Women's Travel Writings in Post-Napoleonic France, Part II

Benjamin Colbert

Part II Volumes 5 & 6 Sydney Owenson, Lady Morgan, France (1817) Tracing social improvement in post-revolutionary France to the Revolution itself, while sensitive to parallels that might be drawn with her native Ireland, Lady Morgan's account of her 1816 residence in Paris and her brief provincial tours is self-consciously political, and drew upon itself the Tory outrage of the Quarterly Review. Though controversial, the travelogue also showcases Morgan's keen analysis of class and gender divisions as well as her wide acquaintance with the leading literary, scientific, and political figures of post-Napoleonic Paris. Volumes 7 & 8 Frances Trollope, Paris and the Parisians in 1835 (1835) In this her third travel book, Trollope purports to skirt along the surfaces of Parisian life, comparing French and English national characteristics, rather than supplying a historical or otherwise connected narrative. Yet her good-natured, often humorous accounts of 'some very pleasant sparring' between characters of opposing politics - 'republicans' and 'legitimatists' - betrays her more serious underlying investigation into the state of French society and its prospects in the wake of the July Revolution of 1830.