that it got harder to do so as she got older. All in all, I would be honored to call her 'friend'.
Given the time, I would like very much to read her actual memoirs which are available on Kindle for free. Ah! Time will tell. But I'm very grateful for this introduction.
October 3, 2018
This is an engrossing, highly detailed biography not just of a remarkable woman but of a chaotic and confusing age.
I had high hopes for this biography after reading another work written by Caroline Moorehead, A Train in the Winter, a tale of a group of women who took part in the French Resistance. As in that book, Moorehead enlightens without overwhelming the reader. I've always found the origins, events, and aftermath of the French Revolution to be hard to get a handle on despite having read a number of books set in this era, both fiction and nonfiction. While Moorehead ostensibly narrows her focus to the life of one aristocratic woman, Lucie de la Tour du Pin, she weaves the major political and social events of Lucie's time into the narrative in an a manner that is both easily digestible and engaging. Since Lucie was both well placed (she was a lady-in-waiting to Marie Antoinette) and an acute observer (she was well educated and had few illusions), this made incorporation of the "large" picture into the "small" one quite natural.
One thing that stood out to me, having read some biographies recently that were much heavier going, is that Moorehead does not "force" the subject on the reader through long quoted passages from Lucie's memoirs and letters. I found this refreshing, as some biographers seem intent on letting their subjects do the talking, as it were. Lucie comes across as remarkable but not without her faults, one of them being a belief in the innate superiority of the aristocracy. This is softened quite a bit by Lucie's clear-sighted and somewhat acerbic views of her peers, but in the end we are left with what is true of many of us: she compartmentalized diametrically opposed sentiments, much as she was able to switch seemingly effortlessly between the role of grande dame and simple housewife. Lucie is, in a word, nearly as complicated as her era.
This is, in short, the sort of biography I most enjoy. It brings to life its subject, but it also makes clear how she navigated the perils of her age. Fascinating stuff.
I had high hopes for this biography after reading another work written by Caroline Moorehead, A Train in the Winter, a tale of a group of women who took part in the French Resistance. As in that book, Moorehead enlightens without overwhelming the reader. I've always found the origins, events, and aftermath of the French Revolution to be hard to get a handle on despite having read a number of books set in this era, both fiction and nonfiction. While Moorehead ostensibly narrows her focus to the life of one aristocratic woman, Lucie de la Tour du Pin, she weaves the major political and social events of Lucie's time into the narrative in an a manner that is both easily digestible and engaging. Since Lucie was both well placed (she was a lady-in-waiting to Marie Antoinette) and an acute observer (she was well educated and had few illusions), this made incorporation of the "large" picture into the "small" one quite natural.
One thing that stood out to me, having read some biographies recently that were much heavier going, is that Moorehead does not "force" the subject on the reader through long quoted passages from Lucie's memoirs and letters. I found this refreshing, as some biographers seem intent on letting their subjects do the talking, as it were. Lucie comes across as remarkable but not without her faults, one of them being a belief in the innate superiority of the aristocracy. This is softened quite a bit by Lucie's clear-sighted and somewhat acerbic views of her peers, but in the end we are left with what is true of many of us: she compartmentalized diametrically opposed sentiments, much as she was able to switch seemingly effortlessly between the role of grande dame and simple housewife. Lucie is, in a word, nearly as complicated as her era.
This is, in short, the sort of biography I most enjoy. It brings to life its subject, but it also makes clear how she navigated the perils of her age. Fascinating stuff.
July 15, 2011
This book, by Caroline Moorhead, is the biography of Lucy Dillon, born February 25, 1770 into French and English nobility. Her mother was a lady in waiting to Marie Antoinette, her father the Colonel-proprietor of the Dillon regiment serving under Louis XVI. She was raised rich but lonely and like so many bright lonely children, she learned to observe. Thank goodness for that, as her story, written at the end of her life is an almost unbelievable eyewitness treasury of the events of her time. Here are some of the people she knew personally: Louis XVI, Louis XVIII, Marie Antoinette, Robespierre, Talleyrand, Theresia Cabarrus (widely regarded as the most beautiful woman in France), Tallien,(who in a moment of grace saved her life) Napoleon Bonaparte (she thought him charming),Lafayette ( she thought him boorish), Josephine Bonaparte, Marie Louise, empress of the French (she did not believe that the baby she bore Napoleon was really his), Chateaubriand, Camille Desmounds, Jean-Paul Marat, Germaine de Stael, Marie du Berri, and that is just on the European continent. From her balcony at Versailles, she watched the march of the fishwives (!). Escaping to America during the worst of the years of the “terror” when everyone who offended anyone went to the guillotine, she rubbed shoulders with Jefferson and Hamiliton, assorted wealthy Dutch families and Native Americans, learned to cook, spin and wash, and then at the age of 26, returned to the new France of Napoleon. There is more – so much more. And it’s not just the people and the events that are so intriguing. Lucie herself was a remarkable person. What is an adventure when you are young becomes a hardship as you age. Slowly her fortune and way of life drained away. She lost 5 of her 6 children and then her beloved husband. She endured the ignominy of old age and genteel poverty, but remained “fundamentally unbroken”. There is a lesson in this for me, and that is why, after all the name dropping and glorious storytelling, I loved this book. I loved Lucie, and found in her a new mentor and heroine.
April 22, 2016
It was in one of my Madame de Stael books that I first took note of Lucie Dillon, aka Marquise de la Tour du Pin, aka Madame/Contesse de Gourenet--and the multiple names is annoying when I tried to cross reference her later in some of my other books. Nine different variants I found in various books' indexes, most not differentiating that yes, the same person, just lots of titles.
This is an excellent book. If you know very little about the dying age of the Bourbons, the French Revolution, American frontier in the 1800s, Napoleon, up to the Revolution of 1848 (something that I used to think was "boring" and have learnt otherwise)--then this is the book for you, because Lucie Dillon was, unfortunately for the most part, right on the scene as history was made, usually pregnant and in disguise. She also had a way with words and was an interesting character. Born to English and French nobility,she was raised by her Grandma Dearest in a joyless abusive childhood, where her happiest memory was breaking her leg. But this being Lucie, she turned all of this into an advantage in the future, having the servants teach her how to do basically everything--eventually becoming an 18th century McGuyver.
She was Marie-Antoinette's lady-in-waiting and was there for every moment but the end (she was in hiding nearby though). Of Marie-Antoinette, she observed her immense bravery, extreme stupidity, and unfortunate mistrust she had of everyone genuinely trying to help her. And through all the ramp up and horrors of the Revolution, she was right there wincing at the public relation nightmare the royalty were while trying to represent. It's interesting because she was the intimate of practically every royal up until her death as a little old lady. So many of the nobility were killed, that she was the one chosen to teach the new Napoleonic nobility the protocol.
Book is especially interesting because it shows just how unfun it was to be a lady-in-waiting, 3 inch heels, huge wigs, uncomfortable corsets but unable to lean back in a chair or relax whatsoever, being there to witness like the Queen's sheets being ceremoniously folded for the day--and then all the rules of rank that filled a 5,000 page book. Wisely, whenever she could Lucie would get out of it. Her life reads like an adventure tale--after narrowly escaping the guillotine through the help of Theresa Tallien (book on her on the way!), she flees to America, where she starts a successful farm thanks to Washington, Schuyler and Hamilton, since her father served with Lafayette. Tallyrand hangs out at her farm, where she's perfected butter making and goose slaying, freeing slaves, and befriending Native Americans.
Whenever you read a bunch of downer American history books, it's nice at least to read positive representations of the US, and with current history in mind, it's interesting to see how a refugee crisis, where thousands of former artistocrats came to America, was dealt with in President Washignton's day. She knew them all in France and the scene of Adams, Jefferson, and Franklin hanging out in a drawing room along with 18 cats is an awesome image. The fact that Franklin took two of the white angora ones back with him to Philadelphia even better. But duty calls for Lucie, aka Robespierre's fall, and she has to claim back her lost fortune in person, so she goes back to France.
The one part of the book I'd like to have illuminated more is her attachment to Napoleon--it just felt glossed over a bit. I know she was related to Josephine de Beauharnais and somehow hero worshipped Napoleon (her sister and sister's husband were the 2 that went into exile with him and he died holding her sister's hand). How that reconciles with her previously liberal views and friendship with de Stael and other liberals is confusing. Maybe having to flee for her life in exile on four different occasions probably influenced that, yet even when not running from angry fishwives with severed ears and noses pinned to their hats or racing to Napoleon to beg favors, she seemed to be on the move when not in danger, meeting practically everybody. She was also old friends with Wellington.
Engrossing book--one that opened up a lot more for me to read.
This is an excellent book. If you know very little about the dying age of the Bourbons, the French Revolution, American frontier in the 1800s, Napoleon, up to the Revolution of 1848 (something that I used to think was "boring" and have learnt otherwise)--then this is the book for you, because Lucie Dillon was, unfortunately for the most part, right on the scene as history was made, usually pregnant and in disguise. She also had a way with words and was an interesting character. Born to English and French nobility,she was raised by her Grandma Dearest in a joyless abusive childhood, where her happiest memory was breaking her leg. But this being Lucie, she turned all of this into an advantage in the future, having the servants teach her how to do basically everything--eventually becoming an 18th century McGuyver.
She was Marie-Antoinette's lady-in-waiting and was there for every moment but the end (she was in hiding nearby though). Of Marie-Antoinette, she observed her immense bravery, extreme stupidity, and unfortunate mistrust she had of everyone genuinely trying to help her. And through all the ramp up and horrors of the Revolution, she was right there wincing at the public relation nightmare the royalty were while trying to represent. It's interesting because she was the intimate of practically every royal up until her death as a little old lady. So many of the nobility were killed, that she was the one chosen to teach the new Napoleonic nobility the protocol.
Book is especially interesting because it shows just how unfun it was to be a lady-in-waiting, 3 inch heels, huge wigs, uncomfortable corsets but unable to lean back in a chair or relax whatsoever, being there to witness like the Queen's sheets being ceremoniously folded for the day--and then all the rules of rank that filled a 5,000 page book. Wisely, whenever she could Lucie would get out of it. Her life reads like an adventure tale--after narrowly escaping the guillotine through the help of Theresa Tallien (book on her on the way!), she flees to America, where she starts a successful farm thanks to Washington, Schuyler and Hamilton, since her father served with Lafayette. Tallyrand hangs out at her farm, where she's perfected butter making and goose slaying, freeing slaves, and befriending Native Americans.
Whenever you read a bunch of downer American history books, it's nice at least to read positive representations of the US, and with current history in mind, it's interesting to see how a refugee crisis, where thousands of former artistocrats came to America, was dealt with in President Washignton's day. She knew them all in France and the scene of Adams, Jefferson, and Franklin hanging out in a drawing room along with 18 cats is an awesome image. The fact that Franklin took two of the white angora ones back with him to Philadelphia even better. But duty calls for Lucie, aka Robespierre's fall, and she has to claim back her lost fortune in person, so she goes back to France.
The one part of the book I'd like to have illuminated more is her attachment to Napoleon--it just felt glossed over a bit. I know she was related to Josephine de Beauharnais and somehow hero worshipped Napoleon (her sister and sister's husband were the 2 that went into exile with him and he died holding her sister's hand). How that reconciles with her previously liberal views and friendship with de Stael and other liberals is confusing. Maybe having to flee for her life in exile on four different occasions probably influenced that, yet even when not running from angry fishwives with severed ears and noses pinned to their hats or racing to Napoleon to beg favors, she seemed to be on the move when not in danger, meeting practically everybody. She was also old friends with Wellington.
Engrossing book--one that opened up a lot more for me to read.
December 27, 2012
Through the Life of Lucie La Tour du Pin, Carolyn Moorehead tells the story of the French Revolution and its aftermath. This may be the most instructive book I have read of this period. Lucie, unlike the subjects of other biographies I've read (Marie-Therese, Child of Terror: The Fate of Marie Antoinette's DaughterNapoleon: The Path to PowerFatal Purity: Robespierre and the French Revolution) to name some recent ones), experienced all the events from Louis XVI to Charles X. She personally knew and had connections to the key players in each period, such as Marie Antoinette (Lucie was a lady in waiting) Napoleon (he called upon her for special assignments, one was to entertain Josephine who was her distant relative), Duke of Wellington (from her British side of the family), Camille Desmoulins (colleague of her father, who was beheaded with him), Fanny Bertrand (went into exile with Napoleon), Madame de Stael, Talleyrand and a host of others with less modern day name recognition.
Her well connected father was away most of her childhood leaving Lucie and her mother to suffer under her abusive grandmother's thumb in a situation that worsened after her mother's death. Lucie can be credited with holding out (and perhaps scheming) to marry Frederic, the man she loved. The difficult childhood most likely created the survival instincts that helped her survive, as a former noble, the Revolution, the Reign of Terror, Napoleon, Louis VIII, and Charles X.
Survival was not easy. Each regime change brought stress as family resources dwindled and debt grew. There was time spent in hiding and in 4 different exiles. One exile was to America, where Lucy bought, oversaw and freed slaves as well as milked cows herself (and met Alexander Hamilton). Another exile took the family to England where wealthy relatives gave an uneasy shelter. Despite her disclaimers, she was valuable to her husband's career in three diplomatic posts. It was Lucie who plotted their exile to America using an ancien regime connection to secure false documents. She knew whom to trust to assist with logistics and transportation. While Lucie was doing all this she had 10 pregnancies with 6 live births and saw the deaths of 5 of her children.
The beauty of this book is how the author describes all of the above. In each period there are changes in the country's mood, its style, the arts, the character of the salons and in the standing of former nobles. From the published memoirs, personal letters and an extensive background of the times the author helps the reader understand Lucie's story, which is the story of the French Revolution and its aftermath.
There is a helpful table of characters. The plates include photographs of paintings of the key players you want to see (i.e. you really don't need to see Marie Antoinette, but you want to see Teresia Tallien). Drawings, reproduced alongside the appropriate text, help you envision the changing styles, what was built of Le Bouilh Chateau and minor characters such as Rene Chateaubriand.
That this book is filled with content and still remains highly readable (at times a page turner) is a credit to the author. I highly recommend this for anyone interested in this period.
Her well connected father was away most of her childhood leaving Lucie and her mother to suffer under her abusive grandmother's thumb in a situation that worsened after her mother's death. Lucie can be credited with holding out (and perhaps scheming) to marry Frederic, the man she loved. The difficult childhood most likely created the survival instincts that helped her survive, as a former noble, the Revolution, the Reign of Terror, Napoleon, Louis VIII, and Charles X.
Survival was not easy. Each regime change brought stress as family resources dwindled and debt grew. There was time spent in hiding and in 4 different exiles. One exile was to America, where Lucy bought, oversaw and freed slaves as well as milked cows herself (and met Alexander Hamilton). Another exile took the family to England where wealthy relatives gave an uneasy shelter. Despite her disclaimers, she was valuable to her husband's career in three diplomatic posts. It was Lucie who plotted their exile to America using an ancien regime connection to secure false documents. She knew whom to trust to assist with logistics and transportation. While Lucie was doing all this she had 10 pregnancies with 6 live births and saw the deaths of 5 of her children.
The beauty of this book is how the author describes all of the above. In each period there are changes in the country's mood, its style, the arts, the character of the salons and in the standing of former nobles. From the published memoirs, personal letters and an extensive background of the times the author helps the reader understand Lucie's story, which is the story of the French Revolution and its aftermath.
There is a helpful table of characters. The plates include photographs of paintings of the key players you want to see (i.e. you really don't need to see Marie Antoinette, but you want to see Teresia Tallien). Drawings, reproduced alongside the appropriate text, help you envision the changing styles, what was built of Le Bouilh Chateau and minor characters such as Rene Chateaubriand.
That this book is filled with content and still remains highly readable (at times a page turner) is a credit to the author. I highly recommend this for anyone interested in this period.
January 8, 2014
Dancing to the Precipice: Lucie de la Tour du Pin and the French Revolution is a beautifully detailed and extensively researched biography of the eponymous Marquise. I loved it! What a life our adventurous heroine lived! Born into a noble Parisian family in 1770, her mother and herself ladies in waiting to Marie Antoinette, Lucie and her husand lived through perhaps the most turbulent times in modern French history. They also enjoyed one of those rare things of their time and class - a happy marriage. Don't be fooled, though, Lucie and her husband were buffetted most cruelly by many storms during their near-fifty-year marriage, both living long lives - him to 78 and her to 83. All but one of their six children predeceased them (plus one was stillborn and Lucie had at least two miscarriages); forced to flee Paris as the Terror meant no one was safe, they fled to Bordeaux, where the Terror soon caught up with them and they lived incognito within earshot of the constantly falling guillotine. They escaped execution by a whisker, fleeing to the fledging United States, where Lucie would have liked to remain, living a simple life milking cows and farming the land. After the fall of Robespierre and the end of the Terror, they were forced to return to France if they wanted to claim the property stolen from them by the state, only to be forced to flee again, this time to England. Returning to France once again, Lucie witnessed the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy, the rise of Napoleon (whom she liked and commanded private audiences with), and the second restoration. Frederic served as an ambassador under Napoleon, Louis XVIII and Charles X. When he retired, with much of their property lost or stolen, life was never quite as grand as before, but Lucie didn't mind that. She died in Pisa, aged 83, one of the few surviving witnesses of a vanished age.
Caroline Moorehead has, I think, served Lucie well. The book paints a portrait of an age swept away by revolution, of the terror and bloodlust unleashed by the zeal of an angry many and ambitious few; of the determined blindness of a outdated monarchy desperately clinging on to authority by its fingernails and stubborn in its refusal to give up the power and privilege of the past. I asked for, and was given, the text several Christmases ago and it has remained in my to-read pile since. I am so glad I finally picked it up and turned the first page! Moorehead's text is a real page-turner, testament to the rich, varied and, frankly, extraordinary life it portrays.
Caroline Moorehead has, I think, served Lucie well. The book paints a portrait of an age swept away by revolution, of the terror and bloodlust unleashed by the zeal of an angry many and ambitious few; of the determined blindness of a outdated monarchy desperately clinging on to authority by its fingernails and stubborn in its refusal to give up the power and privilege of the past. I asked for, and was given, the text several Christmases ago and it has remained in my to-read pile since. I am so glad I finally picked it up and turned the first page! Moorehead's text is a real page-turner, testament to the rich, varied and, frankly, extraordinary life it portrays.
April 7, 2014
First-rate writing about a woman who had the luck (good and bad) to be at the epicenter of French history during the last days of the ancien regime, the Terror, the Directory, the Consulate, the Empire, the Restoration and the reign of Louis-Philippe. When she died in 1853, Napoleon III had just instituted the Second Empire. Lucie de la Tour du Pin knew everyone of the major figures, starting with her service to Marie Antoinette as a lady-in-waiting (she declined a similar position to Josephine. Neither the Emperor or Empress seemed to hold it against her). She was a devoted wife to her husband at a time when infidelity was fashionable, and made her family the center of her life. Sadly, nearly all of her children died before she did, most of them at very young ages. In addition, she lived in upstate New York on a farm outside of Albany during one period in exile. There is a priceless description of Talleyrand (also an exile) creeping up behind her while Lucie was butchering a lamb and admiring her style with the knife. As a child, she had been trained in all sorts of resourceful skills after the death of her mother, and throughout her life Lucie was able to undertake virtually anything she turned her hand to with success. Withal, she remained an aristocrat of pre-1789 France, occasionally giving etiquette lessons to the nouveau aristocracy of the Bonaparte court.
Moorehead's book is a splendid read, largely because of her approach. There is a clue from the cover portrait, which places Lucie off-center. Throughout the book, Moorehead uses her life to comment on the French history of the period, and the result is fascinating. Dancing to the Precipice contains one of the best accounts of the French Revolution I have ever read, allowing the reader to experience what it felt like to live in the Paris of the Terror, filled with an improbable cast of characters that include Theresia Tallien, Lucie's father and father-in-law, both guillotined --- her father-in-law after testifying at the Queen's trial in a way calculated to enrage the court. Among other things, he insisted upon addressing Marie Antoinette as "Sa Majeste" as opposed to the Widow Capet. Moorehead also gives a vivid picture of the fashions of both pre- and post-Revolutionary France in terms of their political significance. Her writing style is scholarly, elegant and highly accessible.
If you are interested in this period, I rate this as almost an essential read. My highest compliment is that it has sent me in search of Lucie's actual memoirs.
Moorehead's book is a splendid read, largely because of her approach. There is a clue from the cover portrait, which places Lucie off-center. Throughout the book, Moorehead uses her life to comment on the French history of the period, and the result is fascinating. Dancing to the Precipice contains one of the best accounts of the French Revolution I have ever read, allowing the reader to experience what it felt like to live in the Paris of the Terror, filled with an improbable cast of characters that include Theresia Tallien, Lucie's father and father-in-law, both guillotined --- her father-in-law after testifying at the Queen's trial in a way calculated to enrage the court. Among other things, he insisted upon addressing Marie Antoinette as "Sa Majeste" as opposed to the Widow Capet. Moorehead also gives a vivid picture of the fashions of both pre- and post-Revolutionary France in terms of their political significance. Her writing style is scholarly, elegant and highly accessible.
If you are interested in this period, I rate this as almost an essential read. My highest compliment is that it has sent me in search of Lucie's actual memoirs.
Currently reading
July 31, 2010So far so good. I was surprised that the book could add more to the subject's actual memoirs which are fascinating (note to Hollywood: This would make an incredible movie). She adds incredible detail that Lucie couldn't (or wouldn't) give herself and explains what other events were transpiring while this spunky Irish girl from the French court was conquering the American frontier.
August 3, 2020
Okay, this is not the best-written or most riveting book. I think the idea was to take this memoir, which is rumored to be fantastic, and add more historical context to flesh it out. That's a good concept, but either we lost a lot of the memoir author in the process or that book is not as fantastic as people say. I'll tell you, I never felt any attachment to or concern for Lucie, which is kind of strange. Even though we followed her life specifically through all the great events of 18th and 19th century France, I felt like I was just reading a nonfiction book about France. With a lot of names. But...it wasn't a terrible way to amble though the French Revolution. Riveting, no, but it had a certain je nai se quoi. I did not enjoy the section between the overthrow and the execution of the royal family, which filled me with dread and seemed to last a long, drawn-out time, but the rest of it was a pleasant enough gambol. It made for great breastfeeding reading.
April 1, 2021
Why I really liked this book:
1. This book gave me a much deeper understanding of the French Revolution and the history surrounding it by focusing on society and the effects of the political moves.
2. This book was yet more proof of the most prominent theme in the world: men shit up the world, and women are left holding the bag.
3. The French are the French are the French. One of my favorite lines was that England was a land of "22 religions and 2 sauces." Too funny.
1. This book gave me a much deeper understanding of the French Revolution and the history surrounding it by focusing on society and the effects of the political moves.
2. This book was yet more proof of the most prominent theme in the world: men shit up the world, and women are left holding the bag.
3. The French are the French are the French. One of my favorite lines was that England was a land of "22 religions and 2 sauces." Too funny.
June 11, 2018
Amazing history of a resilient woman who lived through Louis the 16th, the French Revolution, Napoleon. Well-written and compelling non-fiction.
March 7, 2012
It's not easy to make the French Revolution and the Napoleonic period seem tedious, but this books does just that. Lucie Dillon's life is overwhelmed by long accounts of the political life of the time. The author herself is rarely quoted so we get no feel for her prose style or her inner world. Her husband and children are just names, not brought to life at all.
Throughout the narrative there runs a thread of sympathy that aristocratic French emigres were, oh the horror! forced to work for a living, instead of continuing to live lives of extreme luxury supported by the labor of their abysmally poor peasants and West Indian slaves. I hope this attitude pervades the book only because the author was paraphrasing Lucie's writings, but since there is no indication in the book as to when the thoughts expressed are those of Lucie and when they are the author's contribution, it's hard to know.
I thought for a while that my boredom with the story this book tells was due to a constitutional disinterest in French history, but then I recalled how much I'd enjoyed Napoleon and Josephine and autobiographies of Madame De Stael and Marie Antoinette. So the problem must be the writing.
As a footnote, when the story turned to the years that the du Pins spent in Troy, New York, which is about 100 miles from where I live and on the same latitude, I kept finding things recounted as fact that were impossible. For example, we are told of a late February thaw which was followed a few weeks later by meadows bursting into bloom with wildflowers. No way. Never. Wouldn't happen. Even now with global warming, that doesn't happen until late April and early May, and the story is set at the beginning of a colder than normal period. Later we hear about the profusion of strawberries in summer (they are all done by the end of June) and how Indians slash trees to make brown sugar, which one has to assume is a reference to maple sugaring, but a very odd one.
Again, I assume these references are paraphrases from Lucie's own writings, which would cast doubt on her memories rather than the author's competence. But because the author never flags what is Lucie and what is her own narrative contribution, I couldn't help but wonder how much of the rest of the many details recounted in this story were due to the poor memory of an elderly memoirist and wrong.
Throughout the narrative there runs a thread of sympathy that aristocratic French emigres were, oh the horror! forced to work for a living, instead of continuing to live lives of extreme luxury supported by the labor of their abysmally poor peasants and West Indian slaves. I hope this attitude pervades the book only because the author was paraphrasing Lucie's writings, but since there is no indication in the book as to when the thoughts expressed are those of Lucie and when they are the author's contribution, it's hard to know.
I thought for a while that my boredom with the story this book tells was due to a constitutional disinterest in French history, but then I recalled how much I'd enjoyed Napoleon and Josephine and autobiographies of Madame De Stael and Marie Antoinette. So the problem must be the writing.
As a footnote, when the story turned to the years that the du Pins spent in Troy, New York, which is about 100 miles from where I live and on the same latitude, I kept finding things recounted as fact that were impossible. For example, we are told of a late February thaw which was followed a few weeks later by meadows bursting into bloom with wildflowers. No way. Never. Wouldn't happen. Even now with global warming, that doesn't happen until late April and early May, and the story is set at the beginning of a colder than normal period. Later we hear about the profusion of strawberries in summer (they are all done by the end of June) and how Indians slash trees to make brown sugar, which one has to assume is a reference to maple sugaring, but a very odd one.
Again, I assume these references are paraphrases from Lucie's own writings, which would cast doubt on her memories rather than the author's competence. But because the author never flags what is Lucie and what is her own narrative contribution, I couldn't help but wonder how much of the rest of the many details recounted in this story were due to the poor memory of an elderly memoirist and wrong.
June 7, 2010
Lucie’s life is recorded from the 1780s to the 1840s. All is set in the harsh realities of the French Revolution, that is the revolution before it, during ( quote; heads fly like tiles),and after.
One thinks of these times as: there where the Jacobines and then Napoleon, not so.
One also realizes why France was culturally at its pinnacle. To give an example: the salons initiated by women, where women held an equal voice to men and when their opinions where sought and respected.
Lucie lived a long life. She had 10 children, six of whom where stillborn, one died in a duel, two died of illness.
Even for those days that was unusual.
The book is a must read. It shows parallels to our times politically, culturally. Great inventions where made (hot air ballooning among many).
PS. The influence of these times was expressing itself culturally for a good hundred years in Germany. Among many other changes it was “comme il faut” for the better class to know French. It was spoken around the table at meal times and children had lessons early on in their life as my mother told me. To this day German is laced with many French words and sayings, those again like a code not understood by all yet conveying good upbringing.
I hope that does not sound snooty but it really is part of the culture
One thinks of these times as: there where the Jacobines and then Napoleon, not so.
One also realizes why France was culturally at its pinnacle. To give an example: the salons initiated by women, where women held an equal voice to men and when their opinions where sought and respected.
Lucie lived a long life. She had 10 children, six of whom where stillborn, one died in a duel, two died of illness.
Even for those days that was unusual.
The book is a must read. It shows parallels to our times politically, culturally. Great inventions where made (hot air ballooning among many).
PS. The influence of these times was expressing itself culturally for a good hundred years in Germany. Among many other changes it was “comme il faut” for the better class to know French. It was spoken around the table at meal times and children had lessons early on in their life as my mother told me. To this day German is laced with many French words and sayings, those again like a code not understood by all yet conveying good upbringing.
I hope that does not sound snooty but it really is part of the culture
August 19, 2009
I don't usually read biographies so it's likely most of my criticism stems from my unfamiliarity with the genre. Moorehead does a good job contextualizing Lucie's life events but somehow manages to purge almost any sense of mania while describing the French Revolution. She describes Paris and Bourdeaux as in a frenzy, but it doesn't translate beyond the page. I could not shake the feeling that reading Lucie's diaries and letters would have been more enjoyable. That said, the book did remind me how great my interest is in this time period. Lucie did lead a truly extraordinary life, from rising in the court of Marie Antoinette to befriending Alexander Hamilton in New York, and even later earning the admiration of Napoleon.
November 9, 2010
For me, this was a very enjoyable biography to read, full of little details, and fitting the personal story well into the surrounding times and circumstances. If you like the historical novels where the lovely aristocratic girl has to find a way out of danger, and meets the hero of her dreams, then here's a real life story for you. Well written, very enjoyable and one that I can wholeheartedly recommended.
For the longer review, please go here:
http://www.epinions.com/review/Book_D...
For the longer review, please go here:
http://www.epinions.com/review/Book_D...
April 19, 2011
Fabulous read. Erudite and entertaining. De La Tour Du seems to be to diarist of the French Revolution what Mary Chestnut was to the War Between the States. She was lady in waiting to Marie Antoinette and a favorite of Napoleon. She even knew Wellington. Her husband served in every government and she was close to the centers of power her entire life. A fascinating picture of the entire era which is usually divided into smaller portions of Revolution,Robespierre and Napoleon. This is an overview seen through the eyes of someone who lived it.
October 19, 2009
I thought this was an excellent biography and I will read the Lucie Dillon's memoirs sometime soon. The author did a great job providing historical context to the subject's memoirs. I highly recommend this if you are interested in the rise and fall and rise and fall of the French aristocracy before, during and after the French Revolution.
February 3, 2016
"In an age when rivers mattered, when life unfolded along their waterways and banks, she had lived in the Seine, the Hudson, the Thames and the Garonne, and she died by the Arno."
It seems impossible to have lived so many lives, and it is even stranger to think that history is not actually broken up in shards that you get to play around with, even if they cut you.
It seems impossible to have lived so many lives, and it is even stranger to think that history is not actually broken up in shards that you get to play around with, even if they cut you.
December 29, 2010
In many places downright thrilling. A wonderful biography of a woman who saw it all: the French Revolution and Terror, young America, the rise of Napoleon, Waterloo.
April 6, 2016
Interesante repaso a la vida de una aristócrata francesa desde los años finales del antiguo régimen hasta la mitad del siglo XIX.
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April 21, 2020Lucie de la Tour du Pin is an interesting woman who grew up in the last years of the Bourbon monarchy, but unhappy and getting her resiliency through a strange (to us, but may be more normal than abnormal in the 1780s in the aristocratic world of France!) childhood... She had a fascinating life, living in France, in Versailles before the end of the Court, abroad, and even in America near Albany!!!!
At the end of her life she sat down and wrote an interesting memoir of her life... and of course it is an aristocratic woman writing this, but also a child of the Siecle des Lumieres, a child of the revolution, a child of politics moving through so many regimes that she must have felt like wondering every day "who is the head of state today? OH YES, it is Robespierre, no Napoleon, no Louis XVIII, no Charles X, no... "
But in this book which I had purchased as I had never seen any bio of Lucie de la Tour du Pin and I really felt that the world was missing something there...
But this book written by a British writer spends so much time setting up the background... the ever changing background of European politics, and American too! that you end up reading very little about Lucie... You end up reading a book about the politics and the history of France mainly from 1780 to 1850, and of course in a short book that means a very cursory description of things, and especially because French history written by a British might just never work...
Like the difference between ESPRIT and HUMOUR there is a gap larger than LA MANCHE (aka THE CHANEL) and it shows in so many places that it drove me up the walls..
Caroline Moorehead is a good writer in teh sense she does organize her book well (yes the biography part is easy - start at birth, end at death, but she also organizes the overgrowing background clearly ) but sometimes i had the feeling my printed book was missing words in some sentences, the writing was weird in some places... some sentences not even making real sense like a verb or a pronoun was missing... but i will say that it might be only my printed book... maybe a non corrected advanced copy or something???
And more serious, she showed serious incomprehension of the meaning of things...
She seems to think that the monarchy before the revolution was nice, that it had "la douceur de vivre" one can dream of, when really you had one million of people with some various levels of life and power, and 25 millions of people living in abject misery, drafted for wars that did not have anything to do with their own lives, drafted for building palaces, forced to fix roads when they really should be working their fields to have food. These 25 millions are paying taxes in various ways, and the one million who has money does not...
So Caroline Moorehead really seems to have been drinking the famous cool aid here...
And the way she treats the purchase of slaves by Lucie in America when she farmed near Albany, and then freed them when the family left, is CRAZILY SUPERFICIAL...
Of course when the revolution is over and the country goes back to the kings, the writer seems to approve... INSANE! and I am supposed to cry because the de La Tour du Pin and the others are not given full restitution of what they owned before the revolution????????????? REALLY???? INCREDIBLE!
And when Moorehead talks about LE BAL DES GUILLOTINES, one can feel how much she does not understand... about France... about Trauma... about survival... She finds weird and ghoulish the daring BAL where to enter you had to prove that a close relative (parents, children, siblings) had gone to the guillotine... and every participant wore a very thin red ribbon tied around the neck, an imaginary cutting line left by the blade of the "big mademoiselle"... These balls were extraordinary and not goulish, on the contrary, they are an affermative force, a refusal to let the souls, the names of the dead loved ones go to the potter field of the mind as their bodies went to the potter fields of France.. It is a victory of life over death, and at the same time a counterphobic way of life... and what would you know Caroline Moorehead of life under the TERROR?
Again might be the gap between British and French...
But really the biggest issue is that the background invades every part of the book and the heroin, Lucie, disappears... it is a case of the forest hiding the tree... not of the tree hiding into the forest... Caroline Moorehead started her path well lit by the MEMOIRES left by Lucie, and then she totally lost track of who / what was her topic...
On the other hand, if you have not studied French History for the Baccalaureat, it will give you all the basic information you need... and knowing about European history in the 18th century and the early 19th century is always a plus... so yes, do read it... but don't expect to really have more than a superficial understanding of Lucie de La Tour du Pin...
Congratulations to Moorehead for being the first to desire to write a full book about her, and maybe we now need the novel with Lucie as the heroin in the storm... and maybe there we will get some understanding of her personality!!!
At the end of her life she sat down and wrote an interesting memoir of her life... and of course it is an aristocratic woman writing this, but also a child of the Siecle des Lumieres, a child of the revolution, a child of politics moving through so many regimes that she must have felt like wondering every day "who is the head of state today? OH YES, it is Robespierre, no Napoleon, no Louis XVIII, no Charles X, no... "
But in this book which I had purchased as I had never seen any bio of Lucie de la Tour du Pin and I really felt that the world was missing something there...
But this book written by a British writer spends so much time setting up the background... the ever changing background of European politics, and American too! that you end up reading very little about Lucie... You end up reading a book about the politics and the history of France mainly from 1780 to 1850, and of course in a short book that means a very cursory description of things, and especially because French history written by a British might just never work...
Like the difference between ESPRIT and HUMOUR there is a gap larger than LA MANCHE (aka THE CHANEL) and it shows in so many places that it drove me up the walls..
Caroline Moorehead is a good writer in teh sense she does organize her book well (yes the biography part is easy - start at birth, end at death, but she also organizes the overgrowing background clearly ) but sometimes i had the feeling my printed book was missing words in some sentences, the writing was weird in some places... some sentences not even making real sense like a verb or a pronoun was missing... but i will say that it might be only my printed book... maybe a non corrected advanced copy or something???
And more serious, she showed serious incomprehension of the meaning of things...
She seems to think that the monarchy before the revolution was nice, that it had "la douceur de vivre" one can dream of, when really you had one million of people with some various levels of life and power, and 25 millions of people living in abject misery, drafted for wars that did not have anything to do with their own lives, drafted for building palaces, forced to fix roads when they really should be working their fields to have food. These 25 millions are paying taxes in various ways, and the one million who has money does not...
So Caroline Moorehead really seems to have been drinking the famous cool aid here...
And the way she treats the purchase of slaves by Lucie in America when she farmed near Albany, and then freed them when the family left, is CRAZILY SUPERFICIAL...
Of course when the revolution is over and the country goes back to the kings, the writer seems to approve... INSANE! and I am supposed to cry because the de La Tour du Pin and the others are not given full restitution of what they owned before the revolution????????????? REALLY???? INCREDIBLE!
And when Moorehead talks about LE BAL DES GUILLOTINES, one can feel how much she does not understand... about France... about Trauma... about survival... She finds weird and ghoulish the daring BAL where to enter you had to prove that a close relative (parents, children, siblings) had gone to the guillotine... and every participant wore a very thin red ribbon tied around the neck, an imaginary cutting line left by the blade of the "big mademoiselle"... These balls were extraordinary and not goulish, on the contrary, they are an affermative force, a refusal to let the souls, the names of the dead loved ones go to the potter field of the mind as their bodies went to the potter fields of France.. It is a victory of life over death, and at the same time a counterphobic way of life... and what would you know Caroline Moorehead of life under the TERROR?
Again might be the gap between British and French...
But really the biggest issue is that the background invades every part of the book and the heroin, Lucie, disappears... it is a case of the forest hiding the tree... not of the tree hiding into the forest... Caroline Moorehead started her path well lit by the MEMOIRES left by Lucie, and then she totally lost track of who / what was her topic...
On the other hand, if you have not studied French History for the Baccalaureat, it will give you all the basic information you need... and knowing about European history in the 18th century and the early 19th century is always a plus... so yes, do read it... but don't expect to really have more than a superficial understanding of Lucie de La Tour du Pin...
Congratulations to Moorehead for being the first to desire to write a full book about her, and maybe we now need the novel with Lucie as the heroin in the storm... and maybe there we will get some understanding of her personality!!!
September 1, 2019
This is a riveting read with not a dull page in the entire book. This is all the more astonishing as it is a serious work of history, a biography based on the journals and letters of Lucie de la Tour du Pin. However it is the fact that her life paralleled such extraordinary events in French history that gives it its variety and interest. Born into the aristocracy in 1770 Lucie's life followed the fortunes of the members of the ancien régime from the Court of Louis XVI to exile in the Hudson Valley of the US, a premature return to France followed by a miserable time in Norfolk (England), back to Napoleonic France where many of the old customs and courtesies were being revived by the its new Emperor, through his downfall, and on through Restoration France.
What makes this book so compelling and raises it above many dry history books that cover this period of French history is that it is told through the eyes of someone who experienced the impact of these events directly and who knew many of the key players. Talleyrand crops up time and time again, Napolean is known personally, as is Josephine.
Lucie had that rare thing among aristocracy of the time, a happy marriage (Mme de Stael observed with some puzzlement: "It seems to me that you love him as a lover") and a devotion to her children which overruled everything else. Sadly she was to outlive most of them, something which she bore stoically and with resignation.
This is one of the finest historical biographies I have ever read, one to keep and read again.
What makes this book so compelling and raises it above many dry history books that cover this period of French history is that it is told through the eyes of someone who experienced the impact of these events directly and who knew many of the key players. Talleyrand crops up time and time again, Napolean is known personally, as is Josephine.
Lucie had that rare thing among aristocracy of the time, a happy marriage (Mme de Stael observed with some puzzlement: "It seems to me that you love him as a lover") and a devotion to her children which overruled everything else. Sadly she was to outlive most of them, something which she bore stoically and with resignation.
This is one of the finest historical biographies I have ever read, one to keep and read again.
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May 13, 2024Just a excellently written depiction of French society from the "ancien regime" to the reign of Charles the Xth in all its facets; sociologically, culturally, politically and the changes in each as history rolled along. Told from the perspective of Lucie Tour de Pin as a well connected bystander at the epicenter of each wave of political change characterizing the many personalities that populate the realm from the Royal family to Tallyrand and Fouche. I thoroughly enjoyed it as the pace is riveting thou never hurried, the charactizations by Lucie are always important to understanding the setting/actors as well as the times.
Also credit must be given to Caroline Moorhead who research was extensive and deep while still making the narration and interaction with the reader very easy and accessible; complicated changes in French society were well depicted so that a better knowledge of the times can be gleaned from a third party perspective.
Also credit must be given to Caroline Moorhead who research was extensive and deep while still making the narration and interaction with the reader very easy and accessible; complicated changes in French society were well depicted so that a better knowledge of the times can be gleaned from a third party perspective.
April 17, 2018
"Dancing to the Precipice" is an amazing, well-researched biography of Lucie de la Tour du Pin, her acquaintances, and her family. It is also a social and political history of the French Revolution and the aftermath. Although the material is complex, Ms Moorehead handles it with expertise. I loved reading it and highly recommend it to anyone interested in history and unusual real people. Lucie lived an amazing life. One of my favorite sections is when she leaves France and comes to almost the frontier of the United States and sets up housekeeping, milking cows, growing vegetables, and doing all the mundane chores that, as a fairly well-to-do member of the court she could ignore when she lived in France. It was also some of her happiest years.
"Dancing" is truly a gem, full of descriptions of food, clothing, decorations, and social life of the 1700s.
"Dancing" is truly a gem, full of descriptions of food, clothing, decorations, and social life of the 1700s.
April 23, 2020
This is one of the best books I have read describing the life of the Aristocracy in France just before and after the Revolution. It is the story of Lucie de la Tour du Pin and follows her life through her young year, marriage and all the tragedies of the French Revolution. She escaped and got to the US but wanted to return to France but it was still dangerous and she lived in England for awhile. She got back to France after the failure of the revolution parties and their destruction with the rise of Napoleon and her family came back and was involved in Napoleon's political court. The only criticism is that I thought there was a little too much detail and too many people to follow and try to remember.
October 10, 2023
Біографія досить стандартної для свого класу аристократки Люсі де Ла Тур, яка встигла пожити і за монархії у Франції, і за Наполеона, і за реставрації. В перервах між більш-менш спокійними часами доводилося і масло виготовляти на фермі у Америці, і переховуватися в тайниках, і бігати по Європі, щоб не арештували. Не сказати, щоб приємна людина, але якась вона оптимістична навіть у найгірші для себе часи, гостра на язика і вміє підмічати цікаві деталі - від пікантних відносин бабусі з своїм дядьком-єпископом до настроїв Наполеона і вишивки на рукавах придворних суконь. А що у вузькому колі всі були родичі, то сила-силенна пліток про сучасників у мемуарах нам гарантована. Той випадок, коли life and times виправданий формат.
March 19, 2025
I don’t think a novelist would have dared invent the story of Lucie de la Tour du Pin. Born Lucie Dillon in France from an aristocratic family with connections in France, Ireland and England she grew up in the world of the Ancient Regime, was a Lady in Waiting to Marie Antoinette, witnessed some of the key moments of the French Revolution, fled from the Terror to America, came back to France via England as her husband worked for Napoleon, survived his downfall and saw the Restoration and fall of the French monarchy again. She knew nearly everyone there was to know, had a wonderfully happy marriage but buried all but one of her children. This was a fascinating biography of a woman living through extraordinary times and a vivid portrait of both the person and the era.
May 21, 2020
Lucie de la Tour du Pin led an extraordinary life during a tumultuous period of history. When Lucie died, "The France into which Lucie was born, in the spring of 1770, was no more." But that France is still very interesting to read about -- the time when there were kings and emperors and revolutions, salons run by brilliant women where good conversation was an art, and wit and good manners were highly esteemed.
February 17, 2025
A good review of French history. Lucie was a woman of the aristocracy, but spent much of her life scrambling to survive poverty. She was educated and married the man she wanted to and loved. The many political upheavals in France led her to exile in various countries, including the U.S. for a time. Her marriage was a happy one, and she had children. Only one son survived her. Lucie’s commentary made the history very interesting.
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