The Memoirs of Madame Roland


Book Description

On 1 June 1973 Madame Roland was arrested for her involvement in the French Revolution and on 8 November she went to the guillotine. During her 6 month imprisonment she wrote these memoirs. This is the first modern English translation. Approximately half of the pages concern the author's upbringing in a Parisian bourgeois family and her marriage to the bureaucrat Jean-Marie Roland de la Platiere; the remainder discusses the period from 1789 to 1793, when she and her husband were leaders of the Girondin party. Madame Roland was devoted to her spouse and always gave him full credit for work in which she was a full partner, including the inspection of manufacturers under the Old Regime and the post of minister of the interior during parts of 1792 and 1793. Her memoirs provide glimpses into the daily life of the period and sharp portraits of several revolutionary leaders. Scholars will wish to consult the complete French edition, but this book is perfect for general readers.







A Daughter of the Seine


Book Description

This is a fictionalized biography of the French Revolutionary patriot and writer Jeanne Manon Roland de la Platiere (1754-1793), who became known simply by Madame Roland. She was the daughter of a Paris engraver who encouraged his daughter's interest in music, painting, and literature. As a young girl, she told to her grand-mother: "I'll call myself daughter of the Seine," and as an adult she often said that the river was part of her soul. As a young woman she became interested in the radical ideas of Jean Jacques Rousseau and the movement for equality. She shared these enthusiasms with her husband, whom she married in 1780. After the outbreak of the Revolution, she formed a salon of followers, who late became known as the Girondists. Under the constitutional monarchy, her husband became minister of the interior, a post he held after the monarchy was overthrown. Madame Roland both directed her husband's career and influenced the important politicians of the period.(




Marriage and Revolution


Book Description

A double biography of Jean-Marie Roland and Marie-Jeanne Phlipon, later Madame Roland, leading figures in the French Revolution.







Blood Sisters


Book Description

The voices of the women who witnessed the French Revolution are finally restored to history. Yalom focuses on the most unforgettable chronicles: the governess of the royal children; the servant attending Marie-Antoinette in her last days; Robespierre's sister, Charlotte; and others bound together by a common nightmare.










The Days of the French Revolution


Book Description

Works from Les Misirables by Victor Hugo to Citizens by Simon Schama have been inspired by the French Revolution. Now available for the first time in years, The Days of the French Revolution brings to life the events that changed the future of Western civilization. As compelling as any fiction thriller, this real-life drama moves from the storming of the Bastille to the doomed court of Louis XVI, the salon of Madame Roland, and even the boudoir of Marie Antoinette. Hibbert recounts the events that swirled around Napoleon, Mirabeau, Danton, Marat, and Robespierre with eyewitness accounts and his "usual grace and flair for divulging interesting detail" (Booklist). This trade paperback edition has twenty-eight pages of black-and-white illustrations, and will be published in time for Bastille Day.