New York Review Books, Sachbücher, The Last Libertines (Englisch, Benedetta Craveri, 2020)

An enthralling work of history about the Libertine generation that came up during&mdash and was eventually destroyed by&mdash the French Revolution. The Last Libertines, as Benedetta Craveri writes in her preface to the book, is the story of a group of &ldquo seven aristocrats whose youth coincided with the French monarchy&rsquo s final moment of grace&mdash a moment when it seemed to the nation&rsquo s elite that a style of life based on privilege and the spirit of caste might acknowledge the widespread demand for change, and in doing so reconcile itself with Enlightenment ideals of justice, tolerance, and citizenship.&rdquo Here we meet seven emblematic characters, whom Craveri has singled out not only for &ldquo the romantic character of their exploits and amours&mdash but also by the keenness with which they experienced this crisis in the civilization of the ancien ré gime, of which they themselves were the emblem.&rdquo Displaying the aristocratic virtues of &ldquo dignity, courage, refinement of manners, culture, [and] wit,&rdquo the Duc de Lauzun, the Vicomte de Sé gur, the Duc de Brissac, the Comte de Narbonne, the Chevalier de Boufflers, the Comte de Sé gur, and the Comte de Vaudreuil were at the same time &ldquo irreducible individualists&rdquo and true &ldquo sons of the Enlightenment,&rdquo all of them ambitious to play their part in bringing around the great changes that were in the air. When the French Revolution came, however, they found themselves condemned to poverty, exile, and in some cases execution. Telling the parallel lives of these seven dazzling but little-remembered historical figures, Craveri brings the past to life, powerfully dramatizing a turbulent time that was at once the last act of a now-vanished world and the first act of our own.