Innocent Espionage: The La Rochefoucauld Brothers' Tour of England in 1785

This book is irresistible. -- THE TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT The duc de Liancourt sent his sons Francois and Alexandre to England in 1784-5. Intimations of the impending French revolution were in the air, and the brothers responded to the excitement of England's own rather different industrial and agricultural revolution. Under the spell of the heady atmosphere of invention and discovery, the brothers travelled all over the country, seeing everything from dockyards and coalmines to the theatre (Mrs Siddons) and the House of Commons (Pitt vs. Fox). They recorded it all, and in Innocent Espionage NORMAN SCARFE translates their unpublished account, his knowledgeable historical and topographical commentary accompanied by sixty contemporary illustrations.