Volume 50, Number 15 · October 9, 2003
What Adèle Knew
By P.N. Furbank
Memoirs of the Comtesse de Boigne
edited and with an introduction by Anka Muhlstein, and an afterword by Olivier Bernier
Helen Marx Books, two volumes:
Volume I, 1781–1815 257 pp., $14.50 (paper)
Volume II, 1861–1830 228 pp., $14.50 (paper)
Between 1907 and 1908 the French publisher Plon brought out, under the title Récits d'une tante (Tales of an Aunt), the four volumes of the Memoirs of Adèle, Comtesse de Boigne; and a very remarkable book it is, with a remarkable subject. The comtesse, née Osmond, was born in 1781, the daughter of the Marquis d'Osmond, a descendant of an ancient Norman family, and of Eléonore Dillon, offspring of an influential Irish clan with Jacobite connections.[1] One of Adèle's great-uncles had been a popular figure in the Palais Royal circle,[2] and through this connection and with the help of other Dillon relatives her mother secured the post of lady-in-waiting to Madame Adélaïde (1732–1800), one of Louis XV's daughters.
Review, 3547 words
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