Attain Intimate Enemies: The Two Worlds Of Baroness De Pontalba Chronicled By Christina Vella In Brochure

for my book club, We visited the Historic New Orleans Collection to see the recently discovered sketches of Madame de Pontablas son Gaston during their two year visit here.
The story is so so interesting and so amazing, but the book was hard to read, Vella felt compelled to share all her in depth research, And I got bogged down in the details, Great scholarly work but not super accessible, I love my city and am glad I added to my knowledge, I picked this up because the author recently died and I'm fascinated by New Orleans, An incredible story by itself, but fleshed out with the author's back information on how things were done then, a great window into the history of that place and time.
Any biography of Micaela Almonester is bound to be incomplete, She was a person of note in her time, but not on par with Andrew Jackson, and therefore much of her life is a mystery.
Vella succeeds by paying close attention to the worlds she lived in, the social milieu, and the personalities around her.
The book is as much a biography of Micaela as it is of her father, her husband, and husband in law.
The result is a thoroughly well written, at times witty book Vella's observations are often comedic, Her descriptions of New Orleans in the colonial period is particularly good, In the end though, the book does not quite become great, Much of this is the subject matter, Micaela was a tough businesswoman with an interesting life, but she herself was rather shallow, She owned no books outside of accounting papers, She was very much a product of her mother, who comes across as financially ruthless, and arguably the origin of Micaela's marriage woes.
The book is not about something deeper, beyond the perils of marriage, Micaela Almonester is most noted for her attempted murder and her building projects in New Orleans and Paris.
Without the Pontalba Buildings, hardly anyone would care, Micaela's story is remarkable. I

picked it up after I read a Catholic short story that discussed how she was legally divorced to control her own money but remained loyal to Celestin and their marriage due to her faith.
Interesting read. Hope I get to travel to NOLA one day and see the Pontalba buildings, Everyone should read this biography before they visit New Orleans, The Baroness Pontalba designed Jackson Square and the US Embassy in Paris, Micael Almonaster Pontalba is a fascinating woman who endured more pain and hardship than seems possible, but she endured.
Everything that is beautiful and enchanting about New Orleans is because of her, This is a must read for anyone who loves the city, . I forced my way through the first chapter minutia of life in early New Orleans telling myself the book would pick up.
Thend chapter was no better,pages in and still struggling through background, I gave up, Vella did not lead me to care enough about the baroness to slog thru this tome, For book Club. I like reading books about New Orleans history but this was a snooze fest, BORING. There's something wrong when the author tells you in the intro to skip the firstchapters if you are not interested in the history of NOLA.
Not a story teller's bone in this writing, I found out everything I needed to know from the book jacket, Wikipedia read better. Born into wealth in New Orleans inand married into misery fifteen years later, the Baroness Micaela Almonester de Pontalba led a life ripe for novelization.
Intimate Enemies, however, is the spellbinding true account of this resilient woman's lifeand the three men who most affected its course.




Immediately upon marrying Clestin de Pontalba, Micaela was removed to his family's estate in France.
For twenty years her fatherinlaw attempted to drive her to abandon Clestin by law he could then seize control of her fortune.
He tried dozens of strategies, including at one point instructing the entire Pontalba household to pretend she was invisible.
Finally, in, the despairing elder Pontalba trapped Micaela in a bedroom and shot her four times before turning his gun on himself.


Miraculously, she survived, Five years later, after securing both a separation from Clestin and legal power over her wealth, Micaela focused her attention on building, following in the footsteps of her late, illustrious father, Andrs Almonester.
Her Parisian mansion, the Htel Pontalba, is today the official residence of the American embassy in France and her Pontalba Buildings, which flank Jackson's Square in New Orleans, form together with her father's St.
Louis Cathedral, Presbytere, and Cabildo one of the loveliest architectural complexes in America,

As for Clestin, he eventually suffered a total physical and mental breakdown and begged Micaela to return.
She did so, caring for him for the next twentythree years until her death in,

In Intimate Enemies, Christina Vella embroiders the compelling story of the AlmonesterPontalba alliance against a richly woven background of the events and cultures of two centuries and two vivid societies.
She provides a window into the yellow fever epidemics that raged in New Orleans the rebuilding of Paris, the Paris Commune uprising, and the Second Empire of Napoleon III European ideas of power, class, money, marriage, and love during the baroness' lifetime and their inflection in the New World setting of New Orleans medical treatments, legal procedures, imperial court life, banking practices, and much more.


Combining the historian's meticulous research with the biographer's exacting knowledge of her subject and the novelist's gift for narrative, Vella has crafted a rare crossgenre work that will capture the imagination and admiration of every reader.
What an amazing story!

I have had a long love affair with New Orleans, I think it is the most interesting city in the United States, such a tragic, romantic, chaotic history.
And I didn't know the half of it! The history of this family is all bound up in the history of the city, which is one of the reasons I was so looking forward to reading this book.
Well, it turns out that most of Michael's the Baroness, pronounced "MeeKyeEll" astounding story takes place in France, but she left her finest legacy, an architectural treasure the designer of which is still unknown!, in the Pontalba buildings in New Orleans:



I won't try to summarize Michael's biography because it is much too complex, but her life was as tragic and romantic and chaotic as the city she was born in.
Throughout the book I was in awe not only of Michael's strength and determination but also of Christina Vella's impeccable research.
I am one of those nerds who actually reads footnotes and endnotes, and this author pored through thousands and thousands of letters and legal documents Michael was involved in some kind of litigation for most of her adult life, often against her fatherinlaw, who would eventually try to kill her, and her husband.
in both the United States and France, In addition to the meticulous narrative of the Almonester/Pontalba drama, this biographer like the best of them deftly and with delightful wit! describes the historical context in which the lives of her subjects unfold.
This is possibly one of the best in terms of subject matter and structure biographies I've ever read.
I am in awe of Vella's skills as a writer and historian, and I am more in love with New Orleans than ever!.