Download or read book Queens and Mistresses of Renaissance France written by Kathleen Wellman and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2013-05-21 with total page 449 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Tells the history of the French Renaissance through the lives of its most prominent queens and mistresses.
Download or read book Fleur de Lys written by Joy Law and published by New York : McGraw-Hill. This book was released on 1976 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Royalty has always been the object of intense curiosity; and even the most trivial detail in the everyday life of any royal figure continues to fascinate posterity, century after century. Gathered here is a rich and extraordinarily varied collection of anecdotes which literally breathes life into reigns that are now sometimes forgotten, or sometimes remembered for infamy, but were also sometimes magnificent. Kings and queens are observed firsthand--by their contempoaries and by each other. Compassion, sarcasm, wit and perception are mingled in the accounts of the rulers' public and private lives. From the first Capet reign...to the Bourbons, ladies-in-waiting and soldiers, courtiers and poets, ambassadors and footmen have left a stunning record unlike any other, broughts together here in one of the most remarkable works ever created on royalty."--Publisher's description.
Download or read book Queen of France written by Andre Castelot and published by Ishi Press. This book was released on 2009-11 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is the biography of one of the most tragic women in History. It is the story of a frivolous young girl who threw wild parties and spent a lot of her husband's money and for that reason, and that reason alone, she had her head chopped off in public. The back cover photo here shows Marie Antoinette being given her last rights by a clergyman as she was waiting before the guillotine for the executioners to cut off her head, and while a crowd of thousands watched. Her last words were one of apology to one of her executioners, when she accidentally stepped on his foot. All of the events of the Life of Marie Antoinette are brilliantly explained in this biography by Andre Castelot. The most haunting and harrowing pages of the biography are Castelot's darkly etched picture of the Queen in the culminating moments of her life. Perhaps it is not in the least a paradox that one of the most arrantly self-indulgent women should, in her adversity, provide one of the most memorable images of mother love."
Download or read book Mission France written by Kate Vigurs and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2021-05-18 with total page 352 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The full story of the thirty-nine female SOE agents who went undercover in France Formed in 1940, Special Operations Executive was to coordinate Resistance work overseas. The organization’s F section sent more than four hundred agents into France, thirty-nine of whom were women. But while some are widely known—Violette Szabo, Odette Sansom, Noor Inayat Khan—others have had their stories largely overlooked. Kate Vigurs interweaves for the first time the stories of all thirty-nine female agents. Tracing their journeys from early recruitment to work undertaken in the field, to evasion from, or capture by, the Gestapo, Vigurs shows just how greatly missions varied. Some agents were more adept at parachuting. Some agents’ missions lasted for years, others’ less than a few hours. Some survived, others were murdered. By placing the women in the context of their work with the SOE and the wider war, this history reveals the true extent of the differences in their abilities and attitudes while underlining how they nonetheless shared a common mission and, ultimately, deserve recognition.
Download or read book Four Queens written by Nancy Goldstone and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2007-04-19 with total page 524 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For fans of Alison Weir and Antonia Fraser, acclaimed author Nancy Goldstone’s thrilling history of the royal daughters who succeeded in ruling—and shaping—thirteenth-century Europe Set against the backdrop of the thirteenth century, a time of chivalry and crusades, troubadors, knights and monarchs, Four Queens is the story of four provocative sisters—Marguerite, Eleanor, Sanchia, and Beatrice of Provence—who rose from near obscurity to become the most coveted and powerful women in Europe. Each sister in this extraordinary family was beautiful, cultured, and accomplished but what made these women so remarkable was that each became queen of a principal European power—France, England, Germany and Sicily. During their reigns, they exercised considerable political authority, raised armies, intervened diplomatically and helped redraw the map of Europe. Theirs is a drama of courage, sagacity and ambition that re-examines the concept of leadership in the Middle Ages.
Download or read book The Lives of the Kings Queens of France written by René de La Croix duc de Castries and published by Knopf Books for Young Readers. This book was released on 1979 with total page 280 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A leading French historian reviews the reigns, deeds, and misdeeds of France's sovereigns - both famous and infamous - from the Merovingians of the fifth century to the abdication of Louis Philippe in 1848.
Download or read book The Queen s Fortune written by Allison Pataki and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2020-02-11 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A sweeping novel about the extraordinary woman who captured Napoleon’s heart, created a dynasty, and changed the course of history—from the New York Times bestselling author of The Traitor's Wife, The Accidental Empress, and Sisi “I absolutely loved The Queen’s Fortune, the fascinating, little-known story of Desiree Clary—the woman Napoleon left for Josephine—who ultimately triumphed and became queen of Sweden.”—Martha Hall Kelly, New York Times bestselling author of Lilac Girls As the French revolution ravages the country, Desiree Clary is faced with the life-altering truth that the world she has known and loved is gone and it’s fallen on her to save her family from the guillotine. A chance encounter with Napoleon Bonaparte, the ambitious and charismatic young military prodigy, provides her answer. When her beloved sister Julie marries his brother Joseph, Desiree and Napoleon’s futures become irrevocably linked. Quickly entering into their own passionate, dizzying courtship that leads to a secret engagement, they vow to meet in the capital once his career has been secured. But her newly laid plans with Napoleon turn to sudden heartbreak, thanks to the rising star of Parisian society, Josephine de Beauharnais. Once again, Desiree’s life is turned on its head. Swept to the glittering halls of the French capital, Desiree is plunged into the inner circle of the new ruling class, becoming further entangled with Napoleon, his family, and the new Empress. But her fortunes shift once again when she meets Napoleon's confidant and star general, the indomitable Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte. As the two men in Desiree’s life become political rivals and military foes, the question that arises is: must she choose between the love of her new husband and the love of her nation and its Emperor? From the lavish estates of the French Riviera to the raucous streets of Paris and Stockholm, Desiree finds herself at the epicenter of the rise and fall of an empire, navigating a constellation of political giants and dangerous, shifting alliances. Emerging from an impressionable girl into a fierce young woman, she discovers that to survive in this world she must learn to rely upon her instincts and her heart. Allison Pataki’s meticulously researched and brilliantly imagined novel sweeps readers into the unbelievable life of a woman almost lost to history—a woman who, despite the swells of a stunning life and a tumultuous time, not only adapts and survives but, ultimately, reigns at the helm of a dynasty that outlasts an empire.
Download or read book Queens of France written by Thornton Wilder and published by . This book was released on 1982 with total page 42 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Set in New Orleans in 1869. Monsieur Cahusac, a greedy lawyer, carries on under the cover of his profession a clever hoax in which he extorts money from credulous women by convincing them they are the rightful heirs to the throne of France through relationship to the lost Dauphin."--Samuel French, Inc.
Download or read book Les Parisiennes written by Anne Sebba and published by Macmillan + ORM. This book was released on 2016-10-18 with total page 601 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Anne Sebba has the nearly miraculous gift of combining the vivid intimacy of the lives of women during The Occupation with the history of the time. This is a remarkable book.” —Edmund de Waal, New York Times bestselling author of The Hare with the Amber Eyes New York Times bestselling author Anne Sebba explores a devastating period in Paris's history and tells the stories of how women survived—or didn’t—during the Nazi occupation. Paris in the 1940s was a place of fear, power, aggression, courage, deprivation, and secrets. During the occupation, the swastika flew from the Eiffel Tower and danger lurked on every corner. While Parisian men were either fighting at the front or captured and forced to work in German factories, the women of Paris were left behind where they would come face to face with the German conquerors on a daily basis, as waitresses, shop assistants, or wives and mothers, increasingly desperate to find food to feed their families as hunger became part of everyday life. When the Nazis and the puppet Vichy regime began rounding up Jews to ship east to concentration camps, the full horror of the war was brought home and the choice between collaboration and resistance became unavoidable. Sebba focuses on the role of women, many of whom faced life and death decisions every day. After the war ended, there would be a fierce settling of accounts between those who made peace with or, worse, helped the occupiers and those who fought the Nazis in any way they could.
Download or read book The Rival Queens written by Nancy Goldstone and published by Little, Brown. This book was released on 2015-06-23 with total page 518 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The riveting true story of mother-and-daughter queens Catherine de' Medici and Marguerite de Valois, whose wildly divergent personalities and turbulent relationship changed the shape of their tempestuous and dangerous century. Set in magnificent Renaissance France, this is the story of two remarkable women, a mother and daughter driven into opposition by a terrible betrayal that threatened to destroy the realm. Catherine de' Medici was a ruthless pragmatist and powerbroker who dominated the throne for thirty years. Her youngest daughter Marguerite, the glamorous "Queen Margot," was a passionate free spirit, the only adversary whom her mother could neither intimidate nor control. When Catherine forces the Catholic Marguerite to marry her Protestant cousin Henry of Navarre against her will, and then uses her opulent Parisian wedding as a means of luring his followers to their deaths, she creates not only savage conflict within France but also a potent rival within her own family. Rich in detail and vivid prose, Goldstone's narrative unfolds as a thrilling historical epic. Treacherous court politics, poisonings, international espionage, and adultery form the background to a story that includes such celebrated figures as Elizabeth I, Mary, Queen of Scots, and Nostradamus. The Rival Queens is a dangerous tale of love, betrayal, ambition, and the true nature of courage, the echoes of which still resonate.
Download or read book Having It All in the Belle Epoque written by Rachel Mesch and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2013-07-03 with total page 257 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “In this entertaining academic history of these rival magazines, Mesch . . . explores the emergence of the working woman in France.” —Publishers Weekly At once deeply historical and surprisingly timely, Having It All in the Belle Epoque shows how the debates that continue to captivate high-achieving women in America and Europe can be traced back to the early 1900s in France. The first two photographic magazines aimed at women, Femina and La Vie Heureuse created a female role model who could balance age-old convention with new equalities. Often referred to simply as the “modern woman,” this captivating figure embodied the hopes and dreams as well as the most pressing internal conflicts of large numbers of French women during what was a period of profound change. Full of never-before-studied images of the modern French woman in action, Having It All shows how these early magazines exploited new photographic technologies, artistic currents, and literary trends to create a powerful model of French femininity, one that has exerted a lasting influence on French expression. This book introduces and explores the concept of Belle Epoque literary feminism, a product of the elite milieu from which the magazines emerged. Defined by its refusal of political engagement, this feminism was nevertheless preoccupied with expanding women’s roles, as it worked to construct a collective fantasy of female achievement. Through an astute blend of historical research, literary criticism, and visual analysis, Mesch’s study of women’s magazines and the popular writers associated with them offers an original window onto a bygone era that can serve as a framework for ongoing debates about feminism, femininity, and work-life tensions
Download or read book Becoming a Queen in Early Modern Europe written by Katarzyna Kosior and published by Springer. This book was released on 2019-03-18 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Queens of Poland are conspicuously absent from the study of European queenship—an absence which, together with early modern Poland’s marginal place in the historiography, results in a picture of European royal culture that can only be lopsided and incomplete. Katarzyna Kosior cuts through persistent stereotypes of an East-West dichotomy and a culturally isolated early modern Poland to offer a groundbreaking comparative study of royal ceremony in Poland and France. The ceremonies of becoming a Jagiellonian or Valois queen, analysed in their larger European context, illuminate the connections that bound together monarchical Europe. These ceremonies are a gateway to a fuller understanding of European royal culture, demonstrating that it is impossible to make claims about European queenship without considering eastern Europe.
Download or read book In the Shadow of the Empress written by Nancy Goldstone and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2021-09-16 with total page 602 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Out of the thrilling and tempestuous eighteenth century comes the sweeping family saga of beautiful Maria Theresa, a sovereign of extraordinary strength and vision, the only woman ever to inherit and rule the vast Habsburg empire in her own name, and three of her remarkable daughters: lovely, talented Maria Christina, governor-general of the Austrian Netherlands; spirited Maria Carolina, the resolute queen of Naples; and the youngest, Marie Antoinette, the glamorous, tragic queen of France, perhaps the most famous princess in history. Unfolding against an irresistible backdrop of brilliant courts from Vienna to Versailles, embracing the exotic lure of Naples and Sicily, this epic history of Maria Theresa and her daughters is a tour de force of desire, adventure, ambition, treachery, sorrow, and glory. Each of these women's lives was packed with passion and heart-stopping suspense. Maria Theresa inherited her father's thrones at the age of twenty-three and was immediately attacked on all sides by foreign powers confident that a woman would to be too weak to defend herself. Maria Christina, a gifted artist, who alone among her sisters succeeded in marrying for love, would face the same dangers that destroyed the monarchy in France. Resourceful Maria Carolina would usher in the golden age of Naples only to then face the deadly whirlwind of Napoleon. And, finally, Marie Antoinette, the doomed queen whose stylish excesses and captivating notoriety have masked the truth about her husband and herself for two hundred and fifty years.
Download or read book Maximilian and Carlota written by M. M. McAllen and published by Trinity University Press. This book was released on 2014-01-08 with total page 552 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this new telling of Mexico’s Second Empire and Louis Napoléon’s installation of Maximilian von Habsburg and his wife, Carlota of Belgium, as the emperor and empress of Mexico, Maximilian and Carlota brings the dramatic, interesting, and tragic time of this six-year-siege to life. From 1861 to 1866, the French incorporated the armies of Austria, Belgium—including forces from Crimea to Egypt—to fight and subdue the regime of Mexico’s Benito Juárez during the time of the U.S. Civil War. France viewed this as a chance to seize Mexican territory in a moment they were convinced the Confederacy would prevail and take over Mexico. With both sides distracted in the U.S., this was their opportunity to seize territory in North America. In 1867, with aid from the United States, this movement came to a disastrous end both for the royals and for France while ushering in a new era for Mexico. In a bid to oust Juárez, Mexican conservatives appealed to European leaders to select a monarch to run their country. Maximilian and Carlota’s reign, from 1864 to 1867, was marked from the start by extravagance and ambition and ended with the execution of Maximilian by firing squad, with Carlota on the brink of madness. This epoch moment in the arc of French colonial rule, which spans North American and European history at a critical juncture on both continents, shows how Napoleon III’s failure to save Maximilian disgusted Europeans and sealed his own fate. Maximilian and Carlota offers a vivid portrait of the unusual marriage of Maximilian and Carlota and of international high society and politics at this critical nineteenth-century juncture. This largely unknown era in the history of the Americas comes to life through this colorful telling of the couple’s tragic reign.
Download or read book Sisters in the Resistance written by Margaret Collins Weitz and published by John Wiley & Sons. This book was released on 1998-03-06 with total page 390 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Critical acclaim for Sisters in the Resistance "Often moving . . . always fascinating . . . women in the FrenchResistance is a key subject. Margaret Weitz has gathered personaltestimonies . . . and set them in an intelligible context thathelps us understand how all French people--men andwomen--experienced the Nazi occupation." --Robert Paxton, MellonProfessor of Social Sciences, Columbia University, and author ofVichy France: Old Guard and New Order, 1940-1944. "Compulsive reading . . . a valuable book which vividly portraysthe intricacies of resistance within France, written in an easy butserious style." --Times Literary Supplement (London). "An absolutely stunning and compelling chronicle of dauntlesscourage and unflagging patriotism." --Booklist. "[Margaret Collins Weitz's] well-researched, thoughtful study. . .has filled a gap in the history of World War II." --PublishersWeekly. "Balancing absorbing narrative and astute analysis, MargaretCollins Weitz has integrated the unsung achievements of women intothe history of the French Resistance." --Carole Fink, Professor ofHistory, The Ohio State University, and author of Marc Bloch: ALife in History. "Fifty years after the end of World War II, Sisters in theResistance renders homage to the courageous women of the FrenchResistance. It is high time for their contributions to be fullyacknowledged, and fortunate indeed that they have found such asympathetic, scholarly, and lucid chronicler in Margaret CollinsWeitz." --Marilyn Yalom, author of Blood Sisters: The FrenchRevolution in Women's Memory.
Download or read book Eug nie written by Desmond Seward and published by History PressLtd. This book was released on 2004 with total page 306 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Eugenie de Montijo was Empress of the French, sharing the Second Empire with her husband Napoleon III. She impressed the Prussian Chancellor Bismarck so much that he called her The only man in Paris.
Download or read book French Ways and their Meaning written by Edith Wharton and published by Lindhardt og Ringhof. This book was released on 2022-06-13 with total page 88 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: ‘French Ways and their Meaning’ is part guidebook and part tribute to Wharton’s beloved France. While living there during the First World War, Wharton decided to write a collection of essays about the French, to enlighten the English and American troops who were to find themselves stationed there. Often funny, and always perceptive, Wharton not only beautifully captures the cities and countryside but the spirit of the French. A superb read for Francophiles, Wharton fans, and those with an interest in 20th Century history. Edith Wharton (1862 – 1937) was an American designer and novelist. Born in an era when the highest ambition a woman could aspire to was a good marriage, Wharton went on to become one of America’s most celebrated authors. During her career, she wrote over 40 books, using her wealthy upbringing to bring authenticity and detail to stories about the upper classes. She moved to France in 1923, where she continued to write until her death.
