What do you think?
Rate this book
To the Scaffold: The Life of Marie Antoinette
Describes Marie Antoinette's childhood in Vienna and her marriage to Louis XVI and the political climate of France during her husband's reign
384 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 1991
52 people are currently reading
1904 people want to read
About the author
Carolly Erickson
32 books709 followersDistinguished historian Carolly Erickson is the author of The Hidden Diary of Marie Antoinette, The First Elizabeth, Great Catherine, Alexandra and many other prize-winning works of fiction and nonfiction. She lives in Hawaii.
http://us.macmillan.com/author/caroll...
http://us.macmillan.com/author/caroll...
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 75 reviews
January 13, 2011
Things I learned from this book:
1)King Louis had a medical condition known as phimosis that made is excruciatingly painful to ejaculate. It required a painful surgery to correct, and it was until 7 years into their marriage he finally opted for this surgery. Ouch.
2)Marie Antoinette never left France after she arrived as a young bride.
3)The guillotine was a new execution method invented during the revolution. It was actually a political statement meant to grant all levels of society an equal method of execution. Prior to this only nobles were granted the “privilege” of beheading. Commoners had only torturous methods of execution available to them.
4)At the beginning of Louis and Antoinette’s imprisonment, they were allowed servants, a clothing allowance, 6 course meals etc.
5)King Louis, commoner last name was Capet.
6)Versailles Palace was filthy and open to almost anyone in the realm. People urinated and defecated in stairwells, brought and dumped their garbage in the gardens, those that lived in the palace simply tossed their refuse out the windows. It smelled so fetid in the palace that Marie Antoinette kept dozens of fresh cut flowers in her quarters in an attempt to mask the odor.
7)While I knew she never uttered “Let them eat cake” what I didn’t know is that same phrase had been attributed to at least 2 other French monarchs, but for some reason it stuck with her.
8)She and King Louis would have survived the revolution had Louis agreed to flee sooner. In fact when they did decide to flee, they would have made it to safety had the carriages Marie Antoinette had chosen been less luxurious in nature and more hardy in nature. As it was, one of the carriages broke down, and had to be repaired delaying the party. The hussars who had been tasked with escorting the party to safety were dismissed because it appeared the king and queen weren’t coming after all. When the royal party did arrive, the guards were either nowhere to be found or too drunk to escort them. Their cover was blown and they were turned back.
9)The accounts of their extravagant spending have been in no way exaggerated throughout history. In fact once you read this book and the accounts of their spending it’s quite overwhelming. It’s also interesting to note that, the revolution started out not unlike today’s credit crisis. Everyone was in debt. In fact the more in debt someone was, the richer they were considered to be. The house of cards economy slowed started to collapse when a single large debtor’s debt was called and couldn’t be covered. Panic arose, debts were called and defaulted upon, the price of bread rose to astronomical prices, the money was devalued because there was nothing to back it’s worth. For a while I was certain I was reading a modern time account.
An excellent account of the life of Marie Antoinette and King Louis. I would encourage anyone who is interested in this era to read this book.
1)King Louis had a medical condition known as phimosis that made is excruciatingly painful to ejaculate. It required a painful surgery to correct, and it was until 7 years into their marriage he finally opted for this surgery. Ouch.
2)Marie Antoinette never left France after she arrived as a young bride.
3)The guillotine was a new execution method invented during the revolution. It was actually a political statement meant to grant all levels of society an equal method of execution. Prior to this only nobles were granted the “privilege” of beheading. Commoners had only torturous methods of execution available to them.
4)At the beginning of Louis and Antoinette’s imprisonment, they were allowed servants, a clothing allowance, 6 course meals etc.
5)King Louis, commoner last name was Capet.
6)Versailles Palace was filthy and open to almost anyone in the realm. People urinated and defecated in stairwells, brought and dumped their garbage in the gardens, those that lived in the palace simply tossed their refuse out the windows. It smelled so fetid in the palace that Marie Antoinette kept dozens of fresh cut flowers in her quarters in an attempt to mask the odor.
7)While I knew she never uttered “Let them eat cake” what I didn’t know is that same phrase had been attributed to at least 2 other French monarchs, but for some reason it stuck with her.
8)She and King Louis would have survived the revolution had Louis agreed to flee sooner. In fact when they did decide to flee, they would have made it to safety had the carriages Marie Antoinette had chosen been less luxurious in nature and more hardy in nature. As it was, one of the carriages broke down, and had to be repaired delaying the party. The hussars who had been tasked with escorting the party to safety were dismissed because it appeared the king and queen weren’t coming after all. When the royal party did arrive, the guards were either nowhere to be found or too drunk to escort them. Their cover was blown and they were turned back.
9)The accounts of their extravagant spending have been in no way exaggerated throughout history. In fact once you read this book and the accounts of their spending it’s quite overwhelming. It’s also interesting to note that, the revolution started out not unlike today’s credit crisis. Everyone was in debt. In fact the more in debt someone was, the richer they were considered to be. The house of cards economy slowed started to collapse when a single large debtor’s debt was called and couldn’t be covered. Panic arose, debts were called and defaulted upon, the price of bread rose to astronomical prices, the money was devalued because there was nothing to back it’s worth. For a while I was certain I was reading a modern time account.
An excellent account of the life of Marie Antoinette and King Louis. I would encourage anyone who is interested in this era to read this book.
November 24, 2024
Che bella biografia. Che bel personaggio. Che bella lettura.
Per chi come me non è solito leggere questo genere, consiglio assolutamente la Erickson in quanto è in grado di catturare l'interesse come nel migliore dei romanzi.
Per chi come me non è solito leggere questo genere, consiglio assolutamente la Erickson in quanto è in grado di catturare l'interesse come nel migliore dei romanzi.
October 9, 2011
This is one of the most riveting biographies I've read. After reading the biography of Napoleon Bonaparte, I picked it up AGAIN (this is my third time reading it) in order to refresh my memory of what layed the groundwork in France for the French Revolution and the rise of Napoleon. Undisciplined, LAVISH spending by Marie Antoinette and the royal family and courtiers during a time in France when their economy was on the verge of bankruptcy, led to wide protest and unrest. Burdensome taxes were draining the hard earned resources from the common people already suffering from hunger and privation following natural disasters that had nearly wiped out the wheat crops. Jealous and intriguing courtiers were spreading wild and mostly unfounded rumors that the Queen was behind the deprivation ... that she had orchestrated the famine ... that she was trying to ruin France. Marie Antoinette and Louise became the scape goats of all that was desperately wrong with France. While there was a desperate need for reform in the government, the people did not allow the political process to come up with a way to reasonably address the problems. The result was a populace that became inflamed to revolution ... a populace that while on the one hand demanded that the king recognize the individual rights and liberties of the individual, also demanded blood and revenge for what they perceived as the crimes committed by the rich aristocracy. The general populace went wildly out of control indiscriminately rioting and pillaging and accusing many people of crimes they did not commit and ultimately sentencing thousands to be executed. The unbridled blood lust and violence unleashed during the French Revolution was horrifying ... the description of the rise of the guillotine grisly ... the last days of the king and queen and their children were heartbreaking. When they came and took away the king to be beheaded my heart ached but the last days of the queen were filled with unconscionable suffering. The revolutionaries took her young son away from her (the heir to the throne) and put him in the care of an especially repugnant revolutionary who was to re-educate him and erase from his head all thoughts of his royal heritage. The mother in me grieved with Marie Antoinette as she suffered this last and final horror before she was tried and a judge finally read a list of some of the most grievous and far fetched charges against her ... sealing her fate and leading to her execution. May God save us from ever repeating the mistakes of this period of history.
June 30, 2018
This book was okay. Its not the best biography of Marie Antoinette ever written, but at least it is pretty readable. Its good for people who know nothing about her and want to learn.
The title is pretty misleading, because its titled To The Scaffold, and the trial and the lead up to the scaffolding is the most rushed and vague part of the book. It was incredibly brief. It focused much more on her childhood than anything else.
My major gripe about this book was that it read more like fiction than a biography. All the people were cast into molds, ie. Louis XVI was a lazy slob, Madame Du Barry was a pretensious prostitute who relied on men, the Lamballes and Polignac's were golddiggers, and the suthor wrote as if they never deviated from these. Marie Antoinette's supposed affair with Axel Fersen is taken as 100% fact, and this casts doubt on the accuracy of the rest of the book.
The title is pretty misleading, because its titled To The Scaffold, and the trial and the lead up to the scaffolding is the most rushed and vague part of the book. It was incredibly brief. It focused much more on her childhood than anything else.
My major gripe about this book was that it read more like fiction than a biography. All the people were cast into molds, ie. Louis XVI was a lazy slob, Madame Du Barry was a pretensious prostitute who relied on men, the Lamballes and Polignac's were golddiggers, and the suthor wrote as if they never deviated from these. Marie Antoinette's supposed affair with Axel Fersen is taken as 100% fact, and this casts doubt on the accuracy of the rest of the book.
June 14, 2012
A more informal feel to this than other Marie Antoinette biographies I've read. I appreciated the footnotes and kept my bookmark at the appropriate place to easily flip back to refer to them for each chapter. A good mixture of personal and court details and the broader political picture of a troubled France. Recommended to anyone interested in the French Revolution or Antoinette, even if you've read other biographies.
August 9, 2016
I think that the first sentence in the book description... "One of the most misunderstood." I'm not saying she wasn't frivolous or empty headed in some regards but she didn't seem to be a hateful or mean person. What was done to this family was brutal.
April 21, 2013
It is by no means the best chronicle of this woman. It talks endlessly about the queens growing up and life, but not much about the trial. So the tittle is missleading
October 17, 2024
A solid and very readable biography of Marie Antoinette, though uneven. While a lot (and I mean A LOT) of time was spent on her childhood and early years in France, the final part dealing with her trial and execution felt a little rushed.
February 15, 2018
I enjoyed this author’s style of writing. I especially liked the beginning of the book. It was interesting to read about Marie Antoinette’s background, and then read about her experiences at first in the palace. Of course, in the end it takes a dark turn, and the political parts of the book were a little hard to follow. It’s definitely written with a bias for Marie Antoinette, but that’s OK by me, because I think she gets a bad rap that she doesn’t necessarily deserve. I wish there had been some kind of epilogue, or something at the end to tell us what happened with her children, and some of the other people who were a big part of her life. The end was very abrupt, which I guess maybe was the point. But, still, I would have liked a little follow up.
November 27, 2012
This is a good crash course on the life of Marie Antoinette and the circumstances that led to her death. Erickson is a highly sympathetic author, but she doesn't whitewash the monarchy's absurd extravagance (she notes in one chapter that the cost of maintaining the royal household was, at one time, fully a sixth of the national budget). On the whole, she does an excellent job telling the story of how the French monarchy refused to change with the world around it. It doesn't read like fiction, but she moves along at a good clip. If you're interested at all in Marie Antoinette and the French Revolution, this is a good place to start.
April 24, 2013
Great read; well researched story. Marie Antoinette was nothing like she has been generally portrayed; her famous quote "Let them eat cake", in this account, meant to allow them what she herself could eat. The teen aged King and Queen were untrained in business but good hearted.
September 26, 2017
3.5 stars.
Read for a uni assignment on the French Revolution.
Read for a uni assignment on the French Revolution.
July 9, 2023
This book was recommended to me by a man who overheard me talking to my dad about audiobooks while visiting my mom in the hospital a few years ago and I finally got around to it. Marie Antoinette has a reputation for being shallow, callous, not too bright, and given to spend large amounts of the public's money on extravagant and frivolous things while the common people starved. Of course, it turns out she was more complicated than that. This book doesn't break new ground for those already familiar with her, but it is a good introduction, written in an easy-to-understand style and narrated by the great Davina Porter.
Raised in Vienna, Marie Antoinette was the youngest daughter of Emperor Francis I and Empress Maria Theresa. As a child, she wasn't very good at reading and writing, but did better at art and music. At 14, she was married to 15-year-old Louis of France for political reasons. Louis wasn't particularly interested in marriage, didn't know what to do, and might have had some physical issues. It took 7 years, but eventually the marriage was consummated, and children produced.
Marie had been raised as royalty - she knew how to handle herself around Kings, Queens, and courtiers and loved fashion, balls, and such but the intrigue at Versailles was at another level and Louis was out of his depth as King.
The French government was heavily in debt, the harvest had been bad, and people were starving. The common people were ready to revolt. The high-living foreign born Queen was an easy target for those wanting a scapegoat for the economic problems. Marie wasn't unsympathetic to suffering and never said "Let them eat cake", but she didn't have the skills or the luck needed to save herself and her family.
In the end, I see her as a tragic figure. She wanted nothing more than to be a good wife and mother, be loved by her subjects, and enjoy beautiful things. Instead, only one of her four children lived to adulthood, the French people blamed her for their poverty, her husband was sentenced to death by bloodthirsty revolutionaries, and she followed him a few months later. She was never going to be Catherine the Great, but in a different time and place, she could have been Jackie Kennedy or Princess Diana. She deserves to be remembered as a person and not just as an evil caricature.
Raised in Vienna, Marie Antoinette was the youngest daughter of Emperor Francis I and Empress Maria Theresa. As a child, she wasn't very good at reading and writing, but did better at art and music. At 14, she was married to 15-year-old Louis of France for political reasons. Louis wasn't particularly interested in marriage, didn't know what to do, and might have had some physical issues. It took 7 years, but eventually the marriage was consummated, and children produced.
Marie had been raised as royalty - she knew how to handle herself around Kings, Queens, and courtiers and loved fashion, balls, and such but the intrigue at Versailles was at another level and Louis was out of his depth as King.
The French government was heavily in debt, the harvest had been bad, and people were starving. The common people were ready to revolt. The high-living foreign born Queen was an easy target for those wanting a scapegoat for the economic problems. Marie wasn't unsympathetic to suffering and never said "Let them eat cake", but she didn't have the skills or the luck needed to save herself and her family.
In the end, I see her as a tragic figure. She wanted nothing more than to be a good wife and mother, be loved by her subjects, and enjoy beautiful things. Instead, only one of her four children lived to adulthood, the French people blamed her for their poverty, her husband was sentenced to death by bloodthirsty revolutionaries, and she followed him a few months later. She was never going to be Catherine the Great, but in a different time and place, she could have been Jackie Kennedy or Princess Diana. She deserves to be remembered as a person and not just as an evil caricature.
February 12, 2024
Un’altra biografia avvincente, a dispetto delle mie aspettative da non amante del genere (che però si sta, pian piano, ricredendo).
Mi è piaciuta in particolare l’ultima parte, che racconta i giorni dalla presa della Bastiglia del 1789 fino alla condanna a morte di Maria Antonietta, dopo il marito Luigi XVI, nel 1793.
Di solito si tende a immaginare che il 14 luglio 1789 segni una rottura istantanea con l’Ancien Regime, invece nei due anni successivi il re Luigi rimase sul trono e anzi cercò addirittura di farsi amico del popolo. Luigi emerge però come un uomo debole, insicuro nelle proprie decisioni, per nulla adatto al ruolo di re.
Anche Maria Antonietta, diversamente dalla madre “super eroina” Maria Teresa, non possiede le capacità di governare un regno come la Francia.
Antonietta non coincinde del tutto con la figura della donna frivola e superficiale dell’immaginario comune (non pronunciò mai la frase “Se il popolo ha fame, che mangi brioche” - frase che alla sua epoca era già stata attribuita ad altre due donne della famiglia reale), tuttavia non riesce mai davvero a fare la differenza e farsi amare dal popolo francese. Rimane sempre ai margini della politica, non si fa coinvolgere nelle decisioni importanti, anzi spesso evade al suo Petit Trianon (il piccolo edificio di appena sette stanze donatole dal marito nel parco di Versailles), dove abbandona gli eccessi del palazzo reale per vivere in relativa semplicità a contatto con la natura.
Molto avvincente e particolareggiata la narrazione della fuga dei sovrani dal palazzo delle Tuileries, che non andrà a buon fine e verrà fermata entro ventiquattr’ore a Varennes, segnando così il destino dei due sovrani.
Mi è piaciuta in particolare l’ultima parte, che racconta i giorni dalla presa della Bastiglia del 1789 fino alla condanna a morte di Maria Antonietta, dopo il marito Luigi XVI, nel 1793.
Di solito si tende a immaginare che il 14 luglio 1789 segni una rottura istantanea con l’Ancien Regime, invece nei due anni successivi il re Luigi rimase sul trono e anzi cercò addirittura di farsi amico del popolo. Luigi emerge però come un uomo debole, insicuro nelle proprie decisioni, per nulla adatto al ruolo di re.
Anche Maria Antonietta, diversamente dalla madre “super eroina” Maria Teresa, non possiede le capacità di governare un regno come la Francia.
Antonietta non coincinde del tutto con la figura della donna frivola e superficiale dell’immaginario comune (non pronunciò mai la frase “Se il popolo ha fame, che mangi brioche” - frase che alla sua epoca era già stata attribuita ad altre due donne della famiglia reale), tuttavia non riesce mai davvero a fare la differenza e farsi amare dal popolo francese. Rimane sempre ai margini della politica, non si fa coinvolgere nelle decisioni importanti, anzi spesso evade al suo Petit Trianon (il piccolo edificio di appena sette stanze donatole dal marito nel parco di Versailles), dove abbandona gli eccessi del palazzo reale per vivere in relativa semplicità a contatto con la natura.
Molto avvincente e particolareggiata la narrazione della fuga dei sovrani dal palazzo delle Tuileries, che non andrà a buon fine e verrà fermata entro ventiquattr’ore a Varennes, segnando così il destino dei due sovrani.
January 20, 2018
It is a good read. I would agree that she had been mistreated historically. Her and her King were not well prepared at all for royal duties prior to their coronation. And the Kings who was to do that was not an effective or good king at all. He is as much to blame in if not more , in my view, for this financial fiasco as the royal family that paid with their lives. His incessant preoccupation with Madam Du Barry who was not a lady. And her antics helped France nothing and invested in its future not a damn thing.
Antoinette, who did go overboard with spending with a country that didn't have it to give, I found to be a loving and good mother and wife. And both monarchs definitely loved their citizens.
There is a lot more I could say about the things that sealed their fate, but in my view the jist of this mess starts with the aforementioned and it is a treacherous uphill climb from there because of it.
Antoinette, who did go overboard with spending with a country that didn't have it to give, I found to be a loving and good mother and wife. And both monarchs definitely loved their citizens.
There is a lot more I could say about the things that sealed their fate, but in my view the jist of this mess starts with the aforementioned and it is a treacherous uphill climb from there because of it.
August 8, 2023
I didn’t know much about the French queen Marie Antoinette, so when this book popped up in my recommendations, I was excited to read it. The book appears to be well researched and this author’s writing style appeals to me very much.
This book was a fascinating read! Beginning with Marie Antoinette’s childhood, the author gives us a very detailed account of her background, leading the reader through her life events and eventually her death at the hands of the revolutionaries. With meticulous attention to detail, Erickson describes the royal family’s personal and court lives, and paints a vivid picture of the political turmoil that led up to the French Revolution.
This book reads like fiction and I found it to be extremely interesting and informative. I highly recommend this one if you’re interested in Marie Antoinette or this period of time in French history. And I will be reading more books by this author!
This book was a fascinating read! Beginning with Marie Antoinette’s childhood, the author gives us a very detailed account of her background, leading the reader through her life events and eventually her death at the hands of the revolutionaries. With meticulous attention to detail, Erickson describes the royal family’s personal and court lives, and paints a vivid picture of the political turmoil that led up to the French Revolution.
This book reads like fiction and I found it to be extremely interesting and informative. I highly recommend this one if you’re interested in Marie Antoinette or this period of time in French history. And I will be reading more books by this author!
May 1, 2019
I can't really put my finger on why I didn't like this better than I did. I think part of it may have been that, while quite sympathetic toward Marie Antoinette, there didn't seem to be many attempts to humanize the other people in her life, or to show them in a sympathetic light. There was some speculation, but not too bad. And the comma splices just about drove me crazy.
About the cake: I never knew this legend had been previously told about another, previous queen of France (the wife of Louis XIV) as well as one of the aunts of Louis XVI. It makes me wonder how such a story got started in the first place, but also why it appears to have been told only about women.
About the cake: I never knew this legend had been previously told about another, previous queen of France (the wife of Louis XIV) as well as one of the aunts of Louis XVI. It makes me wonder how such a story got started in the first place, but also why it appears to have been told only about women.
March 17, 2018
Very well-researched. Erickson's writing SHINES in historical biographies. Her writing is gentle, so observant, meticulous, and beautiful, as though she sees and captures beauty and mystery and intrigue and even sorrow and misery beneath the fabric of a royal monarchy, that most of us miss. It's a pleasant surprise because her historical novel "The Hidden Diary of Marie Antoinette" significantly pales in comparison; as I think she has articulated events following the French Revolution in the biography more effectively.
November 15, 2018
To the Scaffold: The Life of Marie Antoinette was the best work I have read of Carolly Erickson. It was well-written, thoroughly researched, and readable. Erickson, like any author of Marie Antoinette does spend time speculating on the relationship between the Queen and the Swedish officer, Axel von Fersen, it is not blown out of proportion. Erickson focuses on the politics of the era, the Queen's inability to recognize the danger she is in (due to the great dislike the people of Paris have towards her) and her life, as can be reconstructed, in imprisonment.
January 8, 2024
This book does a really good job covering the French Revolution from before it was even conceived to the moment Marie Antoinette loses her head. It brings Maria Antoinette, Louis XVI, and a few other interesting historic personages to life with all their good and bad qualities intact. I did think the notes were a little sparse - it was difficult to tell how Erickson came to all her conclusions about how people felt, what they intended, etc, sometimes.
August 10, 2019
I'm really glad I decided to read this book. It's informative and really gives us a good insight into Marie Antoinette's life and how she was as a person. It also gives us insight into the French Revolution and of the events that led to it. Tragic, yet a joy to read.
February 27, 2020
Louis the16th inherited a bad government, incapable to fixed, was treated unjustly with the family. If all judge or leader by there wealth and what there to with there money, we would have revolutions in every country off this world.
November 24, 2025
I learned so much from this book! Erickson is an amazing author. I have always thought of Marie Antoinette as a spoiled brat, but this book showed a completely different woman. She was strong and smart and the French rebels were the morons.
January 30, 2018
Light reading about the Queen we hate and love.
March 4, 2018
The life of Marie Antoinette really comes to life, making her death even more tragic in the French Revolution
August 3, 2019
Beautifully written
September 11, 2019
Another great unwinding of a complicated characters life. The author really made the time period and the people in all their complexities interesting and understandable.
June 18, 2020
An excellent book. Many details that are not well known.
July 3, 2021
Overall an interesting story, but it went on to long and I lost interest with about 75 pages left.
November 18, 2021
Not my favorite biography on Marie Antoinette, but I did like it!
Displaying 1 - 30 of 75 reviews