THE FAMILY POLITICS OF THE MARQUIS-DE-BOMBELLES

The voluminous journal of Marc-Marie de Bombelles (1744-1822) provides abundant documentation of the cultivation of affective relations with in the family as well as the connections between private and public af fairs in the last years of the Ancien Regime. The marquis represented himself as a devoted son, brother husband and father who sought and fo und happiness en famille. He renounced certain attitudes and conduct t raditionally associated with the aristocracy and regretted the fact th at the king and queen did not set a good example for their subjects. H e described Louis XVI as a good father who could not rule his feelings , his wife, or his realm; and Marie-Antoinette as a bad mother who neg lected her children and abused her prerogatives. Bombelles expected th e royal family, like his own family, to embody values that historians have commonly identified with the bourgeoisie.