Marie Antoinette Information

Marie Antoinette: Princess of Versailles, Austria-France, 1769 (The Royal Diaries)
“I look up now into the oval mirror and see barely a trace of the mud-splattered girl tearing through the woodland on her horse, or the barefoot girl wading at Schonbrunn… I have become what Mama set out for me to be. Majestic. A Dauphine and eventually a Queen.”

So writes the headstrong 13-year-old Maria Antonia–future Queen of France–in her diary on October 23, 1769. In this engrossing addition to the Royal Diaries series (Elizabeth I: Red Rose of the House of Tudor, Cleopatra VII: Daughter of the Nile), Kathryn Lasky invents a diary of the young Marie Antoinette in 1769–the year she is to be married off to Dauphin Louis Auguste, eldest grandson of the French king Louis XV. Arranged marriages were common in that day and age–as the Empress Theresa (of the Holy Roman Empire of the Germanic Nations) sought to consolidate power among nations by marrying off her children. Thus, the future of Austria and France falls upon Maria Antonia’s young shoulders.

To prepare her for this awesome responsibility, she must be trained to write, read, speak French, dress, act… even breathe. Things get even more grim as she is shipped off to the court of Versailles and introduced to her puffy, awkward future husband and confronted with the court’s ridiculous customs. Marie–an opinionated and insightful young woman–mocks the court of “impeccable etiquette and manners” that makes up nasty rhymes about those they hate, but panics when her hair is mussed. Lasky has done an excellent job of creating a very human character in the young Marie Antoinette–one whom young readers will want to learn more about. Fortunately, her story is given plenty of context with an epilogue describing the history of the young Queen after 1769, a historical note offering an 18th-century context, a Habsburg-Bourbon family tree, and various portraits of the royal family. (Ages 9 to 13) –Karin Snelson

From School Library Journal

Grade 5-8-Lasky takes historical fact and weaves it into a sympathetic account of an adolescent Marie Antoinette. Antonia’s diary begins shortly before her politically arranged betrothal and marriage to Louis Auguste, Dauphin of France. It describes her struggles with strange new customs, in particular the elaborate French Court etiquette. The descriptions of Versailles and palace life hold true to fact and fit well into the diary of the Dauphine experiencing her new country. The diary also does a believable job of taking Marie Antoinette from a girl of 13 to a young woman of 15. Antonia goes from playing childhood games to become Marie Antoinette, future queen, playing political games with Madame du Barry. At the conclusion of the novel, an epilogue continues the story to its historical completion. Notes and a family tree are useful for readers who know little of 18th-century royalty and politics. This will be a popular addition for readers who favor the diary format in historical fiction. An excellent companion to this series is Milton Meltzer’s Ten Queens (Dutton, 1998).
Carolyn Janssen, Rockford Public Library, IL

“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.