Dirty Bertie: An English King Made in France

by Stephen Clarke

Overview

The entertaining biography of Edward VII and his playboy lifestyle, by Stephen Clarke, author of 1000 Years of Annoying the French and A Year in the Merde.

Despite fierce opposition from his mother, Queen Victoria, Edward VII was always passionately in love with France.

He had affairs with the most famous Parisian actresses, courtesans and can-can dancers. He spoke French more elegantly than English. He was the first ever guest to climb the Eiffel Tower with Gustave Eiffel, in defiance of an official English ban on his visit. He turned his French seduction skills into the diplomatic prowess that sealed the Entente Cordiale.

A quintessentially English king? Pas du tout! Stephen Clarke argues that as 'Dirty Bertie', Edward learned all the essentials in life from the French.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781448108282
Publisher:	Random House
Publication date:	05/22/2014
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	400
File size:	4 MB

About the Author

Stephen Clarke lives in Paris, where he divides his time between writing and not writing.

His Merde novels have been bestsellers all over the world, including France. His non-fiction books include Talk to the Snail, an insider's guide to understanding the French; How the French Won Waterloo (or Think They Did), an amused look at France's continuing obsession with Napoleon; Dirty Bertie: An English King Made in France, a biography of Edward VII; and 1000 Years of Annoying the French, which was a number one bestseller in Britain.

Research for The French Revolution and What Went Wrong took him deep into French archives in search of the actual words, thoughts and deeds of the revolutionaries and royalists of 1789. He has now re-emerged to ask modern Parisians why they have forgotten some of the true democratic heroes of the period, and opted to idolize certain maniacs.

Follow Stephen on @SClarkeWriter and www.stephenclarkewriter.com

Table of Contents

Map of Bertie's Paris vi

Preface xi

Chapter 1 1855: Amour at First Sight 1

Chapter 2 The Royal Cherry Is Unroyally Popped 38

Chapter 3 Bertie and the 'Palace Dames' 54

Chapter 4 An Anglo-Danish Wedding and a French Marriage 74

Chapter 5 Sex and the City of Light 95

Chapter 6 Painting the Town Rouge 125

Chapter 7 If You Can't Be with the One You Love… 158

Chapter 8 Savaged by the Press 180

Chapter 9 The French Try to be English 202

Chapter 10 Bertie Makes an Exhibition of Himself… Again 217

Chapter 11 The French Make Work for Idle Hands 238

Chapter 12 We All Like to Be Beside the Seaside 267

Chapter 13 Reaching an Anglo-French Entente 287

Chapter 14 Don't Mention the War 318

Chapter 15 C'est la Fin 335

Afterword: Life After Bertie 361

Select Bibliography 364

Picture permissions 367

Index 368

Editorial Reviews

   • "A comic history which manages to combine Clarke's brand of jaunty, bawdy humour... with being genuinely informative about French history." —Spectator

EBOOK COMMENTARY

   • "A comic history which manages to combine Clarke's brand of jaunty, bawdy humour... with being genuinely informative about French history." —Spectator

From the Publisher