From the author of How Paris Became Paris, a sweeping history of high finance, star-crossed lovers, and the origins of the bourgeoisie in 18th century France.
Paris, 1719. The Bourbon monarchy has made France the most powerful nation in Europe, and thanks to the innovations of economist John Law, who introduced paper money to the French economy, Parisians are climbing in wealth and stature faster than ever before.
This is the backdrop against which two upwardly mobile families rose to prominence, only to plummet in the earliest stock market boom and bust cycle. They were the Chevrots and the Magoulets; one family built its name on the burgeoning financial industry, while the other earned renown as master embroiderers for Queen Marie-Therese and her son King Louis XIV at the decadent Versailles, and in the process inflated the brand new market for high fashion among the middle class. Both patriarchs were ruthless wealth-mongerers, determined by any means to get and stay rich, especially by arranging mercantile marriages for their children.
But in a real-life turn of events, Shakespearean in scale, two of these children fell in love. Under the disapproving gaze of their abusive families, Louise Magoulet and Louis Chevrot fought to be together. A real life heroine of the tale, Louise took on her father, Chevrot, the combined forces of the Parisian police, an army regiment, and the authorities of the French Indies Company to stay with the man she loved.
Following these two family dynasties from 1600 down to the rebellion of Louise and Louis, and moving among Versailles, the living hell of the Bastille, and the legendary "Wall Street of Paris," the rue Quincampoix, The Queen's Embroiderer is at once a star-crossed love story and a cautionary tale about the lengths to which men can be driven by the dream of windfall profits. Historian Joan DeJean recreates the fabulous fashions and larger-than-life personalities of a court where the ostentatious display of wealth was a power game, the sordid cells of a prison in which women were at the mercy of corrupt guards, and a world of high finance uncannily similar to what we know now. And every bit of it is true.
