Nine Women - Drawn From The Epoch Of The French Revolution Drawn from the Epoch of the French Revolution

NINE WOMEN DRAWN FROM THE EPOCH OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 0.5, by H-ALINA SOKOLNIKOVA Serebriakova TRANSLATED BY H. C. STEVENS WITH AN INTRODUCTION BY MRS, SIDNEY WEBB NEW YORK JONATHAN CAPE HARRISON SMITH LONDON - JONATHAN CAPE - TORONTO THEROIGNE DE MERICGURT In the Musee Carnavalct FIRST PUBLISHED 1932 PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN CONTENTS PREFACE 7 I THEROIGNE DE MERICOURT 1 5 II CHARLOTTE CORDAY-35 III MANON ROLAND 67 IV MADAME DU BARRY - 13 V CLAIRE LACOMBE 145 VI LUCILE DESMOULINS 193 VII ELISABETH LEBAS 223 VIII MADAME TALLIEN 243 IX JOSEPHINE BONAPARTE-269 ILLUSTRATIONS THEROIGNE DE MERICOURT Frontispiece CHARLOTTE CORDAY facing f age 36 MANON ROLAND, MADAME DU BARRY 5 5 amp gt J 3 2 MADAME TALLIEN JOSEPHINE BONAPARTE amp gt 2 7 PREFACE WAS it not Renan who said that within a generation or two, the whole of the history of past centuries would have been written definitely, once for all, leaving nothing more to be done by any historical student He forgot that the subject matter of history resembles a mountain range which, even if it remains unaltered, assumes innumerable different contours and colours, and presents an endless variety of peaks and crevices according to the standpoint from which it is viewed and even the time of day at which it is pictured. Thus the past of human society will never cease to be the subject of curiosity and repeated historical analysis. It follows that there is not, and can never be, a history book without a bias that is a point of view upon which the selection of facts depends. When we feel that a history is impartial, this means merely that its unconscious bias happens to be our own 1 The series of vivid pictures of personalities in the FrenchRevolution which Madame Sokolnikova the wife of the Soviet Ambassador in London has now published in English is written frankly from the standpoint of one who has lived through another revolution and one even more drastically subversive than that of 1789-95. The author has had a whole decade of experience as a writer including service as correspondent in China and Turkestan of a Moscow 7 PREFACE journal life as journalist and student in Paris and the publication of several volumes of travels and short stories which have gone through successive editions in Russian and have appeared also in French and German. Through her husband, sometime Professor of Public Finance at the Moscow University Madame Sokolnikova has added to her experience of the literary life a varied acquaintance with the academic as well as the political world of mofe than one country. I welcome this first translation of her work into English, as revealing, not merely a distinguished intelligence, but also a new and significant judgment of incidents in the French Revolution from the standpoint of Russian Communist doctrine. For the title of the book must not obscure the fact that what is here described is more than the life-history of nine French women of historical prominence. In the vivid accounts of their ancestry, their family connections, their changing environment and the men with whom their lives were intertwined, we are given a vision a vision from a particular angle of a large part of the social and economic circumstances of eighteenth century France. Very naturally, the vision places various historical heroines in an unaccustomed light Madame Roland, for instance, as the essence of the haute bourgeoisie is notportrayed as favourably as Claire Lacombe, who voiced the economic aspirations of the proletariat. The dominant note of this series of biographical studies, as sounded by the accomplished authoress, is, as it seems to me, one of frustration frustration not PREFACE merely of the individual strivings of the imperfect mortals whose doings are described four of these women were executed, another died in a mad-house, but also of the hopes and wishes, and of the very purpose embodied in the Revolution in which they were taking part...