Versailles

A fictionalized account of the life of Marie Antoinette follows her through such challenges as her early marriage to the future King Louis XVI, struggles with the expectations of her station, painful palace betrayals and politics, and interactions with such figures as Mirabeau, Du Barry, and Robespierre.

©2002 Kathryn Davis (P)2019 Blackstone Publishing

How did I get here?

It's an historical novel, yet it isn't. The actual novel is disjointed and impressionistic, and strangely cold hearted, but exceptionally well written. The narrator is brilliant, with a clear, crisp, American accent, yet she knows her French and German. All of the events of this novel are told through Marie Antoinette, who was only 14 when she was married to Louis Auguste, Dauphin of France, later to become King Louis XVI, and she became queen. Her helplessness to control her fate is foregrounded, as she is subject to vile rumors and speculations about her infidelity from the gutter presses of her time. She is part of a vast net of rumors, through no fault of her own. Eventually we all know where that led. I learned some history, but I enjoyed the descriptions of the natural world around Versailles best.