Antonia Fraser has written an absorbing, richly detailed and
pleasingly illustrated new study of the French Queen which is a
careful rexamination of the stereotypical embodiment of wilful
extravagance and flouncing arrogance. The 'journey' of the title,
is that of the 14-year old princess from the Imperial palace in
Vienna, via the Royal Court of her husband Louis XVI at Versailles
to a 'squalid cell' in Paris prior to execution by guillotine, her
head displayed on a spike to an uproarious crowd. There seems a
terrible inevitability in the journey: Marie Antoinette was
mistrusted in France from the start: vilified as 'L'Autrichienne',
her task was impossible, to unite in the person of an heir the two
warring nations of France and Austria. She thus became, in Antonia
Fraser's judgement, 'the female scapegoat' for the ills and
excesses of the Court, her extravagance legendary, though in fact
modest in comparison to that of her husband and others at a court
where display and the ability to dazzle equalled power. She was,
Antonia Fraser concedes, frivolous, imprudent and weak, yet she was
also intelligent, neither wanton, nor manipulative, and no, she
never actually said 'let them eat cake' when the people asked for
bread - this was an accusation flung at most 18th century foreign
queens - though by 1793 had Mary Antoinette leaned from the window
of her carriage and offered the starving poor a brioche, they would
probably have spat on it, suspecting that it would be poisoned such
was the hatred and fear of 'the royal monster'. (Kirkus UK)
Still a controversial figure, Marie Antoinette's dramatic
life-story continues to arouse mixed emotions. To many people, she
is still "la reine mechante", whose extravagance and frivolity
helped to bring down the French monarchy; her indifference to
popular suffering epitomised by the (apocryphal) words: "let them
eat cake". Others are equally passionate in her defence: to them,
she is a victim of misogyny. In this biography Antonia Fraser
examines her influence over the king, Louis XVI, the accusations
and sexual slurs made against her, her patronage of the arts which
enhanced French cultural life, her imprisonment, the death threats
made against her, rumours of lesbian affairs, her trial (during
which her young son was forced to testify to sexual abuse by his
mother) and her eventual execution by guillotine in 1793.
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