Memoirs of the Comtesse du Barry
With Minute Details of Her Entire
Career as Favorite of Louis XV

"Written by Herself"

by Baron Etienne Leon Lamothe-Langon




with a special introduction by
Robert Arnot, M.A.





Gutenberg Editor's note:
This delightful (piquant, the comtesse would say) pseudonymous
work was in fact written not "by herself" but by Baron Etienne
Leon Lamothe-Langon (1786-1864). The persona created is that of
a woman who always tells the truth as she sees it, but it is made
clear to the reader that what the narrator sees is very seldom
exactly the objective truth. The author ends as well as begins
(in the middle of the action), thus creating an
illusion of a slice of a journal but simultaneously giving the
reader the uneasy feeling that the first and last chapters seem
to be missing.