Elizabeth Buchan five-book collection (eBook)

Elizabeth Buchan (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2023 | 1. Auflage
2000 Seiten
Corvus (Verlag)
978-1-83895-653-0 (ISBN)

Infos

Daughters of the Storm Paris, 1789. As the shadow of the guillotine falls over a nation at war with itself, three very different women find themselves caught up in the storm of revolution... A sweeping tale of freedom and betrayal, love and death, set in revolutionary France. Light of the Moon In wartime France, an English SOE and a German Abwehr officer fall in love - with consequences neither could have foreseen. When the battle lines shift, and patriotism gives way to deeper truths, they will both face the gravest of challenges. Consider the Lily A haunting, passionate story played out between three people, Consider the Lily is also a poignant and beautiful novel of England between the wars that propels the reader into its own rich and nostalgic world. Winner of the 1994 Romantic Novelists' Association Novel of the Year Award. Perfect Love After twenty years of marriage, a woman is precipitated into a secret life, and finds herself crossing the boundary between innocence and knowledge, exploring the line between the gluttony and surrender of desire and facing the stark realities that result. A compassionate portrait of a modern marriage. Against Her Nature Two women move through the opportunists, the short-termists, the sharks, the bullies and the very, very rich to face many choices, not least the one presented by biology: children. Life is a risk, however much we try to protect ourselves. A modern-day take on Vanity Fair.

Elizabeth Buchan was a fiction editor at Random House before leaving to write full time. Her novels include the prize-winning Consider the Lily, international bestseller Revenge of the Middle-Aged Woman, The New Mrs Clifton and The Museum of BrokenPromises. Buchan's short stories are broadcast on BBC Radio 4 and published in magazines. She has reviewed for the Sunday Times, The Times and the Daily Mail, and has chaired the Betty Trask and Desmond Elliot literary prizes. She was a judge for the Whitbread First Novel Award and for the 2014 Costa Novel Award. She is a patron of the Guildford Book Festival and co-founder of the Clapham Book Festival. elizabethbuchan.com

Textauszug

PART TWO

THE TOCSIN SOUNDS
JANUARY–SEPTEMBER 1792

FRANCE

October 1789–January 1792

THE SPECTACLE OF THE BOURBONS VIRTUALLY imprisoned by their own people sent shockwaves through Europe’s corridors of power. Where would it end? Which sovereign would be next? Nevertheless, none of the watchers was going to risk going to war to help the tottering French monarchy, except perhaps Sweden, and she was too bankrupt to do more than issue promises. Instead, an army of secret agents were sent by their governments into battle, slipping through the treacherous shallows that lapped the infant revolution and fanning out into the streets, towns and cities where they listened and waited. For what? No one was quite sure.

A trickle, then a stream, of carriages, bearing aristocratic families who were abandoning their estates and incomes, headed towards Mainz and Koblenz. They preferred the dullness of exile to the dangers of a France where the social order was under attack. In the Tuileries Palace the king struggled to retain what shreds of authority remained to him and to work with the National Assembly, while his family settled down to recreate Versailles court life in the musty old palace. Curious to see their sovereigns, the Parisians peered in through the windows and concluded that they were nothing much to look at after all. The king was fat and the queen, whose hair was streaked with grey, had lost much of her beauty.

The National Assembly had followed the king to Paris and was ensconced in the old riding school close to the palace. The more conservative monarchists and constitutionalists sat to the right of the president’s rostrum. The more radical and republican members sat to the left. There was fierce rivalry for the leadership of this ‘left’ party which was composed of many liberal nobles as well as bourgeoise and it was represented by many of the finest minds in France. Encouraged by the good harvest that had finally been garnered, these self-styled ‘patriots’ set about pushing through their ideas for a France which was both free and equal.

The National Assembly now declared that the king ruled no longer by divine right but merely through the rule of law. It introduced a new constitution for the clergy which aimed to sever the historical ties that bound them to Rome and placed the clergy under the necessity of taking an oath in order to confirm their patriotism. Many of the clergy refused to take the constitutional oath and this increased their unpopularity.

The ‘federation’ movement grew stronger. ‘We shall be free together,’ went up the cry, and the provincial authorities, anxious to make their feelings known, urged the king to let their fédérés come to Paris. The king, suspicious of any such spontaneous representation, was persuaded, however, to allow fédérés from provincial National Guards to attend a ceremony of federation in the capital. On July 14th, 1790, the anniversary of the fall of the Bastille, the whole of Paris turned out to celebrate the new France, and monarchists were reassured by the Parisians’ enthusiastic reception of the king.

The underlying truth was stark. The king and queen were virtually impotent; they were surrounded by the wrong advisers; and the Revolution was launched on a course that no one could stop. Day by day, republican feeling grew. ‘It is easier,’ mourned Mirabeau, who had cause to regret his earlier support for reform, ‘to light the flames than to try to stamp them out.’ Not even his powerful charisma could prevent the rising storm.

At Easter, 1791, the king and queen were prevented from leaving Paris for a holiday at St Cloud.

In June, a large yellow berline, outfitted in white Utrecht velvet and taffeta cushions, set off from Paris in the dead of night and lumbered its way towards the frontier, stopping frequently to let its occupants stretch their legs. At Varennes it was halted, and inside was discovered the royal family. In a sweltering heatwave, the berline crawled back to Paris and drew up in front of the brilliantly lit Tuileries. Out of it stepped the dusty, dishevelled and pathetic royal prisoners, never to leave Paris again.

In August, a document, signed by the King of Prussia and the Emperor of Austria, called on fellow monarchs to come to the Bourbons’ aid. It achieved nothing and by September the king felt he had no option but to accept the new constitution which had been debated by the Assembly.

In November, a newly elected Assembly, almost totally purged of its former aristocratic members, decreed that all émigrés suspected of conspiring against France should return home. Safe in their headquarters outside France, the king’s brothers, the dukes of Artois and Provence, continued to provide a focus for the royalist forces that had begun to mass on the borders.

As the year went by, life continued as normal for the poorer elements. The city had been divided into forty-eight sections, each of which elected three members to the Hôtel de Ville. Each section dealt with poor relief, and maintained a company of the National Guard which mounted guard at the section headquarters and at the barrière. The sections also organized a committee to search for saltpetre, badly needed for the manufacture of gunpowder. Markets hummed, the price of bread fluctuated and the journeymen, craftsmen and workers confined within Paris’s walls struggled, as always, to make ends meet. But in the houses and salons of the rich and fashionable, in the cafés and theatres, in literary gatherings and political clubs, the political debates raged. ‘We are all amusing ourselves,’ wrote one observer. It became de rigueur for the fashionable to wear Constitution jewellery and Liberty caps decorated with blood-red ribbons.

Some of the fiercest radicals who had gone to ground to avoid persecution by the still moderately inclined authorities – Marat, for example, who had hidden in the city’s sewers – scenting that the tide was turning, began to emerge. On the Left Bank a series of small presses stirred into life and their pamphlets began to flood the city. Meanwhile, the Revolution presented a perfect opportunity for extremists and fanatics to exploit. These men were moving through the streets, constantly on the watch, constantly debating, nourishing their resentments and waiting.

CHAPTER ONE

Pierre, January 1792

PIERRE WHISTLED TO CHEER HIMSELF UP. IT WAS COLD, his horse was slow and his head hurt from the previous night. The tune was infectious and suddenly he grinned, feeling better. Last night had been worth it, and the girl he had finally lain with had been, unlike many he had known, fresh and wholesome. He had paid her with a lapful of walnuts and a bottle of good oil, knowing that nobody would enquire too closely where they had come from.

His horse lengthened its stride. He would be in Paris within a few minutes and back at the Hôtel de Choissy within the hour, where the cook would give him a meal. Pierre made some calculations. He would be the richer by a sack of good white flour and a large ham which were his fee for working as a carrier to and from the de Choissy farm just outside Étampes. Plus the bread and oil that he had quietly helped himself to from the stores. He planned to smuggle them through the barrière without paying the dues and to sell them to his good friend in the Rue de la Harpe.

Evading the toll was a game that Pierre often played. Once he had even hidden a sack of beans in a hole in the wall when the guard wasn’t looking and had retrieved it later. There was no lack of willing hands to help with the smuggling. No one liked the levies, the women in particular – and women’s skirts had their uses quite apart from the pleasure of lifting them.

At the big gates, the guard challenged him. Pierre ground to a halt and began his negotiations. The guard was talkative and friendly. Pierre exerted himself to amuse him with local news and anecdotes and the man quite forgot to look under the driver’s seat or into the ‘empty’ barrel at the back of the cart. They discussed the unsuccessful flight of the king from Paris the previous summer, a juicy titbit about the queen and the price of bread. Pierre handed over some money, cracked a joke and rolled off in the direction of the Rue de l’Université.

If he played his cards right, he would soon have enough money to buy a cart and two horses. After that he would begin his own business. After that he would rent his own house. And after that? Who knew? He was alone in the world, committed to no one, free with his favours and determined to make his way.

Meanwhile there were plenty of girls to amuse him and plenty of contacts to cultivate. There were the meetings he had begun to attend with his friends, ostensibly to discuss politics, but also to drink and to enjoy themselves with the women.

Yes, life was pleasant if you knew how to organize it.

CHAPTER TWO

Marie-Victoire, February 1792

SHE PICKED HER WAY DOWN THE STREET, DUCKING every now and again to avoid the carriages which bore down on pedestrians with absolutely no regard for life or limb. As she bunched her skirts tightly around her to avoid the inevitable lashing of mud, Marie-Victoire reflected that she would never get used to the dirt and the danger of Parisian streets.

The quiet lanes around La Joyeuse...

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 3.8.2023
• Verlagsort: London
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Literatur ► Romane / Erzählungen
• Schlagworte: bestselling • book club • books for women • children • clapham book festival • commercial fiction • Deborah Moggach • family life • Gardening • guildford book festival • Harriet Evans • haunting • Love • Modern • MONEY • revenge of a middle-aged woman • Richard and Judy • romantic novelist association • ruth hogan • Salley Vickers • summer read • Vanity Fair
• ISBN-10: 1-83895-653-0 / 1838956530
• ISBN-13: 978-1-83895-653-0 / 9781838956530