Skip to main content

Marie Antoinette: The Last Queen of France by Evelyne Lever: A Book Review

Marie Antoinette: The Last Queen of France
Author: Evelyne Lever
Genre: Nonfiction, History, Biography
Publisher: St. Martin’s Griffin
Release Date: 2000
Pages: 374
Source: Personal Collection
Synopsis: Married for political reasons at the age of fourteen, Marie Antoinette was naive, impetuous, and ill equipped for the role in which history cast her. From her birth in Vienna in 1755 through her turbulent, unhappy marriage, the bloody turmoil of the French Revolution, her trial of high treason (during which she was accused of incest), and her final beheading, Marie Antoinette’s life was the tragic tale of disastrous circumstances colliding.

     Drawing upon diaries, letters, court records, and memoirs, Evelyn Lever paints vivid portraits of Marie Antoinette, her inner circle, and the lavish court life at Versailles. Marie Antoinette dispels the myth of the callous queen whose supposed response to her starving subjects was the comment, “Let them eat cake.” What emerges instead is a surprisingly average woman thrust into a position for which she was wholly unprepared, a combination that proved disastrous both for her and for France. this revealing story of how Marie Antoinette kept her dignity and courage when Fate turned its back and she lost everything: throne, children, husband, and-- in a very public and cruel execution--her life.


     My Review: Marie Antoinette has always been one of history’s most hated figures. She is known to be the evil queen of France, whose response while watching her subjects starve was, “Let them eat cake!” Indeed, my French grandmother told me stories of Marie Antoinette’s horrible evil deeds that would scare as a child. My grandmothers first words of the story was, “Marie Antoinette was evil, Lauralee, so very evil.” Indeed, at the end of her tale, my grandmother would say, “It was a good thing for Marie Antoinette to be beheaded. She deserved it because she did not care about her people.” However, in Evelyn Lever’s biography of Marie Antoinette, I got the opportunity to separate fact from fiction. It turns out that Marie Antoinette did not say, “Let them eat cake.” Instead, this book tells the tragic tale of Marie Antoinette’s life starting from her idyllic life in the court of Austria to the end of her life at the French guillotine.


     Marie Antoinette, in the beginning of the biography, is described as lazy. She did not like to study and would like to play with her siblings and put on plays. At 14, her mother used her as a pawn to strengthen Austria’s alliances with the most powerful country at that time, France. When she married the Crown Prince of France, Marie Antoinette is stubborn, judgemental, easily gullible, and naive. She makes the wrong decisions that will eventually lead to the French Revolution. During the French Revolution, we readers do admire her courage, and we feel sorry for her losing both her husband and her children.


     Overall, this is a balanced biography of Marie Antoinette. Marie Antoinette lived a sad life, for even at the court, there were pressures that were demanded of her, and when she did not fulfill those pressures, she was mocked, slandered, and criticized. Her life is both a horror story and a morality tale. Indeed unlike the fiction in my grandmother’s tales, I found Marie Antoinette to be a victim rather than a villain. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in history, and who is interested in learning about the true story of Marie Antoinette.


Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Potiphar's Wife (The Egyptian Chronicles #1) by Mesu Andrews: A Book Review

  Potiphar’s Wife (The Egyptian Chronicles #1) Author: Mesu Andrews Genre: Historical Fiction, Christian, Biblical Fiction Publisher: WaterBrook Release Date: May 24, 2022 Pages: 453 Source: Netgalley/Publisher in exchange for an honest review. Synopsis: One of the Bible’s most notorious women longs for a love she cannot have in this captivating novel from the award-winning author of Isaiah’s Legacy .       Before she is Potiphar’s wife, Zuleika is the daughter of a king and the wife of a prince. She rules the isle of Crete alongside her mother in the absence of their seafaring husbands. But when tragedy nearly destroys Crete, Zuleika must sacrifice her future to save the Minoan people she loves.       Zuleika’s father believes his robust trade with Egypt will ensure Pharaoh’s obligation to marry his daughter, including a bride price hefty enough to save Crete. But Pharaoh refuses and gives her instead to Potiphar, the captain...

The Rose Code by Kate Quinn: A Book Review

The Rose Code Author: Kate Quinn Genre: Historical Fiction Publisher: Harper Collins Release Date: 2021 Pages: 635 Source: Netgalley/Publisher in exchange for an honest review. Synopsis: 1940, Bletchley Park, Buckinghamshire.        Three very different women are recruited to the mysterious Bletchley Park, where the best minds in Britain train to break German military codes.       Vivacious debutante Osla has the dashing Prince Philip of Greece sending her roses – but she burns to prove herself as more than a society girl, working to translate decoded enemy secrets. Self-made Mab masters the legendary codebreaking machines as she conceals old wounds and the poverty of her East-End London upbringing. And shy local girl Beth is the outsider who trains as one of the Park’s few female cryptanalysts.       1947, London.        Seven years after they first meet, on the eve of the roya...

A Right Worthy Woman by Ruth P. Watson: A Book Review

A Right Worthy Woman Author: Ruth P. Watson Genre: Historical Fiction Publisher: Atria Books Release Date: 2023 Pages: 303 Source: Netgalley/Publisher in exchange for an honest review. Synopsis: In the vein of The Personal Librarian and The House of Eve , a “remarkable and stirring novel” (Patti Callahan Henry, New York Times bestselling author) based on the inspiring true story of Virginia’s Black Wall Street and the indomitable Maggie Lena Walker, the daughter of a formerly enslaved woman who became the first Black woman to establish and preside over a bank in the United States.       Maggie Lena Walker was ambitious and unafraid. Her childhood in 19th-century Virginia helping her mother with her laundry service opened her eyes to the overwhelming discrepancy between the Black residents and her mother’s affluent white clients. She vowed to not only secure the same kind of home and finery for herself, but she would also help others in her community achi...