The Countess De Charny The Execution Of King Louis Xvi

Stories of her arrogance and extravagance fanned the flames of revolution. But did Marie Antoinette really deserve her reputation? Alexandre Dumas seeks to find an answer in "The Countess de Charny: The Execution of King Louis XVI". It’s an epic dramatisation of the French Revolution, with Marie at its centre. Around her, Dumas weaves a tapestry of romance and politics, taking in characters from every rung of 18th century French society. It all builds to the royal family’s grisly end, as first Louis XVI, and then his queen, are sent to the guillotine. Picking up where "Taking the Bastille: Ange Pitou" left off, this fast-paced read brings history to vivid life. It's also makes a great companion piece to the movie "Marie Antoinette" with Kirsten Dunst. Alexandre Dumas (1802 - 1870) was a hugely popular 19th century French writer. Born of mixed French and Haitian heritage, Dumas first rose to prominence in Paris as a playwright, but later gained international fame with his historical fiction. Often co-authored with other writers, these stories wove together swashbuckling adventure, romance, and real events from France’s past. Among the best known are "The Three Musketeers", and its sequels "Twenty Years After", and "Le Vicomte de Bragelonne: Ten Years Later". Set across four decades, this trilogy follows the rise of the dashing D’Artagnan—from hot-headed soldier to trusted captain under Louis XIV. Dumas’ other novels include "The Count of Monte Cristo" and "The Black Tulip". His works have been adapted into more than 200 movies, including The Man in the Iron Mask starring Leonardo DiCaprio.

"The Countess of Charny; or, The Execution of King Louis XVI" by Alexandre Dumas (translated by Henry Llewellyn Williams). Published by Good Press. Good Press publishes a wide range of titles that encompasses every genre. From well-known classics & literary fiction and non-fiction to forgotten−or yet undiscovered gems−of world literature, we issue the books that need to be read. Each Good Press edition has been meticulously edited and formatted to boost readability for all e-readers and devices. Our goal is to produce eBooks that are user-friendly and accessible to everyone in a high-quality digital format.

It was on the first of October, 1791, that the new Legislative Assembly was to be inaugurated over France. King Louis XVI., captured with Queen Marie Antoinette and the royal family, while attempting to escape from the kingdom and join his brothers and the other princes abroad, was held in a kind of detention, like imprisonment without hard labor, in the Tuileries Palace in Paris. His fate hung on the members of the new House of Representatives. Let us hasten to see what they were. The Congress was composed of seven hundred and forty-five members: four hundred lawyers of one kind or another; some seventy literary men; seventy priests who had taken the oath to abide by the Constitution, not yet framed, but to which the king had subscribed on the sketch. The remaining two hundred odd were landholders, farming their own estates or hiring them out to others. Among these was Francois Billet, a robust peasant of forty-five, distinguished by the people of Paris and France as a hero, from having been mainly instrumental in the taking of the Bastile, regarded as the embodiment of the ancient tyranny, now almost leveled with the dust. Billet had suffered two wrongs at the hands of the king's men and the nobles, which he had sworn to avenge as well on the classes as on the individuals.