Paris Between Empires

Paris Between Empires

Author: Philip Mansel

Publisher: St. Martin's Press

Published: 2014-03-25

Total Pages: 832

ISBN-13: 146686690X

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Paris between 1814 and 1852 was the capital of Europe, a city of power and pleasure, a magnet for people of all nationalities that exerted an influence far beyond the reaches of France. Paris was the stage where the great conflicts of the age, between nationalism and cosmopolitanism, revolution and royalism, socialism and capitalism, atheism and Catholicism, were fought out before the audience of Europe. As Prince Metternich said: When Paris sneezes, Europe catches cold. Not since imperial Rome has one city so dominated European life. Paris Between Empires tells the story of this golden age, from the entry of the allies into Paris on March 31, 1814, after the defeat of Napoleon I, to the proclamation of his nephew Louis-Napoleon, as Napoleon III in the Hôtel de Ville on December 2, 1852. During those years, Paris, the seat of a new parliamentary government, was a truly cosmopolitan capital, home to Rossini, Heine, and Princess Lieven, as well as Berlioz, Chateaubriand, and Madame Recamier. Its salons were crowded with artisans and aristocrats from across Europe, attracted by the freedom from the political, social, and sexual restrictions that they endured at home. This was a time, too, of political turbulence and dynastic intrigue, of violence on the streets, and women manipulating men and events from their salons. In describing it Philip Mansel draws on the unpublished letters and diaries of some of the city's leading figures and of the foreigners who flocked there, among them Lady Holland, two British ambassadors, Lords Stuart de Rothesay and Normanby, and Charles de Flahaut, lover of Napoleon's step-daughter Queen Hortense. This fascinating book shows that the European ideal was as alive in the nineteenth century as it is today.


The Collected Letters of Joanna Baillie

The Collected Letters of Joanna Baillie

Author: Joanna Baillie

Publisher: Fairleigh Dickinson Univ Press

Published: 1999

Total Pages: 572

ISBN-13: 9780838638125

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These annotated letters present the first personal glimpse of this Scottish playwright as she wrote and lived. It documents her problems with publishers, describes her encounters with Wordsworth, Byron, Southey, Berry and other literary figures, outlines a long relationship with Scott and places an active literary woman in the historical and social setting of early to mid-nineteenth century Britain.


Reports

Reports

Author: Great Britain. Royal Commission on Historical Manuscripts

Publisher:

Published: 1884

Total Pages: 614

ISBN-13:

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Adam Smith

Adam Smith

Author: R. H. Campbell

Publisher: Routledge

Published: 2014-06-03

Total Pages: 215

ISBN-13: 1135175012

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This reissued biography of Adam Smith, first published in 1982, presents both an intellectual and personal portrait of the man. It is not intended as a full-scale scholarly biography burdened with heavy footnotes. Although written by two of the world's foremost authorities on Adam Smith, the book is intended as an accessible study of a great thinker and philosopher which will help to introduce the reader to both his ideas and his period.


The Criminal Conversation of Mrs. Norton

The Criminal Conversation of Mrs. Norton

Author: Diane Atkinson

Publisher: Chicago Review Press

Published: 2013-09-01

Total Pages: 501

ISBN-13: 1613748833

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Westminster, London, June 22, 1836. Crowds are gathering at the Court of Common Pleas. On trial is Caroline Sheridan Norton, a beautiful and clever young woman who had been maneuvered into marrying the Honorable George Norton when she was just nineteen. Ten years older, he is a dull, violent, and controlling lawyer, but Caroline is determined not to be a traditional wife. By her early twenties, Caroline has become a respected poet and songwriter, clever mimic, and outrageous flirt. Her beauty and wit attract many male admirers, including the Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne. After years of simmering jealousy, George Norton accuses Caroline and the Prime Minister of “criminal conversation” (adultery) precipitating Victorian England's “scandal of the century.” In Westminster Hall that day is a young Charles Dickens, who would, just a few months later, fictionalize events as Bardell v. Pickwick in The Pickwick Papers. After a trial lasting twelve hours, the jury's not guilty verdict is immediate, unanimous, and sensational. George is a laughingstock. Angry and humiliated he cuts Caroline off, as was his right under the law, refuses to let her see their three sons, seizes her manuscripts and letters, her clothes and jewels, and leaves her destitute. Knowing she can not change her brutish husband's mind, Caroline resolves to change the law. Steeped in archival research that draws on more than 1,500 of Caroline's personal letters, The Criminal Conversation of Mrs. Norton is the extraordinary story of one woman's fight for the rights of women everywhere. For the next thirty years Caroline campaigned for women and battled male-dominated Victorian society, helping to write the Infant Custody Act (1839), and influenced the Matrimonial Causes (Divorce) Act (1857) and the Married Women's Property Act (1870), which gave women a separate legal identity for the first time.