Memoirs of the Courts of Louis XV and XVI. — Volume 2: Being Secret Memoirs of Madame Du Hausset, Lady's Maid to Madame De Pompadour, and of the Princess Lamballe

Behind the glittering halls of Versailles, where fortunes rose and fell with a whispered rumor, one woman kept watch from the shadows. Madame du Hausset served Madame de Pompadour, the most powerful woman in France after the queen herself, and in these secret memoirs she records what she saw: the late-night negotiations, the calculated cruelties, the terrifying fragility beneath the powdered wigs and silk gowns. She introduces us to the Abbe de Bernis, weaving his way through political minefields, and the mysterious Comte de St. Germain, whose claims to ancient secrets held the court captive. Here too is Princess Lamballe, whose own memoirs add another voice to this intimate portrait of power at its most naked. These are not the polished histories written for posterity but the raw observations of someone who was there, who served, who listened at doors, and who understood that survival at court required the same instincts as survival in a jungle. For anyone who has ever wondered what really happened in those gilded chambers, this memoir pulls back the curtain.