From the author of How Paris Became Paris, a sweeping history of
high finance, the origins of high fashion, and a pair of star-crossed
lovers in 18th-century France.
Paris, 1719. The stock market is surging and the world's first
millionaires are buying everything in sight. Against this backdrop, two
families, the Magoulets and the Chevrots, rose to prominence only to
plummet in the first stock market crash. One family built its name on
the burgeoning financial industry, the other as master embroiderers for
Queen Marie-Thérèse and her husband, King Louis XIV. Both patriarchs
were ruthless money-mongers, determined to strike it rich by arranging
marriages for their children.
But in a Shakespearean twist, two of their children fell in love. To
remain together, Louise Magoulet and Louis Chevrot fought their fathers'
rage and abuse. A real-life heroine, Louise took on Magoulet, Chevrot,
the police, an army regiment, and the French Indies Company to stay with
the man she loved.
Following these families from 1600 until the Revolution of 1789, Joan
DeJean recreates the larger-than-life personalities of Versailles, where
displaying wealth was a power game; the sordid cells of the Bastille;
the Louisiana territory, where Frenchwomen were forcibly sent to marry
colonists; and the legendary Wall Street of Paris, Rue Quincampoix, a
world of high finance uncannily similar to what we know now. The
Queen's Embroiderer is both a story of star-crossed love in the most
beautiful city in the world and a cautionary tale of greed and the
dangerous lure of windfall profits. And every bit of it is true.
