Memoirs of the Marchioness de La Rochejaquelein

Marie-Louise Victoire de Donnissan, Marquise de la Rochejaquelein (1772-1857) was brought up at Versailles, a god-daughter to Louis XVI. At the outbreak of the French Revolution, she married her cousin, the Marquis de Lescure. After the execution of the king, she accompanied Lescure to La Vendee where a Royalist insurrection was waged from 1793 to 1796. Widowed in 1793, she later married Lescure's cousin, Louis, Marquis de La Rochejacquelein, brother of one of the Royalist leaders. Her memoir, first published in 1815 and translated and reprinted many times, remains one of the most authentic records of this period. Although understandably partisan, she reports atrocities carried out by both sides with great immediacy. This reissue is taken from the 1827 Edinburgh edition, with a preface by Sir Walter Scott. Scott draws parallels between the Vendeen insurrection and the civil war in Scotland waged by the Covenanters.