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by Evelyne Lever Translated by Catherine Temerson Published in 2000 by Farrar, Straus and Giroux 357 pages, U.S. $30, Canada $47 ISBN 0-374-19938-8 At the age of 17, Marie Antoinette made a ceremonial entrance into Paris with her husband Louis Auguste, the dauphin (crown prince) of France. The two were greeted by enormous, cheering crowds and came away feeling, in Marie Antoinette's words, "greatly loved." In a letter to her mother she mused, "How lucky we are, in our position, to win the friendship of an entire people so cheaply. Yet there is nothing so precious; I felt it deeply and will never forget it." Twenty years later a crowd of Parisians cheered as an executioner held up Marie Antoinette's bleeding head. The popular young princess had grown up to be the most hated woman in France -- she was, in fact, considered "one of history's great criminals" -- and few were sorry when she died on the guillotine. But how did Marie Antoinette manage to lose the friendship of the French people? Historian and author Evelyne Lever answers this question ably in "Marie Antoinette: The Last Queen of France." Lever describes Marie Antoinette as a charming featherbrain who was callously manipulated by her mother, Empress Maria Theresa of Austria. Indifferent to Marie Antoinette's happiness, the empress shipped her off to France when she was just 14 to marry Louis for political reasons. At the French court, Marie Antoinette was surrounded by spies who posed as her friends but secretly reported everything she said back to her mother. Determined to advance Austria's interests at her daughter's expense, the empress encouraged Marie Antoinette to gain influence over the awkward Louis. But Marie Antoinette was too naive and impulsive to play her cards well. Her condescending attitude toward her husband, even after he became king, and her impatience with French protocol did little to endear her to Louis or anyone else. Although she could behave with great dignity and never forgot that she was the queen, she was easily drawn into petty court intrigues and made powerful enemies. As Lever says, Marie Antoinette "was really more interested in people than in politics," and it seems she never fully understood the role she was called upon to play. In this book Marie Antoinette emerges as a foolish and self-indulgent woman whose many mistakes contributed to her downfall. To a large extent she deserved her reputation as "Madame Deficit," who squandered money on frivolous luxuries while the people starved. Equally damaging to her reputation was her rumored love affair with Swedish diplomat Axel Fersen, and again Lever makes it appear that the queen was guilty as charged. Go To Page: 1 2
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