La Grande Mademoiselle at the Court of France: 1627--1693 Review

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(More customer reviews)Anne-Marie-Louise d'Orleans, duchess de Montpensier, who was always called "La Grande Mademoiselle", has been a figure who has facinated French historians for centuries - unfortunatley, there have not been many books in english about her eventful life.
Born in 1627, Mademoiselle was the first grandchild born in the royal family of France for several centuries. She was destined to be a matrimonial pawn for her family because of her closeness to the throne and the immense fortune she inherited from her mother. She was in her time, the richest woman in France and it's greatest heiress.
We have been fortunate that Mademoiselle thought to write her memoirs during her lifetime. These have been used as the basis for this book. However all her assertions and ommissions have been cross-checked. The author presents a fairly straightfoward accounting of the princesses life. From her early years and the inattention of her father, Gaston (to whom she owed her royal position) and her conflicts with the court, to her later disgrace and exile and grand love of the Sun King's courtier Lauzun.
At the end of the book are three lengthy appedix' (or essays more correctly) dealing with Mademoiselle's writings and her much coveted fortune.
The only complaint I have about this book is that despite lengthy sections dealing with Mademoiselle's writings we actually hear very little of her voice in it. We are given a fairly objective view of her life by the author, but it could possibly have been enhanced by at least one section which let Mademoiselle speak for herself.
One earlier english work on Mademoiselle "La Grande Mademoiselle" by Francis Steegmuller, 1956 reproduces her written "self portrait" and this book is worth looking up for that alone.
Aside from the text it is nice to see such a well bound and produced book as this with nice study covers and acid free paper - designed to last the test of time. A timely reivew of this very active princess' life.

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Anne-Marie-Louise d'Orléans -- a cousin to Louis XIV and known in her time and to posterity as "La Grande Mademoiselle" -- is still remembered in France today for her unconventional life and heroic deeds. A participant in the factional struggles known as the Fronde, which nearly consumed France during the minority of Louis XIV, Mademoiselle ultimately sided with a coalition of princes and great noblemen who sought to depose the king's prime minister, Cardinal Mazarin, and seize control of the state. During the fiercest fighting in Paris, she ordered the cannons of the Bastille to be turned on the king's troops, saving the rebel army -- a deed that cost her five years of internal exile and the lasting mistrust of Louis XIV. Late in her life, she again shocked the court with her attempt to marry an officer of the king's guard, a proposed misalliance that provoked an enormous public outcry and greatly embarrassed the king. In addition, she was a privileged chronicler of court life, a witness to the ministries of Richelieu and Mazarin and to the most successful decades of Louis XIV's reign. Her Mémoires, first published in 1718 and initially suppressed in France, remains a major source of information on the period's political and social events as well as a page-turning melodrama of court intrigue. Mademoiselle also left behind a number of other works -- literary portraits of the prominent personalities of her day, letters, satirical short stories, and two essays on religion -- which, together with her memoirs, stand as an unusual achievement for any seventeenth-century woman, let alone one so high-born and wealthy. In La Grande Mademoiselle at the Court of France, Vincent Pitts presents a comprehensive and engaging biography of this remarkable woman which draws upon Mademoiselle's writings and his own impressive command of her times. Viewed through her writings, the events of Mademoiselle's life offer a unique perspective on several aspects of seventeenth-century France: the evolution of the Bourbon monarchy over the course of the century, the dynamics of aristocratic resistance to the centralizing power of the state, and the debate over the role of women in public and private life. As both an active participant in and a keen observer of the great events of her time, La Grande Mademoiselle helped define her age even as she challenged the limitations it placed upon her, as Pitts's rich and rigorous account of her life makes clear.

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