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January 2012: Marie Antoinette

A monthly discussion on varying themes guided by our members. (Book of the Month discussions through December 2011 can be found in this section too.)
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Miss Moppet
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Post by Miss Moppet » Tue January 17th, 2012, 9:58 pm

That's an interesting list, Ludmilla! In non-fiction, there's The Lost King of France: Revolution, Revenge and the Search for Louis XVII by Deborah Cadbury, which follows the forensic research done to prove whether or not Louis XVII died in the Temple or escaped.

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1.5: MA's Afterlife - the C19

Post by Miss Moppet » Wed January 18th, 2012, 7:30 pm

1810: Marie-Louise, great-niece of MA, marries Napoleon
1814: Restoration of the Bourbons. Louis XVIII commissions the Chapelle Expiatoire
1830: Charles X (former comte d'Artois, brother of Louis XVI) overthrown. Louis-Philippe d'Orleans becomes King of the French and Marie Amelie of Naples, niece of MA, becomes his Queen
1867: Exhibition of objects associated with MA at the Petit Trianon, organised by the Empress Eugenie
1911: An Adventure published by Anne Moberly and Eleanor Jourdain


MA's fate continued to haunt her nineteenth-century successors on the throne of France. in 1810, Napoleon, having divorced the Empress Josephine, chose a great-niece of MA, Marie-Louise, to be his bride. Eerily, he decided that she should travel to France by exactly the same route MA had taken (which also, for part of the way, was the route she had taken on the flight from Paris to Varennes).

In 1814 Napoleon was overthrown and the Bourbons returned. As MA's son Louis XVII had died in the Temple, his uncle, the former Comte de Provence, became Louis XVIII. He ordered the remains of Louis XVI and MA removed from the cemetery of the Madeleine to the Bourbon mausoleum at Saint-Denis and commissioned the Chapelle Expiatoire on the site where they had been buried.

MA's daughter Madame Royale married her first cousin, the son of the comte d'Artois, and when Artois became Charles X on the death of Louis XVIII in 1824, she became Dauphine of France. However, the Revolution of 1830 meant she went into exile instead of becoming Queen. The next Queen of France, or rather Queen of the French, was Marie Amelie, daughter of MA's sister Caroline, Queen of Naples, who had once been betrothed to MA's eldest son, the first Dauphin.

In 1851 Napoleon's nephew seized power, eventually becoming Napoleon III. His wife, the Empress Eugenie, had a fascination with MA and made an effort to collect objects which had belonged to her. These were exhibited at the Petit Trianon in 1867.

The Petit Trianon remains very strongly associated with MA. The book An Adventure, written and published by two Englishwomen in 1911, tells the story of a visit to the Trianon ten years earlier in which they believed they might have encountered the ghost of MA (although only one of them actually saw her; the other only sensed that someone was there, but saw nothing). The book can be read online here.

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2: Marie Antoinette in Fiction

Post by Miss Moppet » Sat January 21st, 2012, 4:46 pm

Jean Plaidy drew on the story of MA several times for her fiction. The Queen's Confession, published in 1968 under the name of Victoria Holt, has the most usual format for MA novels, the Queen telling her own story from the cradle to the grave. Jean Plaidy also produced Flaunting, Extravagant Queen, which was the third in a trilogy on eighteenth century France (the first two are Louis the Well Beloved and The Road to Compiegne, which cover the reign of Louis XV and Madame de Pompadour). It's been a while since I read this one but as I remember it covers much of the same ground but in third person and thus has a less immediate, dryer feel to it than The Queen's Confession which I loved. To my knowledge, FEQ is the only one of Plaidy's MA books currently in print.

JP also wrote The Queen of Diamonds, which tells the story of the Diamond Necklace Affair.

More recent titles include Abundance: A Novel of Marie Antoinette by Sena Jeter Naslund (first person, present tense). The first in a trilogy about MA by Juliet Grey, Becoming Marie Antoinette, came out last year and the second volume, Days of Splendor, Days of Sorrow, will be released in 2012 (first person, memoir format). There's also The Hidden Diary of Marie Antoinette: A Novel by Carolly Erickson (first person, diary format). (I haven't read this one but I am told it takes quite a few liberties with history, including MA and Fersen going on a jaunt to Sweden, and it misses out the Diamond Necklace Affair, so may not be the best choice for anyone new to the period). By contrast, Elena Maria Vidal's Trianon covers the years from 1787 to 1807 in third person, using the viewpoints of MA, Louis XVI, their daughter Mme Royale and other family members and focusing on their Catholic faith.

There are also several titles intended for the YA market: The Bad Queen by Carolyn Meyer, The Secret Diary of a Princess by Melanie Clegg and Marie Antoinette: Princess of Versailles by Kathryn Lasky.

Additionally, MA appears in many novels as an important secondary character, notably in a recent novel about Madame Tussaud, who taught MA's sister-in-law Madame Elisabeth the art of wax sculpture: Madame Tussaud by Michelle Moran, and in Catherine Delors' Mistress of the Revolution, about a French noblewoman at the French court in the 1780s. There's also Chantal Thomas' Farewell My Queen, covering the events of July 1789 from the point of view of a reader to the Queen.

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3: Biographies, Non-Fiction and Primary Sources

Post by Miss Moppet » Sat January 28th, 2012, 8:47 pm

Biographies

There have been numerous biographies of MA but the two most recent, Marie Antoinette: The Journey by Antonia Fraser and Marie Antoinette l'insoumise by Simone Bertiere, are both excellent. Simone Bertiere's biography is the last in a series on the Queens of France, and benefits from her understanding of the demands and constraints of French queenship. She portrays MA as a woman of her times whose wish for privacy, freedom and fulfilment was completely in tune with her contemporaries but alienated her from the Court and the public. Her book is also beautifully written and a pleasure to read. Unfortunately there is no English translation but Antonia Fraser's biography is a very good alternative for the English-speaking reader.

Stefan Zweig's 1933 biography, Marie Antoinette: The Portrait of An Average Woman, is still in print and worth reading although dated. Zweig takes a post-Freudian approach and Bertiere in her own book pays tribute to him as the first author to explore the issue of the non-consummation of MA's marriage.

Non-Fiction

Chantal Thomas's The Wicked Queen: The Origins of the Myth of Marie Antoinette deals with the printed propaganda - crude and often pornographic - which changed MA's public image from heroine to harpy. The first chapter, "The Hostage Princesses" is an insightful analysis of how unpleasant the lives of queens and princesses often were and puts MA's experiences in the context of those of her predecessors.

Caroline Weber's Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution analyses MA's fashion choices and how it shaped her public image.

Primary Sources

Madame Campan's The Private Life of Marie Antoinette is one of the most widely translated and republished of the many memoirs dealing with the reign of Louis XVI which appeared in the nineteenth century. Madame Campan was a Woman of the Bedchamber (sometimes translated as Lady of the Bedchamber, but the two roles are quite different) to MA and remained in her service in the early years of the Revolution. She was viewed with suspicion under the Bourbon Restoration because during the Napoleonic period she had run a school and educated Josephine's daughter Hortense and Napoleon's sisters. Present-day historians are suspicious of her too, seeing the memoirs as an attempt to rehabilitate herself, but they are also very valuable testimony. To take just one example, the much-quoted account of how MA had to wait naked and shivering while her underclothes were passed around, because only the highest ranking woman in the room was allowed to present them to her, comes from Madame Campan.

Imperial Mother, Royal Daughter by Olivier Bernier presents an abridged translation of the correspondence between Marie Antoinette and Maria Theresia, plus excerpts from the dispatches of MT's ambassador, Mercy-Argenteau. This gives the reader the opportunity to hear from MA in her own words, to watch her maturing over the years and understand how strong the pressure from her family was to influence French politics in Austria's favour (which she rarely managed to do).

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4: MA on film

Post by Miss Moppet » Tue January 31st, 2012, 9:00 pm

Both the major films made about Marie Antoinette, in 1938 and 2006, were based on biographies: Stefan Zweig's Portrait of an Average Woman and Antonia Fraser's The Journey, respectively. The 1938 version (trailer here, review here) starred Norma Shearer - and featured catfights and gorgeous gowns against a background of swelling orchestral music and anachronistic deep-buttoned Victorian furniture. In Sofia Coppola's film (trailer here) Kirsten Dunst (actually looking a little like Norma Shearer) plays MA. Unlike the 1938 version, which followed MA into the Revolution, the 2006 film ends in 1789 with the royal family leaving Versailles. Sofia Coppola's MA is equally gorgeous to look at if equally anachronistic with food and clothes dyed shades of pink that were only invented in the nineteenth century. Both Shearer and Dunst give strong performances.

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5: MA Online

Post by Miss Moppet » Tue January 31st, 2012, 9:22 pm

These are a few of the blogs which focus on or regularly feature posts on MA or 18th century France:

Versailles and more
Madame Guillotine
Tea at Trianon
Reading Treasure
Marie Antoinette Online
What Would Marie Antoinette Do?
Marie Antoinette's Gossip Guide to the 18th Century

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6: Finding MA

Post by Miss Moppet » Tue January 31st, 2012, 10:05 pm

Anna Amber has done a wonderful and very comprehensive post on where to find MA-related objects in the US.

The two places most closely associated with MA in Europe are Paris and Vienna. Here are some suggestions of places to visit:

Paris and the Ile de France
Chateau de Versailles
The park of Marly, where MA went to see the sun rise
The Conciergerie
The Chapelle Expiatoire, built by Louis XVIII to honour the memory of MA and Louis XVI
The Basilica of Saint-Denis, where MA is buried
At the Chateau de Compiegne and Chateau de Fontainebleau, summer and autumn residences of the French royal family, interiors and furniture created for MA survive

Vienna
The Hofburg, where MA grew up
Schonbrunn, modelled on Versailles, summer residence of the imperial family
The Palace of Liechtenstein and the Belvedere, where celebrations were held for MA's wedding
The Abbey of Melk, where she spent a night on her way to France

In London, both the Wallace Collection and the Victoria and Albert Museum hold objects which once belonged to MA. The Wallace Collection has one room with more pieces of her furniture than anywhere else in the world. The Victoria and Albert's European 18th century rooms are closed for refurbishment until 2014, so not all their MA pieces are on view.

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Post by fljustice » Wed February 1st, 2012, 4:07 pm

Misfit, I wanted to thank you for taking this on. I've been following the posts closely, but not commenting because it's not a time period I've spent a lot of time in. Very interesting!
Faith L. Justice, Author Website
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Post by Miss Moppet » Sun February 19th, 2012, 11:09 pm

I've just watched Versailles: Countdown to Revolution on the BBC iplayer site - well worth viewing for anyone interested in the reign of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. It's dramatised with French actors (subtitles provided) and commentary from historians and biographers including Antonia Fraser. Filmed at Versailles with lots of lovely costumes and visuals. Only available to UK viewers unfortunately and only until the evening of Weds 22 Feb, but I thought it was worth mentioning. I haven't found a DVD version so far.

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Post by rockygirl » Wed June 6th, 2012, 11:47 pm

[quote=""Miss Moppet""]Jean Plaidy drew on the story of MA several times for her fiction. The Queen's Confession, published in 1968 under the name of Victoria Holt, has the most usual format for MA novels, the Queen telling her own story from the cradle to the grave. Jean Plaidy also produced Flaunting, Extravagant Queen, which was the third in a trilogy on eighteenth century France (the first two are Louis the Well Beloved and The Road to Compiegne, which cover the reign of Louis XV and Madame de Pompadour). It's been a while since I read this one but as I remember it covers much of the same ground but in third person and thus has a less immediate, dryer feel to it than The Queen's Confession which I loved. To my knowledge, FEQ is the only one of Plaidy's MA books currently in print.

JP also wrote The Queen of Diamonds, which tells the story of the Diamond Necklace Affair.

More recent titles include Abundance: A Novel of Marie Antoinette by Sena Jeter Naslund (first person, present tense). The first in a trilogy about MA by Juliet Grey, Becoming Marie Antoinette, came out last year and the second volume, Days of Splendor, Days of Sorrow, will be released in 2012 (first person, memoir format). There's also The Hidden Diary of Marie Antoinette: A Novel by Carolly Erickson (first person, diary format). (I haven't read this one but I am told it takes quite a few liberties with history, including MA and Fersen going on a jaunt to Sweden, and it misses out the Diamond Necklace Affair, so may not be the best choice for anyone new to the period). By contrast, Elena Maria Vidal's Trianon covers the years from 1787 to 1807 in third person, using the viewpoints of MA, Louis XVI, their daughter Mme Royale and other family members and focusing on their Catholic faith.

There are also several titles intended for the YA market: The Bad Queen by Carolyn Meyer, The Secret Diary of a Princess by Melanie Clegg and Marie Antoinette: Princess of Versailles by Kathryn Lasky.

Additionally, MA appears in many novels as an important secondary character, notably in a recent novel about Madame Tussaud, who taught MA's sister-in-law Madame Elisabeth the art of wax sculpture: Madame Tussaud by Michelle Moran, and in Catherine Delors' Mistress of the Revolution, about a French noblewoman at the French court in the 1780s. There's also Chantal Thomas' Farewell My Queen, covering the events of July 1789 from the point of view of a reader to the Queen.[/quote]
Hi,
I'm catching up on old threads, having just reappeared.

I read the Erickson book. While it did take some liberties with history, she freely admitted them. My eyes were opened to how different the American and French Revolutions were. Michelle Moran's book (which I finished today), is even more brutal in its recounting of scenes from the French Revolution.

I've read two of the YA books (the Meyer and the Lasky). I thought the Meyer book was one of her better books in the Young Royals series, and more importantly, it got me interested in MA again.

Since I finished Madame Tussaud today, I went right into the Grey book, becoming Marie Antoinette. However, I must confess that my real interest is MT--has anyone read any historical fiction on her? I have a few biographies, but no HF.

Thanks!

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