Benedetta Craveri Books

"The Last Libertines, as Benedetta Craveri writes in her preface to the book, "tells the story of a group of young aristocrats living in the last days of the French monarchy, when it was still possible for the members of the elite to reconcile a way of life based on status and privilege with a belief, born of the Enlightenment, in the necessity for social transformation and the new ideals of justice, tolerance, and civility." Here we meet seven emblematic characters, whom Craveri has singled out not only for the "novelistic quality of their lives and loves" but also, perhaps above all, for the fully conscious way in which they confronted the crisis of the ancien régime while looking ahead to a new world being born. Displaying the aristocratic virtues of "pride, courage, fashionable elegance, culture, spiritedness, and conviviality," the duc de Lauzun, the comte de Segur, the vicomte de Segur, the duc de Brissac, the comte de Narbonnes, the comte de Vaudreuil, and the chevalier de Boufflers were not only masters of the art of seduction but true sons of the Enlightenment, all ambitious to play their part in bringing around the great changes that were in the air. When the French Revolution came, however, they were condemned to poverty, exile, and in some cases execution. Telling the parallel lives of these seven dazzling but little-remembered historical figures, Craveri brings to light a vanished civilization and dramatizes a time of turmoil that may be said to anticipate our own"-- Provided by publisher

Now in paperback, an award-winning look at French salons and the women who presided over them In the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, between the reign of Louis XIII and the Revolution, French aristocratic society developed an art of living based on a refined code of good manners. Conversation, which began as a way of passing time, eventually became the central ritual of social life. In the salons, freed from the rigidity of court life, it was women who dictated the rules and presided over exchanges among socialites, writers, theologians, and statesmen. They contributed decisively to the development of the modern French language, new literary forms, and debates over philosophical and scientific ideas. With a cast of characters both famous and unknown, ranging from the Marquise de Rambouillet to Madame de Sta‘l, and including figures like Ninon de Lenclos, the Marquise de Sevigne, and Madame de Lafayette, as well as Pascal, La Rochefoucauld, Diderot, and Voltaire, Benedetta Craveri traces the history of this worldly society that carried the art of sociability to its supreme perfection–and ultimately helped bring on the Revolution that swept it all away.

Warum die Franzosen sich 1789 nicht länger von Aristokraten, Betbrüdern und königlichen Häuptern regieren lassen wollten, wird verstehen, wer dieses kleine Buch liest. Es erzählt von einem Skandal, in dem es 1785 nicht um hinterzogene Steuern oder falsche Kunstwerke ging, sondern um sündhaft teuren Schmuck. Ähnlichkeiten mit unseren Zeiten sind unübersehbar. Hier heißen die Akteure nur anders. Es treten auf: eine sozialgeschädigte Aufsteigerin, ein luxusvernarrter Kirchenfürst und eine shoppingverrückte Königin. In den Nebenrollen: vertrottelte Aristokraten, ein impotenter König, Bankrotteure am Rande des Nervenzusammenbruchs - und das Volk, das das alles mäßig lustig fand. Und so weht denn auch eine Ahnung von Blutdurst durch diese schlimme Geschichte.

To, że kobiety wpływały na losy świata, wiadomo od dawna. Czy jednak wiemy, jakich chwytały się sposobów w niebezpiecznej grze o władzę? Jaką cenę musiały zapłacić, by historia przechowała ich imiona?