The book that a century ago delighted one of its first readers, Marcel Proust, is finally, after 94 years, available to readers in a new English-language translation, the first to be widely available in the United States. This new two-volume edition is a spellbinding account of life during one of the most agitated and exciting period in French history.
Born Adèle d'Osmond in 1781, the daughter of a lady-in-waiting in Louis XVI's court, Madame de Boigne was raised in the intimacy of the King and his royal family. She was also a sharp-eyed, opinionated witness to a tumultuous world--both public and private. Volume 1 of her memoirs begins in the 1780s with her childhood at Versailles, continuing through her family's travels to Italy and England and their subsequent returns to France. We join her when she and her family follow her father to Italy for an ambassadorship in Turin; when Napoleon arrives in Paris; and when, in 1816, her father is appointed ambassador to London. Volume 2 of this gripping chronicle begins with Madame de Boigne's arrival in England in 1816 and continues through the last years of Louis XVIII's reign and the Revolution of 1830. Though her diaries end there, the countess went on to live until 1866.
Her intimately thorough and intelligent diaries include both court gossip and well-informed commentary on the ever shifting loyalties of those who surrounded her during these decades of upheaval. In firsthand observations that are immensely readable, knowledgeable, and enjoyable, Madame de Boigne reveals a woman--and a chapter in history--never to be forgotten. Revised and edited by Anka Muhlstein, this two-volume edition of Memoirs of the Comtesse de Boigne is only the second edition to be published in English and the first to be widely available in the United States.

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