Marie Antoinette: The Last Queen of France Book + PRICE WATCH * Amazon pricing is not included in price watch

Marie Antoinette: The Last Queen of France Book

This highly readable translation of French historian Evelyne Lever's 1991 biography captures all the drama and pathos of Marie Antoinette's short life. Born in 1755, this carefree, fun-loving daughter of Austrian empress Maria Theresa inherited neither her mother's political shrewdness nor her sense of duty. She was married off at 14 to the stolid, clumsy French Dauphin, who would not fully consummate their marriage for another seven years, at which point he was King Louis XVI and their marital difficulties were the subject of public ridicule. She consoled herself by retreating to the artificial village she constructed at Trianon, where she could be free of the court etiquette she hated and indulge in expensive amusements that only increased her unpopularity. Her rare incursions into politics were just as ill judged; she alienated the French nobility with attempts to further Austria's diplomatic goals, and from the first rumblings of revolution in 1788, she influenced Louis to take a hard line on royal power when compromise might have saved the monarchy and prevented their executions in 1793. Lever does not soften Marie Antoinette's faults or downplay her poor judgment, but most readers will finish this absorbing narrative feeling very sorry for a pretty, goodhearted, but fundamentally frivolous woman thrown into a historical moment whose demands were beyond her. --Wendy Smith Read More

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  • Product Description

    Drawing on diaries, letters, court records, and memoirs, Evelyn Lever paints vivid portraits of Marie Antoinette, her inner circle, and the lavish court life at Versailles. Married off for political reasons at the age of fourteen, Marie Antoinette was naive, impetuous, and unprepared for the role history cast her in. Evelyn Lever weaves the tragic tale of the Queens life, from her birth in Vienna in 1755 through her trial for high treason, and her final beheading. The result is an unforgettable tapestry of life in eighteenth-century France.

  • 0312283334
  • 9780312283339
  • Evelyne Lever
  • 24 September 2001
  • St. Martin's Press
  • Paperback (Book)
  • 352
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