Marie Antoinette Information

Grade 7-10– This serviceable biography, Marie Antoinette: And The Decline Of French Monarchy, covers the famous French queen’s life from birth to execution. There are numerous engravings and fine-art reproductions, minus David’s famous drawing of Marie Antoinette on her way to the guillotine.There are no maps of Europe and of Paris and its environs or genealogical charts of the Austrian and French royal families. The writing is pedestrian and often awkward; a number of unfamiliar terms aren’t defined. There are some errors, typos, and a number of unexplained or confusing references–such as how many children Maria Theresa had and why there was so much contention among French royals. Not outstanding in any way.–Ann W. Moore, Schenectady County Public Library, NY

Gr. 9-12. YAs who associate Marie Antoinette with frivolous excess may be surprised by the positive portrayal in this biography. Divided at age 14 from her Austrian homeland and forced to marry the “awkward, lumbering” heir to the French throne, the young dauphine faced indisputably tough circumstances. Unfortunately, the authors present the queen as the innocent target of a restive public’s ire without consistently offering supporting evidence.

Though the more sympathetic view is widely accepted by modern historians (many of whose own analyses are listed in the concluding bibliography), neglecting to support one’s conclusions and acknowledge surmise where it occurs does a disservice to young readers. Despite imperfections, though, this entry in the new European Queens series provides an engaging point of entry into the history of the French Revolution. Moreover, for YA appeal, it’s hard to beat a historical figure whose story features a controversial diamond necklace, public speculation about the royals’ troubled sex life, and, of course, a tragic, bloody conclusion. Jennifer Mattson

While much was made of the fact that Marie Antoinette elicited boos at Cannes, the many favorable reviews attracted less attention. Inspired by Antonia Fraser’s biography, Sofia Coppola fashions a portrait that’s just as dreamy as The Virgin Suicides, her first literary adaptation, and the Oscar-winning Lost in Translation. Set to a soundtrack of post-punk (a conceit that adds more interest than resonance), the teenaged Marie (Kirsten Dunst, quite good) may be shallow, but she’s rarely unsympathetic. The story begins in the late-18th century as the Austrian Archduchess agrees to marry Louis-Auguste (Jason Schwartzman). After bidding adieu to her mother, Maria Theresa (Marianne Faithfull), she travels to France, where King Louis XV (Rip Torn) sets the rules–and the list is endless (Judy Davis’ Comtesse de Noailles is the primary enforcer). As for the Dauphin, he’s just a boy, really, with more interest in his key collection than their marriage bed. Should Marie produce an heir, it might be enough to sustain her–since life is nothing but an endless shopping spree–but clouds gather on the horizon as an impoverished populace rises up against their extravagant leaders. Coppola merely suggests what happens next, although history paints a darker picture. Filmed in and around the Chateau of Versailles, Marie Antoinette is a riot of rustling gowns, sparkling jewels, and Manolo Blahnik-designed shoes. To say that style trumps substance does its maker a disservice, but the look of the thing does leave the deepest impression. –Kathleen C. Fennessy

Extras from Marie Antoinette (click for larger image)

Featurette: On the filming of Marie Antoinette: high bandwidth

Film Clip: “The Introduction” high bandwidth

Film Clip: “The Royal Treatment” high bandwidth

Stills from Marie Antoinette (click for larger image)

Description

Academy Award® winner Sofia Coppola directs an electrifying yet intimate re-telling of the turbulent life of history’s favorite villainess, Marie Antoinette. Kirsten Dunst portrays the ill-fated child princess who married France’s young and indifferent King Louis XVI Jason Schwartzman. Feeling isolated in a royal court rife with scandal and intrigue, Marie Antoinette defied both royalty and commoner by living like a rock star, which served only to seal her fate.

“Evocative photography and a wealth of detail make the book a visual treat.”—Interior Design

Marie Antoinette, whose marriage at fifteen made her queen of France before she was twenty, died under the blade of the guillotine in 1793. She has been romanticized as the martyred queen, admired as the personification of eighteenth-century French royal style, and vilified as the Austrian whose frivolous extravagance and foreign sympathies fired the French Revolution.

This book turns aside from the official portraits and great historical events to rediscover the private places and objects that reflect Marie Antoinette’s personality and reveal her more directly to our modern gaze. Beautifully photographed by François Halard, the rooms and buildings she inhabited are shown here in fascinating detail, from the distinctive fabrics and furnishings to the queen’s favorite objects—an amber curiosity, a Chinese lacquer gift from her mother, a porcelain bowl. 123 illustrations, 108 in color.

About the Author
Marie-France Boyer is a freelance journalist and the Paris Editor of The World of Interiors magazine. François Halard contributes to many magazines, including The World of Interiors, Décoration Internationale, Vogue, and House & Garden.

In the past, Antonia Fraser’s bestselling histories and biographies have focused on people and events in her native England, from Mary Queen of Scots to Faith and Treason: The Story of the Gunpowder Plot. Now she crosses the Channel to live the life of France’s unhappiest queen, bringing along her gift for fluent storytelling, vivid characterization, and evocative historical background.

Marie Antoinette (1755-93) emerges in Fraser’s sympathetic portrait as a goodhearted girl woefully undereducated and poorly prepared for the dynastic political intrigues into which she was thrust at age 14, when her mother, Empress Maria Theresa, married her off to the future Louis XVI to further Austria’s interests in France. Far from being the licentious monster later depicted by the radicals who sent her to the guillotine at the height of the French Revolution, young Marie Antoinette was quite prudish, as well as thoroughly humiliated by her husband’s widely known failure to have complete intercourse with her for seven long years (the gory details were reported to any number of concerned royal parties, including her mother and brother).

She compensated by spending lavishly on clothes and palaces, but Fraser points out that this hardly made her unique among 18th-century royalty, and in any case the causes of the Revolution went far beyond one woman’s frivolities. The moving final chapters show Marie Antoinette gaining in dignity and courage as the Revolution stripped her of everything, subjected her to horrific brutalities (a mob paraded the head of her closest female friend on a pike below her window), and eventually took her life.

Fraser makes no attempt to hide the queen’s shortcomings, in particular her poor political skills, but focuses on her personal warmth and noble bearing during her final ordeal. It’s another fine piece of popular historical biography to add to Fraser’s already impressive bibliography. –Wendy Smith
–This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

A child-princess is married off to a husband of limited carnal appetite. Her indiscretions and na‹vet‚, scorned by elderly dowagers, are coupled with charity, joie de vivre and almost divine glamour but her life is cut brutally short. The queen of France’s life is rich in emotional resonance, riddled with sexual subplots and personal tragedies, and provides fertile ground for biographers.

Fraser’s sizable new portrait avoids the saccharine romance of Evelyne Lever’s recent Marie Antoinette, balancing empathy for the pleasure-loving queen with an awareness of the inequalities that fed revolution after all, Marie herself was fully conscious of them. Her subject shows no let-them-eat cake arrogance, but is deeply (even surprisingly) compassionate, with a “public reputation for sweetness and mercy” that is only later sullied by vituperative pamphleteers and bitter unrest.

She would sometimes be trapped by ingenuousness, and later by a fatal sense of duty. Yet her graceful bearing, acquired under the tutelage of her demanding mother, the empress Maria Teresa, made her an unusually popular princess before she was scapegoated as “Madame Deficit” and much, much worse. The portrait is drawn delicately, with pleasant touches of humor (a long-awaited baby is conceived around the time of Benjamin Franklin’s visit: “Perhaps the King found this first contact with the virile New World inspirational”). Fraser’s approach is controlled and thoughtful, avoiding the extravagance of Alison Weir’s royal biographies. Her queen is neither heroine nor villain, but a young wife and mother who, in her journey into maturity, finds herself caught in a deadly vise. Color and b&w illus. (on sale: Sept. 18) Forecast: Fraser needs no introduction to American audiences. She will come over from England for a five-city tour, and with widespreand favorable reviews, this should have no trouble making the bestseller lists. It’s a BOMC, History Book Club, Literary Guild and QPB selection.