author
Xavier Paoli
b. 1835
A Corsican police official turned memoirist, he became known for vivid recollections of Europe’s royal courts and the famous figures he encountered in public life. His books offer a firsthand glimpse of the ceremonies, personalities, and politics surrounding monarchs in the late 19th and early 20th centuries.
1 Audiobook
About the author
Born in La Porta, Corsica, in 1833, Xavier Paoli worked for the French Interior Ministry and later wrote memoirs drawn from his unusual career. He is especially remembered for serving in police roles connected with the protection of visiting foreign sovereigns in Paris, which placed him close to kings, queens, and other prominent public figures.
That experience shaped the books he published in the early 1900s, including My Royal Clients and Their Majesties as I Knew Them. Rather than formal history, these works read as personal reminiscences, mixing court life, public ceremony, and character sketches of European rulers.
Paoli died in 1923. Although he was a civil servant by profession, his reputation as a writer rests on the rare point of view he brought to royal Europe: not from the throne itself, but from the watchful edge of it.