Marie Antoinette: The Last Queen of France

by Évelyne Lever

In MARIE ANTOINETTE, Evelyn Lever draws on a variety of resources, including diaries, letters, and firsthand accounts, to write this sumptuous, addictive delight. From family life in Vienna to the choke of the guillotine, this gripping work combines a fast-paced historical narrative with all the elements of scandalous fiction: Marie's wedding at Versailles to Louis XVI, the French court, boredom, hypocrisy, loneliness, allies, enemies, scandal, intrigue, sex, peasant riots, the fall of the Bastille, mob rule in Paris, imprisonment, and, finally, execution.

From primary source documents Lever fashions an insightful glimpse into the French court at Versailles. The characters of court are expertly drawn. There is the dashing Axel Fersen, Marie's great love; Maria Theresa, the scheming mother trying to place her daughter on the Hapsburg throne; the legendary Madame du Barry, lover to Louis XV; and, of course, Marie herself.

Luxuriously evocative of the Versailles court, historically sharp and witty, and detailing the compelling story of Marie Antoinette's life, Evelyn Lever's biography entrances readers.

Genres: History, Biography, Nonfiction, France, Historical, 18th Century, Royalty

368 pages, Paperback

First published March 6, 1991

About the author

Évelyne Lever est une historienne contemporaine.

Elle occupait la fonction d'ingénieur de recherche au C.N.R.S. et devient spécialiste de l'histoire du XVIIIe siècle. Elle est aussi l'auteur de nombreux livres sur la vie de Marie Antoinette et de Louis XVI.

Passionnée par la vie de certaines femmes du XVIIIe siècle (comme la favorite de Louis XV Madame de Pompadour), Évelyne Lever retrace dans certaines de ses œuvres leurs parcours. Elle est aussi l'épouse de l'histoiren Maurice Lever.

From Wikipedia

Reviews

[Nika · Rating 2 out of 5]

Marie Antoinette needs no introduction. She was the last French queen of l'ancien régime. She reigned in Versailles, became the target of vitriolic pamphlets, and was executed during the French Revolution. Marie Antoinette's life in France began with crowds enthusiastically greeting the young dauphine's arrival. Nobody would have known at the time the radical twist her fate was going to take.
Marie Antoinette's legacy is controversial and continues to provoke conflicting assessments. Some authors admired her, some condemned her, and few attempted to understand her. Did this biography remedy this? I would not say so. However, it has some strong points.

This biography covers the entire life of Marie Antoinette, from her relatively carefree childhood at the Viennese court as an Austrian archduchess, to her arranged marriage to the future Louis XVI, to her tragic death on the scaffold during the French Revolution.
We learn about the infamous “necklace affair” (the author considers several possible versions and believes that it is impossible to establish the truth in this case) and the aborted “flight to Varennes" when the royal family was caught and taken back to Paris.
The queen's relationship with her Austrian relatives is described in detail. Her mother, Maria Theresa, and brother regularly reminded Marie Antoinette of her duties to her homeland, without considering how promoting Austrian interests could be reconciled with her role as queen of France. This position of double loyalty naturally created problems for Marie Antoinette at the French court.

Despite seemingly trying to paint a nuanced picture, Lever often reproduces clichés about the queen and her royal husband.
Thus, she frames the queen as an emphatically arrogant and frivolous spendthrift, omitting to mention her numerous acts of charity. Of course, Marie Antoinette spent a great deal, and it was a time of financial crisis when the poor struggled to afford food. But other members of the royal family, including the king's brothers and aunts, were no less extravagant in their expenditures than the queen. The whole atmosphere at court encouraged extravagance and excess. It would suffice to mention that money flowed like wine at the card table, and the members of the royal family did not worry about getting into debt.
Lever claims that immediately after the execution of King Louis XVI, Marie Antoinette curtsied before her young son, acknowledging him as the new sovereign. However, this scene is most likely apocryphal. The deposed queen must have been too devastated to think about the rules of etiquette at that juncture.
Some of the passages in which she discusses Louis XVI reveal what could be called unscientific subjectivity and certain bias. Say, "the unfortunate Dauphin remained a sluggish and slow-witted husband alongside his beautiful wife."

One of the relative strengths is the book's approach to the French Revolution. The author does not (openly) take sides, seeking to provide a brief explanation of the complex context and the events that led to the revolutionary explosion. However, the narrative is too shallow in places, and some of the author's remarks can be misinterpreted without prior knowledge.
For example, the author writes that the king had a conflict with representatives of the new government over religion, but does not explain that this was about a law requiring all priests to swear allegiance to the constitution, thus making them dependent on the state rather than on papal authority (which, of course, could not please the Vatican). Louis, who was raised in traditional Catholicism, did not want to sign this law, but he was ultimately forced to give in.
The tragic conflict between the logic of monarchy, which rejected the limitation of its power by the constitution, and the logic of revolution, which demanded rapid changes to the social order, is presented relatively well.

Although this account of the French queen's life does the basic job, it seems rather superficial and contributes little to the discussion. If you are looking for an accessible biography of Marie Antoinette that takes in all the significant events in her life, I would recommend Antonia Fraser's biography of Marie Antoinette instead of this one. Compared to Lever's account, Fraser delves deeper into detail and demonstrates a greater understanding and interest in Marie Antoinette's personality.
Various authors have attempted to reinterpret and reshape the image of the queen, thereby influencing popular perceptions of this historical figure. One might think of the difference between the real Marie Antoinette and her portrayal in this book.
All in all, Marie Antoinette's life remains an example of someone born into great privilege who had it all and then lost it all.

~ 2.25 stars

[Emma Deplores Goodreads Censorship · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this Marie Antoinette biography, by a French historian, in tandem with another with the same title by a British historian, which made for a particularly interesting exercise. Fortunately, both books are quite good. There’s a wealth of information out there about Marie Antoinette and the authors often chose different details to highlight, which kept both interesting, but reading them together makes the books almost impossible to separate now!

This biography was abridged on translation, with the result that it has only 309 pages of text, which makes for a concise and lively telling of Marie Antoinette’s life. Lever’s research seems thorough and her writing is engaging, though quite colorful and opinionated. She cuts through nonsense to get to the point, particularly in her explanation of the Diamond Necklace Affair, which is hopelessly muddled from many writers (from this telling it’s unclear why people find it so complicated: a con woman tricked a cardinal into buying a valuable necklace “for the queen,” pretending to be her go-between, and actually just sold the necklace herself). I’m surprised so many reviewers have criticized Lever for “disliking” Marie Antoinette: first because I’m unconvinced being a partisan is desirable in a biographer, and second because Lever clearly does sympathize with her hapless subject quite a bit, though without being blind to her faults and mistakes.

Here’s the gist of what I learned from both books: despite her exalted position, Marie Antoinette was basically the world’s most average person. In a way, it’s refreshing to read a biography of someone so personally unexceptional—for most of her life, a party girl who couldn’t be bothered to understand politics—and unsuccessful—to the extent Marie Antoinette stood for anything, it was the maintenance of absolute monarchy in France (which she did believe in strongly come the Revolution, at which point she discovered some personal strength and grace under pressure). Most biographies, after all, are about incredible people, while Marie Antoinette would probably be forgotten if not for her beheading. That said, she wasn’t as personally abhorrent as many made her out to be: she probably didn’t say “let them eat cake” (a phrase attributed to various French royal women before she ever came along) and did engage in some charity and attempt to bring up her children with some semblance of humility. She did attempt to promote Austria’s interests at court, under severe pressure from her family back home (who married her off to the dauphin at the age of 14) and her mother’s ambassador, but was generally unsuccessful at swaying policy. I suspect looking out for their homelands’ interests is standard for foreign-born queens, and that the larger problem was that the French hated the Austrian alliance so much.

Both authors are very sympathetic to Marie Antoinette and come across as weirdly monarchist for modern writers. For instance, both seem outraged by revolutionary offenses such as failures to kneel. But Fraser is the much more partisan of the two. Lever frankly calls it treason when the former queen, while the royal family is held hostage in Paris, attempts to incite a foreign invasion to rescue them, and passes on information about French troop movements to her friends abroad. Fraser argues that as a prisoner she had no culpability. Lever highlights Marie Antoinette’s ill-fated attempt to control judicial decisions around the Diamond Necklace Affair while Fraser does not, though both agree that she had no involvement in the scam, which nonetheless tarnished her reputation because it seemed in line with her general behavior. Lever doesn’t go to Fraser’s lengths to justify Marie Antoinette’s extravagance, although she also doesn’t take much issue with it.

Lever is also much more comfortable than Fraser with the notion of Marie Antoinette’s affairs: she spends a lot of time on the Swedish Count Fersen, whom she believes to be the love of the queen’s life, and is willing to accept that she also flirted with others. Both have little time for the allegations that the queen had affairs with close female friends as well, and even less for the claims that she molested her young son. Both authors do have a tendency to make bold statements about people’s feelings that aren’t always supported, and are pretty clearly drawing their own conclusions based on their research.

It was fascinating to see this up-close-and-personal view of the French Revolution, but at the same time, I can’t entirely share these authors’ sympathies. Marie Antoinette may not have been extraordinary in her spending or debauchery, but she and all the royals were still parasites on society, living off the toil of ill-paid workers and slaves across France and its colonies. Her story is sad but no more important than any of theirs. It’s interesting to see all the ways Louis XVI bungled everything to do with the revolution though. He seems to have been too unimaginative, indecisive and awkward to lead but too conservative and intransigent to follow, with the result that he more or less let the revolution happen, pretended to go along with it but then lost its leaders’ trust when they realized he’d been lying all along.

The final odd thing about reading two biographies side-by-side is the number of inconsistent facts, not just the authors’ views on people’s feelings, but concrete details. Was Jeanne de la Motte’s husband sentenced in absentia to the galleys (Lever) or flogging, branding and life imprisonment (Fraser)? Was baby Sophie missing from the family portrait of Marie Antoinette and her children because she had already died and been painted out (Fraser) or because she wasn’t yet born, while the cradle was painted to show anticipation (Lever)? When Madame de Polignac went into exile, did she have a tearful good-bye scene with the king and queen (Fraser) or out of fear of spies, did Marie Antoinette only send her a note and some money (Lever)? Since both authors seem to have done original research, perhaps they relied on different sources; I don’t have the information to say whether one’s research is better than the other’s.

At any rate, to those interested in the subject, or who enjoy colorful stories from history, this book is definitely worth a read—as is Fraser’s for those who want an expanded or more partisan version. This one has very few color plates, but at least its family tree is useful! I enjoyed this book and learned from it, and I’d really like to see more biographies in translation; while I didn’t feel while reading it that I was missing out, it’s a shame the publishers felt the need to abridge this one.

[Lois · Rating 4 out of 5]

When I read this a decade ago all I knew about Marie Antoinette was what I had read in Antonia Fraser's book as well as what I had seen in Coppola's movie.
This author is French and her viewpoints and perspective weigh more than less impacted authors opinions.
I think this is a rigorous but fair look at the legendary queen.
For more updated info I'd suggest John Hardman's 2020 bio & Munro Price's 'The Fall of the French Monarchy' for understanding of the revolution and events leading to that.

[Lori · Rating 4 out of 5]

I jumped on the Marie Antoinette bandwagon with this book after seeing the movie with Kirsten Dunst--which wonderfully filmed, but not much meat too it. I enjoyed the author's attempt to stay unbiased, although you could tell that she had a soft spot for the queen, she didn't hesitate to point out her flaws. Some of the things she had to go through while she was waiting to be executed were horrible, and almost hard to read about. All in all, although I suspect this book suffered a bit in translation from the French, it was a good biography.

[Zosi · Rating 3 out of 5]

A little bit dry for my taste and it seems like the author pitied Marie Antoinette but didn’t really like her and that influences how she writes. An interesting read, but maybe not my first choice in biographies.

[Simon · Rating 2 out of 5]

Lever feels sorry for Marie Antoinette, although past a certain point she sort of throws up her hands because the woman literally did nothing but make poor choices. However, it is painfully obvious that Maria Theresa sent her badly-educated, not-very-bright teenage daughter (14!) to the most treacherous court in Europe without much concern for the girl herself. This was somewhat of a track record for the Habsburg empress, who had previously dispatched Antonia's sisters to marry equally badly in Italy, although the consequences weren't quite as severe. Marie Antoinette never twigged to the fact that her mother/brother's ambassador to Versailles, Mercy, was providing a back-door channel about her behavior to Vienna. The Queen was constantly mystified by the fact that her mother knew every single detail of her life. At one point Marie Antoinette gives the cold shoulder to her visiting sister Cristina because she assumes the sibling has been sending Maria Theresa Belgian newspapers from what were referred to as the Austrian Netherlands, where Cristina and her husband were holding down the Firm's interests. The Habsburgs rode the Austrian Queen of France mercilessly. She was there to advance imperial interests, period. Given how few French really wanted the alliance to begin with, such a task would have strained the resources of a smart adult. Marie Antoinette didn't become an emotional adult until the Revolution, and she never did display much brain power.

Her description of the Necklace Affair is excellent, providing absolute clarity for the motivations, timeline, and most importantly --- how neither Louis XVI or Marie Antoinette realized that by pursuing the Cardinal de Rohan through the legal system they used, the Queen's reputation was doomed. Lever also unearths some interesting evidence about the royal marriage: even after they were bullied into consummation, neither the King or Queen were assiduous about their conjugal duties. Louis emerges as someone with genuine emotional difficulties, although Lever's psycho-historical approach to his sexual history is less interesting than the simple documentation of how many times he tried to instigate relations. Not many. Marie Antoinette was frankly bored by her husband's lovemaking skills; since her reading was limited to trashy romance, according to Lever, that isn't surprising. Lever comes down more or less on the side of "of course they did!" about whether Fersen and Marie Antoinette did the deed. More or less, although the letters that only emerged in the last quarter of the 20th century are convincing enough. In the end, Lever argues, it doesn't matter if the romance was physically consummated. Fersen was the emotional love of her life.

Lever correctly points out that those who knew Marie Antoinette during her lifetime had a far different view of the last Queen of France than that promoted post-1793. She calls what happened "hagiography", and that estimation is dead on target. There is an arresting anecdote when the child Marie-Therese, Madame Royale, coolly tells her mother's friend Abbe Vermond that she wishes Marie Antoinette would have died in an accident. You can make more of that than it deserves, but it at least suggests the possibility that Madame Royale's devotion to her mother's memory post-execution may have been caused by residual guilt for not loving her Mom as much as she did Dad. In any event, the entire sad family paid an enormous price for 15 years of dilettantish behavior. Marie Antoinette wanted the perks of being Queen of France without accepting the responsibilities. Creating a beautiful garden around the Trianon, a series of attractive private rooms that allowed her to entertain without formality, and a taste for faux-pastoral living and private theatricals do not excuse a relentless inability to work on behalf of the nation. There was no actual model of a French Queen who did --- the consorts of Louis XIV and Louis XV were colorless nonentities, and that took it back over 100 years. On the other hand, there were plenty of bad examples of royal favorites who were blamed for all sorts of nonsense. Pompadour was dead by the time Marie Antoinette arrived at Versailles, but DuBarry was very much around. The problem for the Queen was that her husband was either uxorious or completely uninterested in sexual relationships (Lever has her opinions on that, trust me), so Marie Antoinette, whose devotion to luxury and general "filles just wanna have fun!" attitude until the Revolution made her the perfect substitute for a blameworthy mistress in the eyes of the kingdom.

What a mess this poor woman made. Moreover, she and her husband, who lacked the affect to be an absolute monarch, took their children and his sister over a cliff with them. I always find it a bit chilling that Empress Alexandra Feodorovna of Russia was devoted to the memory of Marie Antoinette given the fate of OTMAA and the Dauphin.

And yet. She died well (although she also died having lied her way through her trial; there is no question that Marie Antoinette had committed treason in her written communications with enemies of both the constitutional monarchy and then the Republic). In the end, it all falls away, the stupid hairdos, the playacting at artificial simplicity while her subjects starved, the jewels, the emotional dependence upon unworthy people, all of it, leaving only the image of a haggard woman in a white chemise dragged to her death. Her last recorded words, to the executioner upon whose foot she stepped: "Monsieur, I beg your pardon. I did not do it on purpose." It was a breathtaking and entirely apt epitaph.

[Nel · Rating 3 out of 5]

A concise overview of her life with plentiful illustrations.

[Mary Anne · Rating 5 out of 5]

I found this book to be so well written that I lost myself in the story. I could almost forget it was nonfiction and found myself increasingly concerned that it would not end well for my heroine. The biography of Marie Antoinette by Antonia Fraser was the basis for the Sofia Coppola movie that was released a couple of years ago and it is nearly as good, but I preferred this version. Well worth reading and then follow up with
A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens. You're in for some fine reading.

[Andria Potter · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was very informative and though it was slow at times and a struggle to keep up with all the dates, I enjoyed this. Marie Antoinette is one of my most favorite historical figures, certainly in the top ten spot, and this was a pleasant surprise with how good this was. I loved the historical details and notes and records, all seemed accurate and on point. There were times I had to stop and think over what I've read and other times I had to translate a word or two. As I rarely read nonfiction these days, this was enjoyable and I'm definitely giving it 5 ⭐.

[Madame Histoire · Rating 2 out of 5]

CONTENU

Etant un livre court, il ne faut pas s’attendre à une étude biographique approfondie de la vie de MA. Lever n’hésite pas a simplifier les événements et à utiliser les clichés populaires : la reine frivole, le roi mou, le bel amant…
Le tout est écrit en paragraphes courts et thématiques, qui rend l’ouvrage un peu sec. Les trop nombreux titre cassent la fluidité de lecture.

Signalons aussi que le titre est trompeur ! MA fut la dernière reine « de France », mais pas la dernière reine tout court, car il y a encore les reines « des Français » du XIXème siècle. Et ce n’est malheureusement pas la seule « petite erreur » de cet ouvrage…

Bien que les écrits pour le grand public soient généralement simplifiés, je suis déçue qu’une historienne reconnue spécialiste du sujet ne propose ici qu’une introduction vulgaire à une reine et un moment historique si riches et passionnants.

VERSIONS AUDIO / PAPIER

Ceci est la version audio de
Evelyne Lever, Marie-Antoinette : La dernière reine, GALLIMARD, 2000, 144 pages
ISBN : 2070535223

La version papier étant illustrée, il me semble que ce n’était pas le livre à adapter en version audio — ou du moins, pas sans le retravailler. Car il y a trop souvent des légendes des illustrations (que l’on ne voit pas donc !) lâchées en plein milieu du texte, ce qui est perturbant pour le lecteur-auditeur… Je ne recommande par conséquent pas la version audio.

[Mrs. Fujiwara · Rating 5 out of 5]

I clearly remember my Contemporary History classes at college when my Professor showed us draws done by Republicans execrating Marie Antoinette's persona. I remember because that shocked me a lot; I could not understand how a person, a woman, a mother and a queen would fall so low in the view of her own people. That was when my interest in her figure started and as soon as I began reading articles and biographies about her, she became one of my favorite characters in History. This book by the French Historian Evelyne Lever is actually one of my favorites up until now. She has a very soft writing and with the help of court diaries she did an amazing job portraying the real face of Antoinette. And through her book I saw a girl, raised in luxury, married at a young age and forced to accept a responsibility and a role that never fitted her personality. I also saw a zealous mother and a lady that loved her husband, although passion she only felt once and for the apparently charming Axel Fersen. But above all else I was terrible surprised by the way the Revolution was conducted and the way the Royal family suffered until the very end. After being targeted from all sides during the last court days, with the end of the Monarchy she saw herself without friends, without home, without hope, with the perspective of losing her family and yet she did not lose her dignity. I could not even picture the agony she felt imagining her husband being decapitated while patiently waited for her turn. And end up condemned for incest? Absolutely outrageous! Wonderful history book conducted as the most agreeable novel.

[Axie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Frivola e sentimentale. Inadatta al suo ruolo e ben diversa da Maria Teresa d'Austria, sua madre. Alla fine mi dono trovata ad amarla, per il trattamento riservatole.
Un ottimo saggio storico che ci offre la narrazione di una fase storica tumultuosa.

[Marie Capet · Rating 2 out of 5]

Marie Antoinette: The Last Queen of France (Paperback)
by Evelyne Lever

What I liked: I liked a history from a French perspective. I'd read too many from Brits and Americans and that can skew a girl's perspectives.
I also liked the little details i hadn't yet read, like her spats with Madame de Polignac regarding Lomenie de Brienne.
What gave me pause: I don't think she liked Marie Antoinette much (I'm going to get in trouble for that, I know). And I feel like, as an historian, she didn't look critically enough at sources for certain issues (such as her supposed affair with Axel von Fersen. For the record, I hope they did have an affair, but I question some of the sources Lever gave weight to).
Should you read it? Sure. If you are only going to read one bio, I'd recommend Antonia Fraser's The Journey, only because I feel it is more broad and thorough and while it is sympathetic, it is more balanced. If you are going to read 3 or more biographies, you should totally include this one.

[Rebecca Huston · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't enjoy this biography about Marie Antoinette very much, despite a valiant try to do so. I found it to be rather frivolous and fluffy, and not that interesting. Others opinions may be different however.

For the complete review, please go here:
http://www.epinions.com/review/Marie_...

[Stacey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kings and queens and palaces, oh my! Fascinating from beginning to end.

[Kay · Rating 2 out of 5]

I found this a gruelling listen, though the narrator was more than adequate and the biographer had clearly done her research. Still, research didn't help the book feel grounded--as someone relatively unfamiliar with the era beyond the basics, I wish she had contextualized Marie Antoinette's life and actions better in the context of France, political Europe, and the very concept of monarchy as a whole. As it was, the book focused excessively on Marie Anoinette, and there were large portions of the text which were just lists of ... stuff. Parties, dresses, hairdos, &c. Another reviewer called this book "fluffy" and I'd agree. After a while I dreaded listening to it on my commute.

All that said, Marie Antoinette was an interesting person during an interesting time, I definitely did leave the story with a better grip of how the French Revolution happened, and what kind of person Marie Antoinette was.

[Emilija · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a well researched biography, but I really struggled to get through it. Lever was good in that she remains impartial throughout, though I did feel that she had a soft spot for Marie Antoinette through reading, however, there were a lot of conversations and emotions involved, and it feels like a lot of it was inferred. It was good, it just wasn’t brilliant.

[Nanci · Rating 4 out of 5]

The ratings vary widely on this biography, but I found it to be well-written and chock full of intriguing accounts of the "most hated queen". The author is French, and it's fairly obvious she's not too keen on Marie Antoinette, but outside of her bias showing occasionally, she did a fine job. Some parts were a bit dry and read slow, but most of the book I found to be fascinating and at the end I. felt like I had a good understanding of the queen and her life.

[Aurélie · Rating 3 out of 5]

L'histoire de Marie-Antoinette me fascine toujours autant, mais je n'ai pas spécialement apprécié cette lecture, trop décousue et incomplète à mon goût. De superbes documents l'illustrent cependant.

[jmilesc · Rating 4 out of 5]

Read before trip to France. Learned a lot. Not my favorite book, but worth reading.

[Lauralee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Marie Antoinette has always been one of history’s most hated figures. She is known to be the evil queen of France, whose response while watching her subjects starve was, “Let them eat cake!” Indeed, my French grandmother told me stories of Marie Antoinette’s horrible evil deeds that would scare as a child. My grandmothers first words of the story was, “Marie Antoinette was evil, so very evil.” Indeed, at the end of her tale, my grandmother would say, “It was a good thing for Marie Antoinette to be beheaded. She deserved it because she did not care about her people.” However, in Evelyn Lever’s biography of Marie Antoinette, I got the opportunity to separate fact from fiction. It turns out that Marie Antoinette did not say, “Let them eat cake.” Instead, this book tells the tragic tale of Marie Antoinette’s life starting from her idyllic life in the court of Austria to the end of her life at the French guillotine.

Marie Antoinette, in the beginning of the biography, is described as lazy. She did not like to study and would like to play with her siblings and put on plays. At 14, her mother used her as a pawn to strengthen Austria’s alliances with the most powerful country at that time, France. When she married the Crown Prince of France, Marie Antoinette is stubborn, judgemental, easily gullible, and naive. She makes the wrong decisions that will eventually lead to the French Revolution. During the French Revolution, we readers do admire her courage, and we feel sorry for her losing both her husband and her children.

Overall, this is a balanced biography of Marie Antoinette. Marie Antoinette lived a sad life, for even at the court, there were pressures that were demanded of her, and when she did not fulfill those pressures, she was mocked, slandered, and criticized. Her life is both a horror story and a morality tale. Indeed unlike the fiction in my grandmother’s tales, I found Marie Antoinette to be a victim rather than a villain. I would recommend this book to anyone interested in history, and who is interested in learning about the true story of Marie Antoinette.

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

[Sara · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was a little disappointed by this book. It skimmed over her childhood and early years and went into heavier detail in the beginning of the revolution etc. It mentioned people and events that I hadn't heard of (I've studied Marie Antoinette before) and had quite a bit of exclamation marks which seemed a little immature for a biography. Only once did she actually mention that there may be different opinions about the time and for the rest of it it seemed like more reciting of facts. She also seemed very biased in not liking Marie and critiquing her behaviour. With that said it broke down some events that I didn't quite understand previously so I would recommend it for those looking for a light read into the topic. Antonia Fraser is one I would send you too in terms of better writing and material though.

[Rosalee 'Leah' Thrum · Rating 3 out of 5]

Evelyn's Levers research for this book is amazing! Referenced with facts and details - illustrates her knowledge from restoring old documents of the time. While Mary Antoinette's life was frivolous- I would have preferred more depth to the people, more personality than just names. It shows how people can be stirred up to hatred from a very one sided story- to for a death she should never have been convicted.

[Alexandra · Rating 5 out of 5]

"One evening she sat in the middle of the room," Madame Campan writes, "recounting several unusual things that had happened during the day. There were four candles on her dressing table. The first went out on its own, I lit it again; soon the second and third also went out. At that point the Queen grasped my hand in terror, and said: ‘Misfortune can make a person superstitious; if the fourth candle also goes out, I would regard it as a very bad omen.’" The fourth candle went out.

I can’t even put into words how much I love this book. I’m not used to thinking that non-fiction literature can evoke such strong emotions, but the author’s style allowed me to completely immerse myself in what I was reading. The chapters about Marie Antoinette’s life at Versailles before the start of the French Revolution made me happy; the chapters about the escape, when they crept through Paris in the middle of the night disguised as peasants, made my heart skip a beat; and everything related to her imprisonment and execution brought me to tears. Not every fiction book has managed to make me feel such intense emotions — and I’ve read plenty of those.

The life of the last queen of France was truly incredible. Honestly, I can’t believe someone from the real world could live through all of that. No matter how many words have been said about Marie Antoinette, I can’t feel anything but sorrow for her. Just imagine: at fourteen years old, she had to travel to France to meet her future husband, was stopped at the border and forced to change into French clothing, and ended up at the very center of a royal court that resembled a snake pit. She met her uncommunicative husband and was constantly under pressure from her family… The tradition of public childbirth made my skin crawl.
One of the saddest things is that Marie Antoinette desperately needed a place where she could be herself. Where she would be treated like a normal girl. Where she could wear simple dresses. It’s incredible, but at that time, a “ordinary” life was a luxury for a queen.
I’ve always been fascinated by her relationship with her children, and I’m happy that the author described them in such detail. Of course, I slightly missed mentions of her adopted children, but I’m not sure that information was already available when the book was written.
Fersen, of course, is a man. To try until the very end to save the woman he loved (I prefer to think they really were lovers), to take such a risk, and to grieve for her for so long. Although the confession that he even felt aversion toward Eleonore made me laugh.
And the end of her life — it’s an absolute nightmare. Every day, even before her arrest, living in constant fear for her life and the lives of her children and husband, whom Marie Antoinette seemed to value even more than her own. I can’t imagine what a woman must feel when she orders protection for her own husband from stab wounds; what a woman must feel when her beloved son is taken from her. And the things that this family experienced in their final years seem humiliating even to me. What must a royal-born woman from the 18th century have felt when a guard sat on her bed just to talk? Louis’ tears, Marie Antoinette’s illnesses — poor, poor people. And the saddest thing is that she believed until the very end that someone would save her. Austria, perhaps, or an honest court, which in the end blamed her for all of her husband’s actions (nothing new). What a tragedy.

Probably the main thought I took away from reading this book is yet another reminder that you truly can’t say whether a ruler was good or bad. Everyone had both good and bad decisions. It’s impossible to say which ones led to the revolution, and what could have been done to avoid it. But the royal family did not deserve such torment before death. That, I am sure of.

The only flaw of this book (aside from the print quality, for which the author of course bears no responsibility) is its age. This biography was published over thirty years ago. I was extremely upset to see in the epilogue that the fate of Louis XVII was still a mystery — until I learned that the DNA analysis of the heart was carried out nine years later. There must be other information that is now outdated, but if that doesn’t bother you, I strongly recommend reading this book.

[Meredith · Rating 3 out of 5]

Took me almost two months to read. Yeah.

I just...yeah.

Honestly, this isn't a "bad book" per se, it's just...long. Like, VERY LONG. And I don't mean page wise/word count etc, (I've read much longer) but in terms of the sheer deluge of information Mme Lever drowns the reader in.

I'm impressed to be sure. I didn't know half the things about Marie Antoinette that I thought I did, and even those that I was certain of, seemed more to be half-truths than anything. Lever brings this up several times throughout the text, stating frankly that thanks to cavalier censors and ashamed family members etc, there is a great deal of Madame La Dauphine that we will simply never know for certain. However, Lever has had (what appears to be anyway) nearly unprecedented access to personal letters, records, and various correspondence between the Royal family, numerous courtiers, political figures, revolutionaries, and even previously "burned" letters between Count Fersen and the Queen. She states quite plainly that many of these aforementioned letters are in fact, "heavily censored," and that much can be gleaned from the uncensored portions, but that the rest is up for debate.

I initially got this book because according to one of the 1,000 book/editor websites/listservs/email lists I am a member of not only highly recommended it, but it was also touted as, "reading like an historical fiction novel." A true account of the infamous Marie Antoinette? Last and arguably most fabulous Queen of France? Written as if like historical fiction? Count me in!

I had that reaction til about 50 pages in when it dawned on me that Lever didn't exactly like the former Bourbon...she HATES her. Numerous times over the course of the text she refers to the Dauphine as, "ignorant," "desperate," and even "pathetic." I'm sorry but how in the HELL can you purport to write an almost wholly biographical novel about an historical figure, and then insert your own latent Robespierre-esque feelings towards them in said book?! Goodness! She does however relent that much of Marie Antoinette's life was spent as the "political pawn" of her mother, Marie Therese, the Austrian envoy, Mercy, and later her brothers Joseph and Leopold, and that much of her behavior can be attributed to said person's interference.

I am still not entirely certain what Lever was going for here. Yes, I fully accept that this tome was translated from French, (je parle francais) and so perhaps some of the nuance may be muddled, but it seems that she was talking out of both sides of her mouth here: Marie Antoinette, (or, "l'Autrichienne" as she is callously referred to by both Lever and the French people) is vilified for spending millions continually renovating Trianon, putting on plays with other courtiers, possibly having a long-standing affair with Count Axel von Fersen, partying all night long, ignoring her subjects' pleas for help etc, and in the next, shamelessly vindicated for her actions because she was constantly deceived by Mercy, used unceremoniously as a pawn by her mother and brother to further the interests of Austria, regardless of her own health or happiness, and was essentially just window dressing for Louis XVI and the French Monarchy. She was given no REAL power OR purpose aside from delivering a Dauphin, and is therefore pitiable.

Lever retains this sad persona through to the end of the text, when both "Citizen Capet" and "his wife" are imprisoned and subsequently beheaded for supposed, "high treason."

[Valentina Venturini · Rating 4 out of 5]

Una biografía increíblemente bien escrita e hipnotizadora. Leyéndola se puede comprender profundamente bien la figura de María Antonieta y como la opinión pública, guiada por falsos y frívolos rumores, la demonizó excesivamente, culpándola de todos los males de Francia desde su llegada.
El libro brinda datos no solo sobre su vida personal, sino que también sobre la mismísima historia de Francia, los años pre-revolución, sus inicios, su desarrollo y el nacimiento de la nueva nación con la caída de la monarquía.
La autora fue construyendo los capítulos como una historia fascinante y con una escritura capaz de hacerme imaginar vívidamente algunos de estos momentos emblemáticos.
Los últimos capítulos los devoré como si estuviera famélica y esas hojas estuvieran hechas de pan, aún sabiendo el trágico final de la familia real.
No me voy a cansar de recomendar este libro a cualquiera que le interese mínimamente la historia. La escritura es exquisita y la bibliografía sumamente confiable. (La autora es francesa y eso no es menor).
Hay mucha información y a veces uno se puede confundir si no tiene una base clara, pero aún así está muy bueno para una introducción a la historia de la caída de la monarquía francesa.
En fin, podría hablar mil horas de esta leyenda y los contenidos de este libro pero mejor es leerlo. Me encantó.
(PSA: es mejor que la película de Coppola 💋)

[Gareth Russell · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is a readable biography of Marie-Antoinette, sympathetic in tone without being hagiographic. However, this is not just a translation from the original French book by Évelyne Lever; it is also heavily abridged, to the point that it suffers. The French version of Lever's biography, first published in 1992, runs to 742 pages, while this version is, at most, half of that length. There are no footnotes, which accounts in part for the reduction in length, but it is also clear that much of the context has been left on the cutting room floor and, at times, it doesn't fully make sense, either in terms of analysis or narrative. This does not seem to be the fault of the translator, who brings out some of the loveliness in Lever's language, particularly in its final assessment of Marie-Antoinette's personality. However, whatever editing/trimming decisions were made have left "The Last Queen of France" as inconsistent and often unsatisfying.

[Marshall Kupresanin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Marie Antoinette's life is a fascinating dichotomy. How can one, with all the money she could ever want and access to every imaginable pleasure, have such a tremendously sad life? Marie Antoinette, born Maria Antonia Archduchess of Austria, never quite fit into the aristocracy of 1700s France. She was too insensitive to the subtle needs of her Court, too apt to minor social faux pas. Marie Antoinette and went, in a few short years, from being the revered Monarch to being decapitated and thrown into an unmarked grave. Lever's book does a great job of showing how the monarchy and aristocracy of pre-Revolution France couldn't see the storm coming until it was too late. The book paints them as sad characters, which I think is appropriate. A good read for someone wishing to learn more about the Queen and the climate of pre-revolution France.

[Albert Eddie · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lever offers a valuable French perspective, challenging prevailing interpretations of the ill-fated queen. Notably, Lever diverges from other historians regarding the famous portrait of Marie Antoinette with her children, attributing the empty crib to the fact that Princess Sophie had not yet been born. Furthermore, Lever provides a nuanced perspective on the relationship between Marie Antoinette and Count Fersen. While she avoids accusations of a romantic affair, emphasizing their platonic friendship, Lever astutely observes instances where a romantic liaison could be inferred.

While not an apologia, Lever avoids the simplistic vilification often found in popular accounts. Lever's insightful analysis effectively demonstrates how Marie Antoinette's image evolved into the enduring, and often distorted, legend she remains today.

[Lilith · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this despite being VERY frustrated with Marie Antoinette the entire time. I never thought a monarch could stress me out more than Mary, Queen of Scotts.

I knew how her story ends but even if I went into this book knowing nothing about her, I would have saw that coming by the way she was brought up, acted and continued to act.

I wasn't bored at any point which is great. Even a history lover, most history books are at minimum 20% boring filler, yet this felt was 100% great. Nothing felt redundant but I'm not sure if the author gets that credit or if Marie Antoinette was just that interesting. This was a great introduction to her, and I already have my next read downloaded.