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La Duchesse : the life of Marie de Vignerot : Cardinal Richelieu's forgotten heiress who shaped the fate of France / Bronwen McShea.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: New York : Pegasus Books, 2023Copyright date: ©2023Edition: First Pegasus books cloth editionDescription: xiv, 466 pages, 24 unnumbered pages of plates : illustrations (some color), maps ; 24 cmContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 9781639363476
  • 1639363475
Other title:
  • Duchesse
  • Life of Marie de Vignerot
Subject(s): Genre/Form:
Contents:
Prologue -- Princesse Nièce. A long journey ; Glénay ; Richelieu ; Uncle Armand's fortunes ; A political marriage ; Paris ; Antoine ; Carmel de l'Incarnation ; The young cardinal's ward ; Serving Marie de' Medici ; A pivotal year ; The blue room ; Uncle Armand's triumph ; The cardinal-minister's reluctant aide ; The coup d'état ; An abduction plot ; "Demi-vierge" ; A budding friendship ; A new kind of literary patroness ; Falling in love ; La valette ; Chosen ; The investiture ; Heartbreak ; A new relationship ; Across the Atlantic ; Childlessness ; Political storms ; Uncle Armand's death ; The will ; Burying the prime minister -- Pair de France. Uncle Armand's papers ; Rueil ; Patroness of a saint ; Tunis and Algiers ; Reforming the clergy ; Saint-Sulpice ; Inheritance disputes ; A wedding ; Civil war ; A tenuous peace ; The Duc de Richelieu's rebellion ; Cardinal Mazarin's "most dangerous enemy" ; The sun king rising ; Governor of Le Havre ; The petit Luxembourg ; A jesuit visitor ; Negotiating with the pope ; Saint Vincent ; Missions for France ; Madagascar ; Ventures in the near east ; "Précieuse ridicule" ; Uncle Armand's legacy ; Family tragedies ; Breast cancer ; Carmel once more ; A forgotten "femme forte" -- Author's afterword.
Summary: "A rich portrait of a compelling, complex woman who emerged from a sheltered rural childhood into the fraught, often deadly world of the French royal court and Parisian high society--and who would come to rule them both"-- Provided by publisherSummary: Marie de Vignerot was intended to lead an ordinary aristocratic life, produce heirs, and quietly assist the men in her family rise to prominence. Instead she was married off at sixteen to a military officer she barely knew, became a widow at eighteen, and rose to become the indispensable and highly visible right-hand of the most powerful figure in French politics: the ruthless Cardinal Richelieu. As the Cardinal lay dying, he broke with tradition and entrusted her, above his male heirs, with his vast fortune. McShea shows how Marie would go on to shape her country's political, religious, and cultural life. As the unconventional and independent Duchesse d'Aiguillon, her life reverberated across Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas-- yet she was all but forgotten in modern times. -- adapted from jacket
Holdings
Item type Home library Collection Call number Materials specified Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Adult Book Adult Book Main Library Biography Aiguillo M. M175 Available 33111011258189
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

A rich portrait of a compelling, complex woman who emerged from a sheltered rural childhood into the fraught, often deadly world of the French royal court and Parisian high society--and who would come to rule them both.

Married off at sixteen to a military officer she barely knew, Marie de Vignerot was intended to lead an ordinary aristocratic life, produce heirs, and quietly assist the men in her family rise to prominence. Instead, she became a widow at eighteen and rose to become the indispensable and highly visible right-hand of the most powerful figure in French politics--the ruthless Cardinal Richelieu.

Richelieu was her uncle and, as he lay dying, the Cardinal broke with tradition and entrusted her, above his male heirs, with his vast fortune. She would go on to shape her country's political, religious, and cultural life as the unconventional and independent Duchesse d'Aiguillon in ways that reverberated across Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas.

Marie de Vignerot was respected, beloved, and feared by churchmen, statesmen, financiers, writers, artists, and even future canonized saints. Many would owe their careers and eventual historical legacies to her patronage and her enterprising labor and vision. Pope Alexander VII and even the Sun King, Louis XIV, would defer to her. She was one of the most intelligent, accomplished, and occasionally ruthless French leaders of the seventeenth century. Yet, as all too often happens to great women in history, she was all but forgotten by modern times.

La Duchesse is the first fully researched modern biography of Vignerot, putting her onto center stage in the histories of France and the globalizing Catholic Church where she belongs. In these pages, we see Marie navigate scandalous accusations and intrigue to creatively and tenaciously champion the people and causes she cared about. We also see her engage with fascinating personalities such as Queen Marie de Médici and influence French imperial ambitions and the Fronde Civil War. Filled with adventure and daring, art and politics, La Duchesse establishes Vignerot as a figure without whom France's storied Golden Age cannot be fully understood.

Prologue -- Princesse Nièce. A long journey ; Glénay ; Richelieu ; Uncle Armand's fortunes ; A political marriage ; Paris ; Antoine ; Carmel de l'Incarnation ; The young cardinal's ward ; Serving Marie de' Medici ; A pivotal year ; The blue room ; Uncle Armand's triumph ; The cardinal-minister's reluctant aide ; The coup d'état ; An abduction plot ; "Demi-vierge" ; A budding friendship ; A new kind of literary patroness ; Falling in love ; La valette ; Chosen ; The investiture ; Heartbreak ; A new relationship ; Across the Atlantic ; Childlessness ; Political storms ; Uncle Armand's death ; The will ; Burying the prime minister -- Pair de France. Uncle Armand's papers ; Rueil ; Patroness of a saint ; Tunis and Algiers ; Reforming the clergy ; Saint-Sulpice ; Inheritance disputes ; A wedding ; Civil war ; A tenuous peace ; The Duc de Richelieu's rebellion ; Cardinal Mazarin's "most dangerous enemy" ; The sun king rising ; Governor of Le Havre ; The petit Luxembourg ; A jesuit visitor ; Negotiating with the pope ; Saint Vincent ; Missions for France ; Madagascar ; Ventures in the near east ; "Précieuse ridicule" ; Uncle Armand's legacy ; Family tragedies ; Breast cancer ; Carmel once more ; A forgotten "femme forte" -- Author's afterword.

"A rich portrait of a compelling, complex woman who emerged from a sheltered rural childhood into the fraught, often deadly world of the French royal court and Parisian high society--and who would come to rule them both"-- Provided by publisher

Includes bibliographical references (pages 397-449) and index.

Marie de Vignerot was intended to lead an ordinary aristocratic life, produce heirs, and quietly assist the men in her family rise to prominence. Instead she was married off at sixteen to a military officer she barely knew, became a widow at eighteen, and rose to become the indispensable and highly visible right-hand of the most powerful figure in French politics: the ruthless Cardinal Richelieu. As the Cardinal lay dying, he broke with tradition and entrusted her, above his male heirs, with his vast fortune. McShea shows how Marie would go on to shape her country's political, religious, and cultural life. As the unconventional and independent Duchesse d'Aiguillon, her life reverberated across Europe, Africa, Asia, and the Americas-- yet she was all but forgotten in modern times. -- adapted from jacket

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