The Betrayal of the Duchess

"The Duchess of Berry's story is enthralling, and Mr. Samuels tells it well. His epigraph is taken from the Memoirs of the Comtesse de Boigne: 'A new Walter Scott will have a difficult time finding a more poetic subject than the expedition of Madame la duchesse de Berry.' Absolutely."

"A suspenseful, entertaining narrative that provides vivid portraits of its two subjects.... Samuels has stripped away the pious propaganda, uncovered many new details, and told the story in a gripping fashion that also brings out its absurdities and moments of dark comedy."

"Maurice Samuels's account of the improbable and riveting story of the duchess de Berry is both deeply researched and elegantly written. But this triumphant work provides much more than a narrative of civil war and treachery; it also interweaves dazzling insight into deeply relevant issues including the genesis of French (and European) antisemitism."

"The duchesse de Berry raises an army to restore the Bourbon monarchy. Her advisor, a charming Jewish convert named Simon Deutz, sells her out to the government, and her plot fails. A flood of literature follows -- from Hugo, Chateaubriand, Dumas. And then, mysteriously, the Deutz affair disappears from modern memory. It took someone with Maurice Samuels's psychological and political insights, his astonishing research, and his gift for story telling, to bring to life the true origin story of modern anti-Semitism, sixty years before the Dreyfus affair. A thriller, a non-fiction novel of palace intrigue, full of outrageous characters and theatrical scenes, Samuels's The Betrayal of the Duchess speaks of passions and prejudices uncannily suited to our own times."

"This timely history -- impeccably researched and engagingly told -- relates the failed royalist coup of the Bourbon princess Caroline, duchesse de Berry. Highlighting the involvement of her Jewish-turned-Catholic co-conspirator, Simon Deutz, Maurice Samuels shows how this episode crystallized an ideology of antisemitism that has pervaded French society, with disastrous results, ever since."

"With a knack for narration and deep knowledge of the times, Maurice Samuels excavates a scandal of lost causes and the new hatreds that grow in their place. It is at once a gripping account of individuals, a portrait of an age, and a history that speaks to us, hauntingly, in our own troubled present."

"A colorful history of the duchesse de Berry's failed attempt to restore the Bourbon dynasty to the French throne... Samuels delivers a spirited and comprehensive account of this lesser-known drama and draws insightful parallels to anti-Semitism within modern-day reactionary movements. Armchair historians will be delighted."

"Treachery, disguise, capture, and imprisonment-the scandal surrounding an ill-fated 19th-century French insurrection-is all the more captivating in this factual retelling... Recommended for readers of Victor Hugo, Alexandre Dumas, and 19th-century French history and literature."

"The Betrayal of the Duchess is excellent in every respect... [Samuels] is a talented storyteller, one who eschews the too-often heavy prose of academics writing for and to themselves...Samuels has also brushed off the dust on his two principal characters and made them memorable."