When Francois de la Rochefoucauld and his brother Alexandre visited Suffolk in 1784, the events which were to lead to the French Revolution in 1789 were already in train. Francois' father, the duc de Liancourt, Grand Master of the Wardrobe at Louis XVI's court, was well placed to appreciate the dangers of the situation in France, and it must have been with anxious hopefulness that he sent his sons (Francois was then 18) to England for a year to appreciate the ordering of these things in a country which had experienced a revolution over a century earlier. Such reflections are never far below...
When Francois de la Rochefoucauld and his brother Alexandre visited Suffolk in 1784, the events which were to lead to the French Revolution in 1789 we...