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by Caroline Moorehead (Author)
"[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.
This definitive French Revolution biography brings a turbulent era to life through the eyes of one of its most resilient observers, chronicling:
- Life at Versailles: An insider's account of the glittering, decadent, and treacherous court of Louis XVI in the final years before the fall of the French monarchy.
- Surviving the Terror: A harrowing narrative of how Lucie navigated the most dangerous days of the French Revolution, witnessing friends and family arrested and sent to the guillotine.
- Escape to America: The remarkable story of an aristocratic family building a new life as farmers in upstate New York, grappling with a rugged landscape and new democratic ideals.
- The Bourbon Restoration: A firsthand perspective on the return of the French kings and the complex social landscape of post-Napoleonic Paris, including friendships with figures like Talleyrand and the Duke of Wellington.
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Her canvases were the court of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette; the Great Terror; America at the time of Washington and Jefferson; Paris under the Directoire and then under Napoleon; Regency London; the battle of Waterloo; and, for the last years of her life, the Italian ducal courts. She witnessed firsthand the demise of the French monarchy, the wave of the Revolution and the Reign of Terror, and the precipitous rise and fall of Napoleon. Lucie Dillon--a daughter of French and British nobility known in France by her married name, Lucie de la Tour du Pin--was the chronicler of her age.
In this compelling biography, Caroline Moorehead illuminates the extraordinary life and remarkable achievements of this strong, witty, elegant, opinionated, and dynamic woman who survived personal tragedy and the devastation wrought by momentous historic events.
