“The Six Wives of Henry VIII”, by Alison Weir

643 pages, Grove Press, ISBN-13: 978-0802114976

The Queen; The Lover; The Mother; The Outcast; The Victim; The Survivor: these are six wives of Henry VIII, and historian and Tudor expert Alison Weir brings to life these six remarkable women in her book titled The Six Wives of Henry VIII. Now, if you have read enough books and you’ve watched enough documentaries and seen enough titillating soap operas about the Tudors, you may think you know it all about this brood – but you would be wrong. Alison Weir’s genius is fully at work in this book as she brings to life these six women in a way we have never experienced them before. Rather than telling the stories we already know, she wants us to focus more on these women’s personalities, feelings and thoughts: the way they were brought up, how they lived their lives and how they died, their sufferings and accomplishments. She wants us to re-live all we know from these women’s point of view.

The book is divided into three main chapters. In the first, the reader is introduced to the “Princess from Spain”, Catherine of Aragon: her arrival to England, her marriage to Prince Arthur and his subsequent death, her betrothal to Arthur’s younger brother, Henry, and their marriage. The second chapter is dedicated to Anne Boleyn and The King’s ‘great matter‘, followed by her execution and Henry’s marriage to Jane Seymour. The final chapter acquaints us with Catherine Howard, Anne of Cleves and Catherine Paar. This book contains many interesting stories; for example, we know that when Catherine of Aragon died she was buried with all the honors due to a Dowager Princess of Wales rather than to a Queen of England (and did you know that it was Queen Mary, consort to George V, who arranged for banners to be hung and the gold lettering ‘Katharine Queen of England’ above her grave?) Did you know that Catherine Paar had an ongoing conflict with The Duchess of Somerset over the Crown Jewels? Given the fact that Edward VI was a minor with no consort, Catherine Paar as Queen Dowager had the right to wear the jewels; yet, when she demanded that they be brought to her, The Duchess of Somerset refused to do so because she thought she had the right to wear them as the wife of the Lord Protector.

This book is well-researched and well-written, as is typical of Alison Weir. I can imagine that, as Tudor enthusiasts, we all have our favorite queen, yet when you read this book you cannot help but feel for each and every single one of them and you no longer wish to pick sides. I think this is what this brilliant author wanted to achieve by writing this book. Alison Weir doesn’t bore you, and she remains objective, as always, throughout the read.

“Selected Letters”, by Madame de Sévigné

320 pages, Penguin Classics, ISBN-13: 978-0140444056

One of the great defining moments of 17^th Century French literature was when Madame de Sévigné’s daughter left Paris with her new husband for a life in the provinces, thus launching one of the great correspondences in history. Always the doting mother, Madame de Sévigné – or, should I say, Marie de Rabutin-Chantal, marquise de Sévigné – was important enough to be close to the center of events during the reign of Louis XIV, and this status allowed her access to the inner circles of power in Paris and, thus, provide an invaluable record of the day’s events.

Although the letters of Madame de Sévigné can be regarded on one level as a series of letters to relatives and friends, they represent on another level essential documents and highly literate essays on a wide variety of subjects relating to 17^th Century France. A major source of debate among literary critics has been whether she should be considered as simply a letter writer or as an epistolary author: some view her work as purely private communication between individuals whereas others see the letters as one of the few means available to a woman at that time to express herself as a writer; thus, by writing to her daughter (they argue) she was able to create a certain kind of textual persona. Whichever way we may view her output, it is incontrovertible that the acuteness of her observation permeates all the letters. In this context, although she does not take up and pursue subjects in the comprehensive way many essayists do, there are three categories of observation to which her letters give rise: historical, literary, and social.

Of the historical letters, the most significant are the 14 letters written between November 1664 and January 1665 to Simon Arnauld, Marquis de Pomponne, on the trial of their mutual friend Nicolas Fouquet. Fouquet had been Minister of Finance under Cardinal Mazarin, but, after the latter’s death in 1661, Colbert (the future Minister of Commerce and Internal Affairs) collaborated with Louis XIV to arrest Fouquet on the charge of financial maladministration. Throughout the letters, Madame de Sévigné displays a broad knowledge of contemporary French literature, although her literary judgment does not always concur with that of posterity (as is shown in her unfavorable comments on some plays by Racine). Madame de Sévigné’s social observation is perhaps most particularly acute, as she is always keen to point out the absurdity of certain appearances and pretensions.

Madame de Sévigné has been widely praised, for both the seeming spontaneity and the extreme artfulness of her style. In many ways her writing can be compared to that of the theater: she creates vivid scenarios in which several characters play different roles, she herself operating as both spectator and actress. In the Fouquet letters, for example, she describes the actions and words of the leading participants as well as the response of the onlookers, including herself. But she can also be viewed as an essayist in her own right, as it was through her letters that she was able to discuss and comment upon the society in which she lived.

“The Unruly Passions of Eugénie R.”, by Carole DeSanti

432 pages, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, ISBN-13: 978-0547553092

France’s Second Empire (1860–1871) was an absinthe-soaked era during which real estate speculation and railway money created untold fortunes, while prostitution was a state-regulated enterprise that touched every stratum of society. It was also a time of sweeping social upheaval, culminating in a crushing Prussian defeat during the Franco-Prussian War that ended this Empire and that cut Paris off from its food supply.

Transporting us to this tumultuous time through the eyes of a beautiful, world-wise survivor, The Unruly Passions of Eugénie R. provides lush territory for anyone curious about this little-known and little-understood period in French History. This captivating debut novel by Carole DeSanti traces the transformation of Eugénie Rigault, a naïve 17-year-old girl, who follows her first love to Paris, only to find herself abandoned, pregnant, and penniless. Over the years, Eugénie develops into a fiercely determined, influential woman who never loses sight of the power of loyal friends and the art of self-creation. After she is forced to abandon her infant daughter, Eugénie spends the next decade fighting to get her back, making a meager living in the treacherous waters of sexual commerce. Along the way she falls in love with an artist, a woman, and a revolutionary (pretty much in that order). Paris, the gleaming center of art and civilization in Europe, is enjoying its final years of prosperity before galloping headlong into the Franco-Prussian War, and for Eugénie it is an addictive landscape, even as her fortunes ebb and flow. But as the gates of the city close against the advancing army, Eugénie must confront a bitter discovery about the man who set her fate in motion all those years ago.

This book is written the way historical novels should be written: carefully-researched, well-constructed, deeply-felt, and so detailed it feels as though you have been dropped inside the body of Eugénie R. Certainly, there are flaws with the book – DeSanti is easy on the political radicals who fought for the French Commune during the 1871 civil war; they weren’t quite as nice as she portrays them and she tends to take their side each time they appear in the novel, whereas I don’t believe they were always on the side of the angels; and even though I am moderately well-acquainted with the history of the era and DeSanti carefully fills in historical details so all readers can keep up, I had to look up names and events in two chapters to get a better sense of what exactly was going on – but even the sun has it’s spots.

During one of Eugénie’s – that is, DeSanti’s – self-referential meditations upon telling this story, she asks: “Does the story, in the way it is told, open a window into the soul’s fortress or place yet another stone to block the view?” Regarding this story, it seems impossible to definitively say yea or nay, but it is a sad, poignant, well-researched novel, apparently ten years in the making, which does open a window and let in the light and air of an epoch and the plight of the women therein which has been all-too neglected.