This book examines public discussions around France's four most prominent royal women during the first and second Restoration and July Monarchy: the duchesse d'Angoulême, the duchesse de Berry, Queen of the French Marie-Amélie, and Adélaïde d'Orléans. These were the most powerful women of the last decades of the French monarchy, but the new roles women were assigned in post-revolutionary France did not permit them to openly exercise political influence. This book explores continuities and variations in narratives of royal legitimacy, and how historians, authors, and politicians used national history - particularly medieval and early modern history - to either legitimize or undermine the French monarchy, and to define women's social and political roles.

Explores public discussions around the four most prominent royal women in early nineteenth-century France Examines the use of historical precedents to (re)define the accepted role of royal women Provides a contextualized view of queenship during the first and second Restoration and the July Monarchy

Autorentext

Heta Aali is a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Turku, Finland, and has published widely on French cultural history, nineteenth-century historiography, and medievalism.

Klappentext

This book examines public discussions around France's four most prominent royal women during the first and second Restoration and July Monarchy: the duchesse d Angoulême, the duchesse de Berry, Queen of the French Marie-Amélie, and Adélaïde d Orléans. These were the most powerful women of the last decades of the French monarchy, but the new roles women were assigned in post-revolutionary France did not permit them to openly exercise political influence. This book explores continuities and variations in narratives of royal legitimacy, and how historians, authors, and politicians used national history - particularly medieval and early modern history - to either legitimize or undermine the French monarchy, and to define women's social and political roles.

Inhalt

1. Introduction.- 2.The Decade the Monarchy was Restored.- 3. The Duchess of Berry and the 1820s.- 4. The First Decade of the July Monarchy.- 5. Last Decade of the July Monarchy.- 6. Conclusion.