Customer Reviews

Mrs. Adams in Winter: A Journey in the Last Days of Napoleon

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1 star:		(2)

 

 

A great small history. The hard journey of Louisa Adams from St. Petersburg, Russia to Paris in 1815 serves here as a platform to tell of the life of John Quincy Adams' wife; their not untroubled marriage; the work of a diplomat and his spouse; the court of the Czar; the methods and mechanics of a long distance overland trip; and Napoleon's affect on the European countryside.

Abigail was not the only interesting woman who married an Adams.

Professor Michael O'Brien writes clearly and with easy authority on a multitude of interesting historical points. His book should win prizes.

If you combine the history of travel, the last days of the Bonaparte era and the early history of the U.S. with the work of Henry James, you -may- have MRS. ADAMS IN WINTER.

This detailed, insightful account of Louisa Adams' journey with her son from Petersburg to Paris through what was a maze of countries and war zones is both an incredible journey in terms of travel and an odyssey of the mind of a complex woman who combined personal sensitivity with an awareness of her role in one of America's most prominent (and difficult) families.

I found the author's attempts to portray Mrs. Adams' feelings of alienation, insecurity and inferiority very moving: her sadness, and her identification with other women linked to powerful men, were concealed almost as well as her formidable Mother-in-Law might have liked under the guise of a lovely, accomplished, socially adept lady (in the old sense).

Adding to this book's particular appeal is the grace of its writing. Like Henry James and Jane Austin, the author focuses on the interior monologue and the small square of ivory, set against the backdrop of monumental events.

The "Mrs. Adams" of Michael O'Brien's engrossing look at a little-known event from the early 19th century is Louisa Catherine Adams, the wife of diplomat and future President John Quincy Adams and the daughter-in-law of former President John Adams.

British-born and partially raised in France, Louisa Adams was overshadowed by the family into which she married, which included her famous mother-in-law, Abigail Adams. But as Michael O'Brien makes clear in "Mrs. Adams in Winter," Louisa Adams was a noteworthy person in her own right who, in the winter of 1815, did a remarkable thing.

Accompanied by her young son, Charles Francis, Adams boarded a private carriage in St. Petersburg, Russia, and began a 40-day, 2,000-mile journey to Paris, to join her husband there. In the process, she passed from the Russian Empire into Prussia, dipped into the Duchy of Warsaw, reentered Prussia and rode through what was then known as the Confederation of the Rhine before finally entering France.

Her small retinue included a French prisoner of war who was to serve as a protector of sorts, in exchange for passage to his own country. The adventures they had along the way were alternately frustrating, harrowing and eye-opening, particularly when you consider that such a trip was a relatively unusual undertaking for a woman of that era, traveling through a Europe freshly scarred by war.

"Mrs. Adams in Winter" branches off into myriad figurative alleys and byways as Adams makes her way toward Paris. O'Brien uses Adams' route, and her stops along the way, as launching pads from which to examine the people and places that dot her itinerary. In the process, we learn much about Adams as well, for the book recounts both her trip to Paris and the journey of her life, to that point in time.

Initially, I found some of these asides irritating; they seemed to digress from the book's stated topic. But as I worked my way through this fascinating slice of history, it became clear that what first seemed like frustrating detours actually provided useful context, making for a more captivating read.

Still, if you're hoping for a straightforward "if it's Tuesday this must be Riga" narrative of Adams' journey, you may be taken aback by the wide angle of O'Brien's lens. At one point, for example, while Adams nears the French border, O'Brien pulls us away from her journey with a more than 50-page dissertation on her strained marriage. Yet this is the most moving section of the book.

As O'Brien explained in an interview with Library Journal, Adams was "warm, affectionate, spontaneous, gossipy and deeply insecure," while her husband was "cold, reserved, deliberate" and self-assured. Even her husband's hometown, Quincy, Mass., which Adams first visited in 1801, left her feeling lost and adrift.

"Church services were different," O'Brien writes, "they sang oddly, they took dinner at a funny time, they had strange manners, the old men were weird."

O'Brien details the logistics and the difficulties of traveling in Europe, in winter, at a time when evidence of the Napoleonic wars was everywhere. At one point, for example, the carriage passes a field littered with human bones, the site of a battle that occurred as Napoleon's army retreated from its failed invasion of Russia in 1812.

While much of the journey entailed only minor problems, there were frightening episodes as well. Once in France, for example, Adams had a hair-raising encounter with members of Napoleon's reconstituted Imperial Guard as they marched to Paris to rejoin their emperor following his escape from Elba and his return to France.

Soldiers stopped Adams' carriage at gunpoint while camp followers, recognizing the carriage as Russian and assuming that its occupants were as well, demanded that they be killed. One of Napoleon's generals, Claude Etienne Michel, came to the rescue of the woman who would later become the only foreign-born first lady in American history. Three months later, Michel was killed at Waterloo.

This is a very odd book indeed. It is sort of a biography of Louisa Catherine Adams and it is also a travelogue through Eastern Europe as she travels overland from St. Petersburg to Paris in the midst of Napoleon's 100 Days. While I have heard of this journey many years ago from relatives, I think this ultimately is a rather interesting read, not so much because of the story it tells, but the details it contains.

Michael O'Brien has constructed from a manuscript that Mrs. Adams wrote in the 1830s a tale not only of a physical journey but also a tale of the wife of the sixth president of the United States. His narrative is unusual, harkening back to John Marquand's flash back technique of story-telling. While I am fairly certain that while she was traveling across Europe that her entire life did not pass before her eyes, O'Brien uses this device to tell the reader something about Mrs. Adams's life up until 1815.

While the life is an interesting one, I think the real strength of this book are the thousands of details that O'Brien unearthed to give the reader a sense of what Louisa Adams encountered in her journey from the Tsar's court to the Paris of the 100 days. While I would give the book only so-so ratings as a biography (Henry Adams probably provides the definitive portrait of his grandmother in "The Education"), it is a marvelous book that provides a sense of what it was like to pass through Eastern Europe and on to the West.

The last few decades of peace are telling of a war-weary continent that has not avoided conflict for such long periods. "Mrs. Adams in Winter: A Journey in the Last Days of Napoleon" tells the story of the wife of John Quincy Adams, as she traveled through Europe after the long string of the Napoleonic wars which devastated the region. Her life was spent traveling much of the world, and has shaped much of her and her husband's politics. "Mrs. Adams in Winter" is a solid addition to any historical biography collection.

Through a discussion Louisa Adams' trip of 1815, Michael O'Brien draws a portrait of the life and character of Louisa Adams and the means, methods and costs of travel before the combustion engine and the tourist industry.

The initial chapter describes the pomp and pageantry of the Russian Court and the marginal American role in it. O'Brien moves on to the travel preparations and life on the post roads. The text is supplemented by illustrations of the towns, bridges, vehicles, buildings and a few portraits. There are interesting anecdotes about minor historical figures such as Elizabeth Chudleigh, Marquis Fillipo Paulicci, Queen Luise of Prussia and Claude Etienne Michel. There is a good map at the beginning with blow ups focusing on areas of interest. There is a good table of place names at the end and a good index. The supplemental parts of the book are well chosen and a big help to the reader.

The discussion and interpretation of Mrs. Adams' life and character, while good and worthwhile, seems to be forced into the narrative. For instance, "...coming within a mile of the town called by the locals 'Tschudelei'..." brings up the story of Elizabeth Chudleigh who like Mrs. Adams is English and has skeletons in her family closet. This segues into the narrative on Mrs. Adams' birth family. Similarly, the question as to why the threat of Napoleon's army does not deter Mrs. Adams from pushing ahead from Frankfurt to Paris (the answer appears to be family) prompts the discourse on the loss of her daughter, her stultifying marriage and her relations with her in-laws.

The book needs a more descriptive title. The "in winter" part suggests old age, but Louisa Adams is 40 and will live another 37 years. If you then assume "winter" and the travel sub-title refer to the trip through with long nights and snow, you're leaving out the biographical content which is equal to, or may be more meaningful than, the journey content.

I would rate this higher than 3 stars for O'Brien's insights into the Adams family and the re-creation of the trip if it weren't for the rambling nature of the text. Not only is the material on the Adams Family sandwiched in, some people and place portraits, while they may be interesting (such as that of Elizabeth Chudleigh), are given a lot of space in proportion to their value to the main two narratives.

Those looking for a travelogue for early 19th century Russia might want to try EMPIRE OF THE CZAR. While the author too often repeats his views on the Tzar, it gives the best portrait of Russia in this period that I'm aware of.

Few biographical works feature Mrs. Adams making the author's contribution valuable.Largely his book tells the story of her trip in 1815 from St Petersburg to Paris. The author includes historical diversions in the story telling process which I feel detracts from the excitement of Mrs Adams' journey but serves to inform us of her relationships, interests,and personal accounting in journals. As a result, we learn much about Mrs. Adams that serves to inform us about a former first lady who has been portrayed as aristocratic, frail, and selfish. The book definitely underscores the need for us to delve more deeply into her life and writings and to recognize her as a intelligent sophisticated woman who had a profound understanding of the era in which she lived which filled her with concern regarding the materialism and egotism of the upper classes and the
male domination of women.She was a poet and a playwright who left satirical accounts of the times.She formed wise and lasting relationships with women
in Europe and the United States that help her survive and gather strength.
Her repeated miscarriages might be seen today as evidence that she might have been a star child connected with visitors from other planets.
Highly recommended as an introduction to this fascinating woman!

I learned about by reading this book but it's not the most engaging. You have to really be interested in history. Also, he uses a lot of French terms and assumes the reader understands so I was left in the dark in a lot of places. I thought it was worth a read.

No reputable publisher should have permitted the printing of this book in this condition. Where are the editors who work on books?

My husband and I have long believed that Louis Adams ' story has been long overdue and we jumped to buy it. This is not it.!
As a travel book it is dry and uninformative and as a biography, a dismal failure.
O'Brians account of the trip has more spulation than fact. "She probably went here." "She likely
stopped there." She would have seen this or that. Names were dropped, often with little identifying information. What information that did identify individuals was poorly written-boring. O'Brians ending was insulting to the reader. Was this ending hurried, expedient?

Transitions to biographical infomation were nonexistant. I got little feel for the broad picture of Louisa's life, but some feel for the marriage. Was the selectivity of biographical information a correct choice? I would not trust this aurthor to choose for me what was essential to know about Louisa and her place in the family.

Please forward this to the author and publisher.

I will not buy this until it is in a used book store. I would like to read but feel the Kindle price is a rip off, I am beginning to resent the way Amazon lures a reader in to the Kindle Swindle with intro low prices and then so many of the books are priced to high. Kind of like a dealer who gives you freebies until you are hooked and then charge outrageous prices for the stuff. I am seriously considering putting my kindle in a drawer and going back to reading books I find at Salavation Army and used book store or Borders.