French Royal Women during the Restoration and July Monarchy

This book examines public discussions around France's fourmost prominent royal women during the first and second Restoration and July Monarchy: the duchesse d'Angoulême, the duchesse de Berry, Queen of the French Marie-Amélie, and Adélaïde d'Orléans.These were the most powerful women of the last decades of the French monarchy, but the new roles women were assigned in post-revolutionary France did not permit them to openly exercise political influence. This book explores continuities and variations in narratives of royal legitimacy, and how historians, authors, and politiciansused national history - particularly medieval and early modern history - to either legitimize or undermine the French monarchy, and to define women's social and political roles.