Versailles' miniature universe, sparkling with every outward appearance of happiness and beauty, is brilliantly juxtaposed with the chaos that erupts. Madame Laborde takes the reader within the palace, meticulously reconstructing the 14th, 15th, and 16th of July 1789feverish days when the servants have disappeared and many of the courtiers are fleeing.
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Now exiled in Vienna, Madame Agathe-Sidonie Laborde looks back twenty-one years to the legendary opulence of Versailles and, overcome with nostalgia and remorse, discovers the full measure of her fascination with the Queen she served. Translated by Moishe Black.Ī woman whose function it once was to read books aloud to Marie Antoinette is haunted by the memory of her last days at the French court of Versailles, when Louis XVI's magnificent palace succumbed to the irrepressible forces of revolution. A woman whose function it once was to read books aloud to Marie-Antoinette is haunted by the memory of her last days at the French court of Versailles, when Louis XVI's magnificent palace succumbed to the irrepressible forces of revolution. With the skill of a consummate storyteller, Chantal Thomas meticulously re-creates the miniature universe of Versailles, brilliantly juxtaposing its beauty and its dawn-to-dusk ritual with the chaos that erupts. Yet the book, even if not exactly a novel, is a success.
Although fictionally embellished, it lacks the structure of a novel, and the narrator merely provides us with a pair of eyes to see through rather than capturing our interest in her own right.
Our narrator struggles to paint these trembling individuals as human, fallible and therefore loveable. Farewell, My Queen is set in July 1789 the revolution is sweeping from Paris towards the court, and bejewelled, befuddled aristocrats are awakening from their trance to discover that Versailles was the Matrix and the real future is written in their blood. 9įarewell, My Queen by Chantal Thomas, translated by Moishe Black 256pp, Weidenfeld, £. Queen by Chantal Thomas, translated by Moishe Black 256pp, Weidenfeld, £. A woman whose function it once was to read books aloud to Marie Antoinette is haunted by the memory of her last days at the French court of Versailles, when Louis XVI's magnificent palace succumbed to the irrepressible forces of revolution. This dimly lit and low budget film marks the end of the fantasy world of Versailles, its gilded halls, jeweled furniture and costumed courtiers. Her life has included teaching jobs at American and French universities (such as Yale and Princeton) as well as a publishing career.įarewell, My Queen", which is based on a novel by Chantal Thomas, isn't confection of the same variety. Thomas was born in Lyon in 1945, and was raised in Arcachon, Bordeaux, and Paris. Her 2002 book, Farewell, My Queen, won the Prix Femina and was adapted into a 2012 film starring Diane Kruger and Léa Seydoux. It's time heads rolled, instead of resting on the desk.Ĭhantal Thomas (born 1945, in Lyon) is a French writer and historian. An affecting new novel about the French revolution, by Chantal Thomas, encourages me to hope that the day must not be far off when desperately bored students will storm the bastille of textbook publishers and usher in a new era of history education. Farewell, My Queen," translated by Moishe Black, takes us to Versailles on July 14, In high school, I learned that those who don't remember the past are doomed to repeat History in the summer. The piece put me in mind of Chantal Thomas's engrossing historical novel, Farewell, My Queen, which I'd just finished reading.įarewell, My Queen book. To my mind, Thomas's novel makes a good case that answering in the affirmative to any of the The Mail's CWS quiz statements would have been as risky to body and soul in 18th century France as it would be practically anywhere today. One could argue, as perhaps Thomas intended, that mindless celebrity worship, especially when celebrity is undeserved or ill bestowed, was and is a waste of time and human potential.įarewell, My Queen: A No.has been added to your Cart.
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