An Account of the Prisons of my Parents and Myself 1793-1794

Louise Charlotte Henriette Philippine de Noailles, Duchesse de Duras, was previously a lady-in-waiting to Queen Marie Antoinette. Under the "Law of Suspects", she was arrested on 6 October 1793 and taken to prison at Saint Franois Beauvais, a former convent. On 20 October 1793 she was transferred to the Chteau de Chantilly which had been converted into a prison, where she remained until 5 April 1794. On this date she was taken to Paris to the Prison of the Collge du Plessis. Her elderly parents were taken to La Force in Paris and then transferred to the Luxembourg Prison in Paris. Both her parents were guillotined in June 1794 and shortly afterwards, in the same month, her sister-in-law, Louise de Noailles, was executed as well.This book is an account by the Duchesse of her experience of prison life during the French Revolution. It describes the conditions under which the "suspects" lived, the great many people that she met in prison, the worsening conditions under which the prisoners suffered and their daily terror as cartloads were taken away to be tried and executed. Included in the book are the memoirs of Madame Latour, who accompanied the elderly parents of the Duchesse to their prisons, various letters and documents of interest and the heart-wrenching accounts of two eye-witnesses to the death of Louise de Noailles, who left three young children when she was guillotined together with her mother and grandmother. The Duchesse de Duras was finally released on 19 October 1794 some months after the downfall of Robespierre. All her family's property and fortune had been confiscated, most of the people she knew had emigrated or had been guillotined and she left prison with nothing and nowhere to go. Her account of her existence in the months after her release is as fascinating as her description of prison life.Dr Vinke's translation brings this captivating story to life. Her detailed research provides information on the life of the Duchesse de Duras and on the political background of the Revolution as well as clarifying the identity of the many people that the Duchesse mentions.