Liberty

The Lives and Times of Six Women in Revolutionary France

By: Lucy Moore

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Paperback | 2 July 2007

At a Glance

Paperback
352 Pages

Dimensions(cm)
20.4 x 12.7 x 3.6

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The bestselling author of 'Maharanis' recreates the lives of six remarkable women who, in a time of violent revolution, leapt at the chance to exercise their considerable charm, intelligence and acumen, and make their mark on history.

Germaine de Stael was an intellectual and an aristocrat, equally obsessed by politics and love affairs, who is said to have helped write the 1791 Constitution. Her fellow salonniere, Mme Roland, was a bourgeois housewife who became a fervent and influential revolutionary, until Robespierre's regime sent her to the guillotine.

While female intellectuals sipped wine in their salons, their working class counterparts patrolled the streets of Paris with pistols in their belts. Theroigne de Mericourt was an ill-treated mistress when she fell in love with revolutionary ideals and became an ardent anti-royalist until a mob beating by 'sans-culottes' ended her activism. The mob in question was made up of members of the Society of Revolutionary Republican Women, whose founder, Pauline Leon, agitated for women's rights.

After the sans-culottes came the 'sans-chemises' - the glamorous (often skimpily clad) merveilleuses. Decadent Theresia Tallien combined sexual license with the secular amorality of the new Republic and reportedly helped engineer Robespierre's downfall. Her only rival for beauty was Juliette Recamier, whose elegance made her salons the most sought-after in Paris. When she refused Napoleon's advances she was exiled from the city until his fall.

Writing with vigour and passion, Lucy Moore reanimates these witty salonnieres, fervent citoyennes and glittering merveilleuses to illuminate the brief, hopeful period in which the Revolution seemed to offer them the freedom they craved - and the ways in which it failed.

Industry Reviews

'This book is excellent!Moore seems to have that rare gift of making a work both scholarly and yet as readable as a thriller.' Julian Fellowes 'A fascinating spectrum of female experience inside the Revolution and among the ruins it left behind! "Liberty" is extremely elegant and thought provoking!In mapping these six varied and overlapping lives, Moore vividly reminds us of the immense struggle there has been to establish political rights for women.' Daily Telegraph 'Lively, well-researched!it is no small task to bring together six such different lives against a historical background of rapid and complicated change but Lucy Moore has done it with skill and brio.' Sunday Telegraph 'Lively narrative full of pungent details!serious but entertaining.' Independent on Sunday 'Moore!catches the feeling of the turbulent times excellently!and never allows us to forget, as academic historians too often do, that people in the past were not abstractions, but men and women of flesh and blood, passions, enthusiasms, hopes, and fears.' Allan Massie, Literary Review 'Fascinating!It's the abundance of!details, and the verve with which she presents them, that makes Moore's story so enjoyable.' Sam Leith, Spectator 'This vivid, gripping book follows the fortunes of six women through one of history's most exciting -- and dangerous -- times.' Scotsman '!A marvellous book, which I would recommend to both the expert and the novice.' Julian Fellowes More praise for 'Maharanis': 'Engrossing, absorbingly intelligent and thoughtful.' Miranda Seymour, Sunday Times 'Erudite, poignant and compelling. With this exotic and flamboyant story Lucy Moore brings India to life in a way rarely achieved by English historians.' Simon Sebag Montefiore

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