Whereas the life of her husband, the dashing Napoleonic general and
diplomat Charles de Flahaut, is well known, Margaret has remained
in the shadows. Yet this biographical study, based on unpublished
and intimate correspondence in the Archives Nationales, Paris,
reveals her to have been the more interesting of the two. It shows
how much he depended on her brains, political judgment and artistic
taste as well as her fortune to guide him in his career. More than
that, their letters to each other also confirm that she made a
success of her controversial marriage and that the bond between
them was strengthened through all the vicissitudes of their life
together. A faithful and sincere friend, she could be an implacable
enemy: Talleyrand's companion, the duchesse de Dino, whom she
dubbed `that horrid little serpent', and the Duke of Wellington,
`that bully', were favourite targets. Her lively, observant but
wicked pen takes us with her on visits to Talleyrand at Valencay,
to the marquis de Lafayette, to the duchesse de Praslin at
Vaux-le-Vicomte, to house parties in stately homes of England and
Scotland - Arundel, Woburn, Bowood, Chatsworth, Grimsthorpe and
Drummond Castle. Acknowledged a superb hostess, her descriptions of
the menus, and entertainments organized in her homes in Scotland,
London, and Paris and at the Flahaut embassies in Vienna and in
London capture the flavour of those cosmopolitan gatherings. Her
guests were also drawn to the display of her fine French furniture
and collection of works of art, acquired during her years in Paris
which set a new fashion in decoration. Interesting, too, are her
accounts of sightseeing in Rome before the city of the Grand Tour
changed into the capital of united Italy. The enjoyable social life
in the continental watering places is also described, for Margaret
believed in the curative effects of spas. A lifelong liberal in
politics and an upholder of Whig principles, her politicomanie
inspires sharp comments on the opponents of Reform in England and
on the self-seeking ministers of Louis-Philippe in France.
Unusually, for a British woman, the daughter of Admiral Keith, an
inveterate enemy of the French, she shared her husband's admiration
for Napoleon and joined with him in supporting Napoleon III. Born
before her time she could have made a name for herself in today's
world as a professional artist or politician in her own right. As
it was, she used her talents to become an expert in the art of
living the life so amusingly and vividly evoked in letters to her
husband, her children and her close friends. These relationships,
which are the heart of the book, are presented to the reader by an
English woman historian, herself a Francophile.
General
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