Mémoires, lettres et pièces authentiques touchant la vie et la mort de S.A.R. Monseigneur Charles-Ferdinand d'Artois, Fils de France, Duc de Berry

This is Chateaubriand's intimate account of the life and assassination of Charles-Ferdinand d'Artois, Duke of Berry, nephew of Louis XVIII and son of the future Charles X. Written by one of France's most illustrious literary voices and a Pair de France, this work transcends mere biography. Chateaubriand chronicles Berry's military service in the Condé army during the Revolution, his years in English exile with his companion Amy Brown and their two daughters, his return to France amid the chaos of the Hundred Days, and his brutal assassination in 1820 by the Bonapartist Louvel. The work stands as both a political treatise defending constitutional monarchy and a heartfelt elegy for a prince whose death seemed to seal the fate of the Bourbon Restoration. Chateaubriand's elegant prose renders history with the emotional weight of literature, making this essential reading for anyone interested in post-revolutionary France, the complexities of royalist politics, and the birth of modern French political culture.