Detailed and ambitious, but a little twisty to follow at times. There is a lot going on, and it felt at times like to book was leading the writer instead of the other way around.

Oh my, if you want a book on the beginning of Paris fashion then you need to read this book! It is an amazing in depth of information and details of the Paris fashion era. It makes you realize that the "fancy" looks we see today does not hold a candle to how they looked in the beginning.

This is a non-fiction book, so I am quite honestly not a reader of non-fiction so my review is not as in depth as it would be for a fiction book. I rarely read non-fiction so I apologize for the lack of depth to my review.

Two patriarchs with a love of money do everything they can to keep their respective off-spring from marrying for love. How did they reach that point?

This book is heavy with detail not only about the Magoulet and Chevrot families but also the stock market crash of the time. It would be difficult to separate one from the other, but it did make for a tedious read at times. The collapse of the currency interested me only as far as the effect it had on the citizens at the time.

Jean II Magoulet held my interest the most. As a child, his father sent him away to keep control of the inheritance. Once he returned, Jean II became ruthless in exacting his revenge and then repeated the example his father had set.

I would have liked to learn more about Louise Magoulet, but I did appreciate the author kept to the facts that have survived the centuries.

For readers who enjoy a real-life Romeo and Juliet tragedy, I would definitely recommend this one.

Oh, this is good, and it is precisely what I want to do with the Hardwicke family in England. DeJean's formidable knowledge of all aspects of early modern France are brought to bear on one extraordinary family situation in 1719: two young people have made a match which does not further the ambitions or meet the financial needs of their families, and the remedy is shockingly brutal--send the would be bride off the Louisiana by having the courts imprison her for prostitution and dump her as a fille du roi. The century leading up to this is a remarkably textured study of a line of relentlessly self-promoting artisans got into the luxury trade around Versailles (which, but being embroidery using gold and silver, was also an entree to the financial market), while the other family of lawyers climbed into the bureaucracy. The eye for detail is wonderful--a smart notary would please his nouveau riche clients by binding their legal papers with colored ribbon, the pretentiousness of a Parisian address, the invention of glass-fronted store fronts.