The Duchess of Dino (Phoenix Press) - Softcover

Ziegler, Philip

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1842125869 ISBN 13: 9781842125861

Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 2003

Synopsis

Dorothea Courland was intelligent, strikingly beautiful, proud to the point of arrogance, passionately loyal, a good friend and a relentless enemy. Usually her name is coupled with that of her uncle, Prince Talleyrand, and it was popularly assumed that he was the father of her last child. From the time that she went with him to the Congress of Vienna until his death more than twenty years later she was Talleyrand's most constant companion and support. When he came to London as Ambassador in 1830 it was she who acted as Ambassadress and increasingly took on herself the social and political burdens which he was too old and tired to bear alone. The last years of his life were dominated by her unceasing struggle to win him back to the Church of Rome. All her life Dorothea sought half-consciously for the perfect and complete relationship with other human beings which her love for her uncle could not altogether provide. She never got it and in the quest earned an international reputation as a loose and wicked woman. It is for the reader to decide whether this reputation was deserved.

About this title

About the Author:

Philip Ziegler was educated at Eton and Oxford. He joined the Diplomatic Service and served in Vientiane, Paris, Pretoria and Bogota before resigning to join the publishers William Collins, where he was editorial director for fifteen years. THE DUCHESS OF DINO was his first book.

About this edition

• Publisher: Weidenfeld & Nicolson
• Publication date: 2003
• ISBN 10: 1842125869
• ISBN 13: 9781842125861
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 384