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[dept_geek]

Thanks for the links, frenchdoctor.

You should send a PM to the forumite "Parispundit", by the way. It's right his field. He should give you some references on the 2nd Empire, an interesting period that is often overlooked.

I shall do that. Thank you again.

[fleabite]

In case you'd like some light reading, I have resurrected this thread to recommend the Memoirs of Madame Vigée Le Brun. A portrait painter who is still highly regarded today, she knew everyone who was anyone, and painted almost all of them. I have an old translation by Lionel Strachey that is light and amusing, although there is also a good, more recent translation, too.

[llanfair]

Ooh - I didn't know she'd written a memoir, FleaBite.  Thanks!

[parispundit]

Sorry for my lack of response, both here and elsewhere - I was out of email access for some time, and then buried in the start of term. I dont go before 1750 or so. If you want a nice SHORT history of the French Revolution, I use Popkin, a short history of.... For a longer one, I go for William Doyle. IF you want something on the Enlightenment, a good short intro is Dorinda Outram's book. For longer, stranger stuff there is Margaret JAcob on the radical ENlightenment, (though in my view she overestimates its importance, and the grand, new, but quite badly written work by a guy at Cambrdige whose name escapes memory. If you want to bridge the Enlightenment and Revolution intellectually, go for something like "rousseau and the Republic of Virtue", by I think Blum. Or you could just read Tocqueville's The Old Regime and The Revolution, preferably in the U Chicago press edition.