Gilded Youth Three Lives in France's Belle poque [Paperback]

They were the children of France's most celebrated men of nineteenth-century letters and science, the celebrity heirs and heiresses of their day. Their lives were the subject of scandal, gossip, and fascination. L?on Daudet was the son of the popular writer Alphonse Daudet. Jean-Baptiste Charcot was the son of the famed neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot, mentor to a young Sigmund Freud. And Jeanne Hugo was the adored granddaughter of the immortal Victor Hugo. As France readied herself for the dawn of a new century, these childhood friends seemed poised for greatness.

InGilded Youth, Kate Cambor paints a portrait of a generation lost in upheaval. While France weathered social unrest, violent crime, the birth of modern psychology, and the dawn of World War I, these three young adults experienced the disorientation of a generation forced to discover that the faith in science and progress that had sustained their fathers had failed them.

With masterful storytelling, Cambor captures the hopes and disillusionments of those who were destined to see the golden world of their childhood disappearand the universal challenges that emerge as the dreams of youth collide with the realities of experience.

Narrated with brio and style. Miranda Seymour, The New York Times Book Review

In this dramatic, real-life tale of three intertwined lives, Kate Cambor conveys the dashed hopes not just of families and individuals, but of an entire culture. Jean-Baptiste Charcot, the son of famed neurologist Jean-Martin Charcot (mentor to Sigmund Freud); L?on Daudet, the son of the writer Alphonse Daudet (whose closest friends included Flaubert, Zola, Goncourt and Tolstoy); and Jeanne Hugo, the granddaughter of the writelƒQ