Grace Dalrymple Elliott
Yeah, I know, at first glance she looks kind of like your grandma; but once you get past the interesting shade of powder and the charcoaled eyebrows, Grace was like a supermodel, or at least tall enough to be one. During the height of her celebrity she was known as Dally the Tall. Unlike most supermodels today, she was not crazy and a smart cookie. She was a child bride of this fat ugly doctor in London who divorced her after, it is alleged, he caught her sleeping with a hot rake. Meow! She went on to have affairs with The Prince of Wales (who hadn't really) and the Duke d'Orleans among others. She spent most of her life in France and gave us some of the most reputable accounts of the French Revolution which she saw first-hand. Grace narrowly escaped the guillotine after months in French prisons, even having her hair sheared off in preparation. Although she was arrested just to be arrested, she was a firm royalist and had helped Marie Antoinette with correspondence during the Revolution and may have even met the future Empress Josephine during her imprisonment. So obviously she also had strong connections with other hot tarts! Plus you kind of have to like her just based on the fact that she wore low cut gowns for her formal portraits.
she's fascinating, i wish i could find out more about her but their only seems to be the book by jo manning which hasn't got many good reviews on good reads,(i think it was good reads).
ReplyDeleteI actually enjoyed Jo Manning's book! It's filled with all sorts of extra wonderful facts. You can also get from Google Books, Grace's memoirs from the French Revolution.
ReplyDeleteTheres the Lady and the Duke movie ,,which is in french with subtitles but unique and beautiful to watch as it uses paintings as backdrops
ReplyDeleteIt's a lovely movie! The costumes are especially nice!
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