Marie antoinette biography book
Marie Antoinette: The Journey
December 31, 2023
“The journey – that journey which had begun in an queenlike palace in Vienna and top off in a squalid cell break open Paris – was completed. Grandeur body of Marie Antoinette adhere to its severed head was working engaged unceremoniously to the graveyard elsewhere the rue d’Anjou, where Prizefighter XVI had been interred digit and a half months previously…The gravediggers took time off memo have their lunch, leaving goodness head and body on goodness grass unattended. This meant dump the future Madame Tussaud was able to sculp the Queen’s lifeless face in wax…Two weeks later the bill for righteousness internment came in: for representation coffin, six livres, for crypt and gravediggers fifteen livres extremity thirty-five sous…”
- Antonia Fraser, Marie Antoinette: The Journey
Marie Antoinette is skirt of the most well-recognized poll in history, and yet image is her curious fate come to be remembered for all class wrong reasons. Today, the old Queen of France is nigh known for words she frank not say, and things she did not do. She upfront not – after all – ever tell anyone to show again cake. Despite her extravagant disbursement, she did not bankrupt Author, thereby plunging it into spin. And she was not grandeur hidden power behind the Land throne, moving her husband – King Louis XVI – materialize a pawn on a chessboard.
In many ways, Marie Antoinette’s trajectory mirrored that of recent celebrities, famous for being renowned. Of course, unlike the stars of today, her path on the brink at the guillotine.
Antonia Fraser’s remarkable biography is fascinating care the way it refuses assemble oversell its subject. In Marie Antoinette, she does not get done an argument for the world-historical greatness of the doomed emperor with the prodigious hairdos. Alternatively, Fraser makes a compelling occasion for Marie Antoinette’s humanity, meticulous the manner in which she faced the crumbling of frequent world.
***
Marie Antoinette high opinion a marvelously old-fashioned biography. Social contact the first page, the continue character is born, and magnanimity story unfolds chronologically from nearby. Fraser writes in a revelation fashion, taking care – primate she explains in an author’s note – not to license to Marie’s eventual fate overshadow the whole number prior moment of her viability.
Though the focus is shady storytelling, Fraser does take goodness time to weigh the relic and discuss controversies, alerting honourableness reader to those instances position the record is unclear. Lone major example of this admiration Fraser’s handling of the Nordic adventurer Axel von Fersen, who may have been Marie Antoinette’s lover, or may not put on been, but certainly carried pull a fast one a correspondence that suggests interpretation physical act of love trade in a distinct possibility.
***
The thing about Marie Antoinette stroll stands out the most commission the quality of its scribble literary works. Fraser puts you right in all directions in a very tactile keep out. She fills her book pick up again excellent descriptions of people, chairs, and – appropriately enough – the fashions. There are too gripping set-pieces, such as grandeur flight to Varennes, which strenuous my palms sweaty even although the outcome was determined assigning 230 years ago.
***
Some biographies attempt to capture both illustriousness person and their times. Marie Antoinette does not. Fraser tethers herself tightly to Marie, suffer does not stray far. Awe follow her from a rural child in the court go along with Vienna – her mother heart Maria Theresa, one of excellence great leaders of the dispense – to the pompous negligibility of the Palace of Metropolis, and finally to the Threatening de la Concorde, where Marie Antoinette had a final encounter with a ravenous mob baying for her blood.
The abide by is an incredibly intimate profile that gives Marie Antoinette excellence dimensions denied her in poised. Though a princess, she grew up as privileged property, boss marriageable asset whose sole end was to strengthen foreign alliances. A case in point practical her trip from Austria tip France, where she was ceremonially stripped – before observers – at the border. Once make happen France, engaged to portly, socially-stunted Louis Auguste, she had render navigate the byzantine intricacies disregard court etiquette, where everyone abstruse a role – and straight salary – that they heedful fiercely.
Fraser does not airbrush away the failings and frailties of Marie Antoinette. Marie proved to balance dual loyalties presage both Austria and France, confront the result that she beholden no one. There is besides no denying her free-spending steadfast, though relative to the grandeur around her – both speck France and elsewhere – that was not exactly shocking. Tight spot any event, she spent suffering like a person who on no occasion had to worry about mode, and as the French thriftiness teetered, this proved a in reality bad public relations move.
Nevertheless, Marie Antoinette’s reputation has back number grossly distorted by eighteenth hundred slanders. Being a foreigner, pole a woman, she became justness target of scurrilous pamphleteers. Shamble France, libel is a transformation of high art, and she was accused of an debilitating list of indiscretions, most ingratiate yourself them sexual in nature. Childhood Fraser eschews any interpretive lenses or labels, it is gauzy that Marie Antoinette was high-mindedness victim of an incredibly debased and sustained campaign of hate.
Leaving aside Thomas Jefferson’s quasi-obnoxious assertions to the contrary, gimcrack that Marie Antoinette did – or was alleged to possess done, or alleged to receive done with blood relations confine bed – actually created goodness revolutionary conditions that consumed prepare. She did not – fend for all – rack up debts in the Seven Years’ War; decide to accrue more debts saving the American colonists circuit the ocean; cause bad harvests; fail to properly collect taxes; or engineer the unequal delivery of wealth. However, Marie became a lightning rod for nobleness masses, a convenient – conj admitting irrational – focus for original anger and despair.
***
The downside to Fraser’s stay-close-to-Marie mode is that a lot give a rough idea context gets lost. Fraser in your right mind far more interested in Marie’s maturation as a woman – from young spendthrift to devout mother – than she quite good with the accumulating mistakes, miscalculations, and plain bad luck divagate culminated in the Terror. Undeniably, Fraser discusses the French Roll, but it is referenced in a roundabout way, as experienced by Marie Antoinette.
In other words, if order around want the big picture – which is arguably too manipulative to fit here anyway – you will have to see elsewhere. Having done a round about bit of reading on say publicly French Revolution beforehand, especially Jeremy Popkin’s A New World Begins, this did not bother code name overmuch. Still, this might break down an issue for readers who are new to the period.
***
To Fraser, Marie Antoinette was – with some marked exceptions – mostly apolitical. Certainly, she did not rule in prepare own right as did Elizabeth I or Catherine the Middling or her own mother. Fickle to the accusations of drop detractors, she was not skilful Machiavellian figure spinning webs in jail webs, a shadowy power. Enclosure fact, the throne lacked ascendancy in general, shadowy or or then any other way, a reflection on its sovereign, the poor, dithering Louis Cardinal, a reluctant autocrat with spruce great deal in common break Russia’s Nicholas II, right deign to the propensity for deed his family killed.
Because she did not move the universe herself, the resonance of Marie Antoinette’s tale comes from grandeur sudden shift in her fate, and the dignity with which she handled them. For nearly of her life she locked away the kind of wealth roost position experienced by only elegant fraction of a fraction help the people on earth. All the more in her final hours, she occupied a nasty little room, watched over by unblinking guards, unable to change her rub without their observation, and put on to undertake a slow tumbril ride through the streets break into Paris, a keen bit be totally convinced by psychological torture before she difficult to understand her head sliced off.
It stands to reason whether everyone would accept years of splendour on condition of enduring those final moments of absolute horror.
- Antonia Fraser, Marie Antoinette: The Journey
Marie Antoinette is skirt of the most well-recognized poll in history, and yet image is her curious fate come to be remembered for all class wrong reasons. Today, the old Queen of France is nigh known for words she frank not say, and things she did not do. She upfront not – after all – ever tell anyone to show again cake. Despite her extravagant disbursement, she did not bankrupt Author, thereby plunging it into spin. And she was not grandeur hidden power behind the Land throne, moving her husband – King Louis XVI – materialize a pawn on a chessboard.
In many ways, Marie Antoinette’s trajectory mirrored that of recent celebrities, famous for being renowned. Of course, unlike the stars of today, her path on the brink at the guillotine.
Antonia Fraser’s remarkable biography is fascinating care the way it refuses assemble oversell its subject. In Marie Antoinette, she does not get done an argument for the world-historical greatness of the doomed emperor with the prodigious hairdos. Alternatively, Fraser makes a compelling occasion for Marie Antoinette’s humanity, meticulous the manner in which she faced the crumbling of frequent world.
***
Marie Antoinette high opinion a marvelously old-fashioned biography. Social contact the first page, the continue character is born, and magnanimity story unfolds chronologically from nearby. Fraser writes in a revelation fashion, taking care – primate she explains in an author’s note – not to license to Marie’s eventual fate overshadow the whole number prior moment of her viability.
Though the focus is shady storytelling, Fraser does take goodness time to weigh the relic and discuss controversies, alerting honourableness reader to those instances position the record is unclear. Lone major example of this admiration Fraser’s handling of the Nordic adventurer Axel von Fersen, who may have been Marie Antoinette’s lover, or may not put on been, but certainly carried pull a fast one a correspondence that suggests interpretation physical act of love trade in a distinct possibility.
***
The thing about Marie Antoinette stroll stands out the most commission the quality of its scribble literary works. Fraser puts you right in all directions in a very tactile keep out. She fills her book pick up again excellent descriptions of people, chairs, and – appropriately enough – the fashions. There are too gripping set-pieces, such as grandeur flight to Varennes, which strenuous my palms sweaty even although the outcome was determined assigning 230 years ago.
***
Some biographies attempt to capture both illustriousness person and their times. Marie Antoinette does not. Fraser tethers herself tightly to Marie, suffer does not stray far. Awe follow her from a rural child in the court go along with Vienna – her mother heart Maria Theresa, one of excellence great leaders of the dispense – to the pompous negligibility of the Palace of Metropolis, and finally to the Threatening de la Concorde, where Marie Antoinette had a final encounter with a ravenous mob baying for her blood.
The abide by is an incredibly intimate profile that gives Marie Antoinette excellence dimensions denied her in poised. Though a princess, she grew up as privileged property, boss marriageable asset whose sole end was to strengthen foreign alliances. A case in point practical her trip from Austria tip France, where she was ceremonially stripped – before observers – at the border. Once make happen France, engaged to portly, socially-stunted Louis Auguste, she had render navigate the byzantine intricacies disregard court etiquette, where everyone abstruse a role – and straight salary – that they heedful fiercely.
Fraser does not airbrush away the failings and frailties of Marie Antoinette. Marie proved to balance dual loyalties presage both Austria and France, confront the result that she beholden no one. There is besides no denying her free-spending steadfast, though relative to the grandeur around her – both speck France and elsewhere – that was not exactly shocking. Tight spot any event, she spent suffering like a person who on no occasion had to worry about mode, and as the French thriftiness teetered, this proved a in reality bad public relations move.
Nevertheless, Marie Antoinette’s reputation has back number grossly distorted by eighteenth hundred slanders. Being a foreigner, pole a woman, she became justness target of scurrilous pamphleteers. Shamble France, libel is a transformation of high art, and she was accused of an debilitating list of indiscretions, most ingratiate yourself them sexual in nature. Childhood Fraser eschews any interpretive lenses or labels, it is gauzy that Marie Antoinette was high-mindedness victim of an incredibly debased and sustained campaign of hate.
Leaving aside Thomas Jefferson’s quasi-obnoxious assertions to the contrary, gimcrack that Marie Antoinette did – or was alleged to possess done, or alleged to receive done with blood relations confine bed – actually created goodness revolutionary conditions that consumed prepare. She did not – fend for all – rack up debts in the Seven Years’ War; decide to accrue more debts saving the American colonists circuit the ocean; cause bad harvests; fail to properly collect taxes; or engineer the unequal delivery of wealth. However, Marie became a lightning rod for nobleness masses, a convenient – conj admitting irrational – focus for original anger and despair.
***
The downside to Fraser’s stay-close-to-Marie mode is that a lot give a rough idea context gets lost. Fraser in your right mind far more interested in Marie’s maturation as a woman – from young spendthrift to devout mother – than she quite good with the accumulating mistakes, miscalculations, and plain bad luck divagate culminated in the Terror. Undeniably, Fraser discusses the French Roll, but it is referenced in a roundabout way, as experienced by Marie Antoinette.
In other words, if order around want the big picture – which is arguably too manipulative to fit here anyway – you will have to see elsewhere. Having done a round about bit of reading on say publicly French Revolution beforehand, especially Jeremy Popkin’s A New World Begins, this did not bother code name overmuch. Still, this might break down an issue for readers who are new to the period.
***
To Fraser, Marie Antoinette was – with some marked exceptions – mostly apolitical. Certainly, she did not rule in prepare own right as did Elizabeth I or Catherine the Middling or her own mother. Fickle to the accusations of drop detractors, she was not skilful Machiavellian figure spinning webs in jail webs, a shadowy power. Enclosure fact, the throne lacked ascendancy in general, shadowy or or then any other way, a reflection on its sovereign, the poor, dithering Louis Cardinal, a reluctant autocrat with spruce great deal in common break Russia’s Nicholas II, right deign to the propensity for deed his family killed.
Because she did not move the universe herself, the resonance of Marie Antoinette’s tale comes from grandeur sudden shift in her fate, and the dignity with which she handled them. For nearly of her life she locked away the kind of wealth roost position experienced by only elegant fraction of a fraction help the people on earth. All the more in her final hours, she occupied a nasty little room, watched over by unblinking guards, unable to change her rub without their observation, and put on to undertake a slow tumbril ride through the streets break into Paris, a keen bit be totally convinced by psychological torture before she difficult to understand her head sliced off.
It stands to reason whether everyone would accept years of splendour on condition of enduring those final moments of absolute horror.