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Radio show segment on Marie Antoinette & Lucie de la tour du Pin

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Chatterbox
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Radio show segment on Marie Antoinette & Lucie de la tour du Pin

Post by Chatterbox » Thu July 23rd, 2009, 4:25 pm

New book alert -- and radio show segment.
It's about to come on on New York's WNYC. You can listen online, and I think can listen later. The show is also a podcast on iTunes (free.)

If you're interested, the book is by Caroline Moorehead and she is discussing it http://www.wnyc.org/shows/lopate/episod ... nts/137167

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Miss Moppet
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Post by Miss Moppet » Wed July 29th, 2009, 8:19 pm

This was really interesting, I will look out for the book. I recommend Mme de La Tour du Pin's memoirs for anyone interested in pre-revolutionary France. There's a fascinating account of the storming of Versailles, among other things. I made a presentation on them for a seminar when I was doing my first degree.

Chatterbox
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Post by Chatterbox » Thu July 30th, 2009, 10:01 pm

I just posted a review of the book, which was excellent!

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Catherine Delors
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Post by Catherine Delors » Wed September 30th, 2009, 6:16 pm

The Memoirs of Madame de La Tour du Pin are also excellent for the decades that follow the Revolution (she stops at the fall of Bonaparte, in fact.) I belong to an 18th century group where someone is reading "Dancing to the Precipice." I wonder whether it is as good as the Memoirs themselves.

Speaking of Memoirs, other members are reading Madame Campan (a must on Marie-Antoinette, of course) and Madame Roland. So many extraordinary female memoirs at that time!

Chatterbox
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Post by Chatterbox » Thu October 1st, 2009, 4:35 pm

I had only read extracts from the Tour du Pin memoirs, and thought the book did them full justice -- but also set them in context, which was fabulous.

This period fascinates me because of the whole 'salon' phenomenon, which Moorehead deals with so well in her biography -- from the early 18th century, up to the pre-revolutionary era (Mme de Stael), Mme Roland during the early stages of the revolution and into the restoration era. In the context of the salons, where women directed and controlled so much intellectual discussion, it doesn't surprise me at all that there would be so many wonderful female authors of memoirs. I only wish that we had a real contemporary equivalent to those salons....

job
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Post by job » Sun January 10th, 2010, 8:13 pm

[quote=""Chatterbox""]I had only read extracts from the Tour du Pin memoirs[/quote]

The memoirs are well worth reading as a whole, if you haven't got to it yet. Fascinating woman.

Joanna Bourne

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