Book
Petticoat Rule
The story unfolds against the backdrop of 18th-century France, intertwining themes of love, ambition, and political intrigue.
"Petticoat Rule" by Baroness Emmuska Orczy is a historical novel. The story unfolds against the backdrop of 18th-century France, intertwining themes of love, ambition, and political intrigue.
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Read a passage
The voice, that of a man still in the prime of life, but already raucous in its tone, thickened through constant mirthless laughter, rendered querulous too from long vigils kept at the shrine of pleasure, rose above the incessant babel of women's chatter, the din of silver, china and glasses passing to and fro.
M. le Duc d'Aumont, Marshal of France, prime and sole responsible Minister of Louis the Well-beloved, leant slightly forward, with elbows resting on the table, and delicate hands, with fingers interlaced, white and carefully tended as those of a pretty woman, supporting his round and somewhat fleshy chin.
A handsome man M. le Duc, still on the right side of fifty, courtly and pleasant-mannered to all. Has not Boucher immortalized the good-natured, rather weak face, with that perpetual smile of unruffled amiability forever lurking round the corners of the full-lipped mouth?
His eyes—gray and prominent—roamed with a rapid movement of enquiry from the face of the king to that of a young man with fair, curly hair, worn free from powder, and eyes restless and blue, which stared moodily into a goblet full of wine.
There was a momentary silence in the vast and magnificent dining hall, that sudden hush which—so the superstitious aver—descends three times on every assembly, however gay, however brilliant or thoughtless: the hush which to the imaginative mind suggests the flutter of unseen wings.
Then the silence was broken by loud laughter from the King.
Contents
- 01Petticoat Rule Chapter I a Farewell Banquet
- 02Chapter II the Rulers of France
- 03Chapter III Pompadour's Choice
- 04Chapter IV a Woman's Surrender
- 05Chapter V the First Trick
- 06Chapter VI a False Position
- 07Chapter VII the Young Pretender
- 08Chapter VIII the Last Trick
- 09Chapter IX the Winning Hand
- 10Part II the Statesman
- 11Chapter X the Beggar on Horseback
- 12Chapter XI La Belle Irène
- 13Chapter XII the Promises of France
- 14Chapter XIII the Weight of Etiquette
- 15Chapter XIV Royal Favours
- 16Chapter XV Diplomacy
- 17Chapter XVI Strangers
- 18Part III the Woman
- 19Chapter XVII Splendid Isolation
- 20Chapter XVIII Clever Tactics
- 21Chapter XIX a Crisis
- 22Chapter XX a Farewell
- 23Chapter XXI Royal Thanks
- 24Chapter XXII Paternal Anxiety
- 25Chapter XXIII the Queen's Soirée
- 26Chapter XXIV Gossip
- 27Chapter XXV the First Doubt
- 28Chapter XXVI the Awful Certitude
- 29Chapter XXVII a Fall
- 30Chapter XXVIII Husband and Wife
- 31Chapter XXIX the Fate of the Stuart Prince
- 32Chapter XXX M. De Stainville's Seconds
- 33Chapter XXXI the Final Disappointment
- 34Chapter XXXII the Dawn
- 35Chapter XXXIII the Ride
- 36Chapter XXXIV "Le Monarque"
- 37Chapter XXXV the Stranger
- 38Chapter XXXVI Revenge
- 39Chapter XXXVII the Letter
- 40Chapter XXXVIII the Home in England
About this edition
- Author
- Baroness Emmuska Orczy
- Language
- English
- Era
- Modern (c. 1800–1945)
- Reading level
- Intermediate: some philosophy helps
- Formats
- EPUB, PDF
- Length
- 325 pages
- This edition
- Modern Philosophers
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