A Woman's Life in the Court of the Sun King: Letters of Liselotte von der Pfalz, Elisabeth Charlotte, Duchesse d' Orléans, 1652-1722

Elisabeth Charlotte, Duchesse d'Orleans; Liselotte von der Pfalz

ISBN 10: 0801831598 / ISBN 13: 9780801831591

Published by The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1984

About this Item

Hardcover and dust jacket. Good binding and cover. Clean, unmarked pages.

Seller Inventory # 2412190048

Bibliographic Details

• Title: A Woman's Life in the Court of the Sun King: Letters of Liselotte von der Pfalz, Elisabeth Charlotte, Duchesse d' Orléans, 1652-1722
• Publisher: The Johns Hopkins University Press
• Publication Date: 1984
• Language: German
• ISBN 10: 0801831598
• ISBN 13: 9780801831591
• Binding: hardcover
• Condition: As New
• Weight: 23 ounces
• Seller catalogs:
  • French History and Language

About this title

Synopsis

On 16 November 1671, Liselotte von der Pfalz, the nineteen-year-old daughter of the Elector of Palatine, was married to Philippe d'Orléans, "Monsieur," the only brother of Louis XIV. The marriage was not to be a happy one. Liselotte (known in France as Elisabeth Charlotte, Duchesse d'Orléans, or "Madame") was full of intellectual energy and moral rigor. Homesick for her native Germany, she felt temperamentally ill-suited to life at the French court. The homosexual Monsieur, deeply immersed in the pleasures and intrigues of the court, shared few of his wife's interests. Yet, for the next fifty years, Liselotte remained in France, never far from the center of one of the most glorious courts of Europe. And throughout this period, she wrote letters -- sometimes as many as forty week -- to her friends and relatives in Germany. It is from this extraordinary body of correspondence that A Woman's Life in the Court of the Sun King has been fashioned. As introduced and translated by Elborg Forster, the letters have become the remarkable personal narrative of Liselotte's transformation from an innocent, yet outspoken, girl into a formidable observer of great events and human folly.

About the Author

Elborg Forster has translated numerous historical studies from French and German, including Selections from the Annales, also available from Johns Hopkins.