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Queen of France: A Biography of Marie Antoinette. Castelot, Andre.
Learn about the life of this remarkable woman. Given in marriage at the age of 14 by her demanding mother, the empress Maria Teresa, the young Austrian was forced to give up her heritage and past for very public future. From a life of frivolity to a trial in which she was accused of the unthinkable by her own son and death at the guillotine , Marie Antoinette’s life was stranger than fiction. |
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Fatal Friendship: Marie Antoinette, Count Fersen and the Flight to Varennes. Loomis, Stanley. (STAU)
What happens where Sophia Coppola’s movie ends? Marie Antoinette was vilified by her friends, some family members, and by her host country and she endured extreme hardships leading up to her execution. This book retraces all the details of her and the deposed king's attempted escapes, from the flight to Varennes under the plan of Count Fersen, to the foiled plot to sneak the queen and her child out of prison. Loomis also exposes the truth behind the queen's sequestered love affair with Count Fersen, and her own Austrian family's betrayal of her.
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Marie Antoinette: Princess of Versailles. Lasky, Kathryn. (NCSL)
In 1769, thirteen-year-old Maria Antonia Josepha Johanna, daughter of Empress Maria Theresa, begins a journal chronicling her life at the Austrian court. Marie Antonia of Vienna has her whole life mapped out ahead of her. She is to marry Dauphin Louis Auguste, the eldest grandson of King Louis XV. As his wife, she will be called Marie Antoinette and will be the highest princess of France. Upon the death of the king, she will become Queen Marie Antoinette. But she dreads both new roles. |
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A Tale of Two Cities. Dickens, Charles.
“It was the best of times. It was the worst of times.” In the dock of a British courtroom, French aristocrat Charles Darnay stands accused of spying for the King of France. The outlook appears grim until some last-minute help comes from his astonishing look-alike, Sydney Carton. As Darnay goes free and makes plans to marry Lucie Manette, Carton keeps his secret desire for her to himself, yet assures her that he would make the ultimate sacrifice for her, "or for anyone you love." As Lucie and Charles settle into blissful married life in London, the French Revolution is exploding. Amidst the turmoil of one of history's most barbaric eras, will one man's simple devotion be enough to quell the madness? |
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Citizens: A Chronicle of the French Revolution. Schama, Simon.
This book explains the self-destructive, bloody orgy that occurred in France but not in England or Prussia, countries in similar states of poverty and with similarly deprived, disenfranchised populaces. Instead of the dying Old Regime, Schama presents an ebullient country, vital and inventive, infatuated with novelty and technology. He argues that the cause of France's revolution lies in the self-deception of the ruling intelligentsia, who believed that they could make a Utopian France by allowing controlled violence, murder, and the destruction of property in the name of liberty, and all to exist simultaneously with good government. |
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The Scarlet Pimpernel. Howard, Leslie. Oberon, Merle.
"That damned elusive Pimpernel" finds a dashing embodiment in Leslie Howard, who has the steel to be an action hero and the wit to hide behind his alter ego: a British fop. Based on Baroness Orczy's novel, the story focuses on the efforts of this British dandy to aid members of the French aristocracy in escaping the guillotines of the French revolution. He also romances Merle Oberon and engages in a wonderfully wicked duel of wits with the humorless enforcer for the French Republicans. |
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Madame de Pompadour. Lever, Evelyn.
When Jeanne-Antoinette Poisson was young, a fortune-teller predicted that she would become the mistress of the king, and thereafter she was groomed by family and friends for the role. In 1745, when she came to Louis XV's attention, she transformed herself into Madame de Pompadour. She was France's minister of culture at a time when no such position existed, but she was loathed for her role in France's disastrous military losses, and was the victim of persistent court gossip and intrigues. In this fascinating biography, Lever sheds new light on the woman who so influenced the fate of a nation. |
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Louis XIV’s Versailles. Walton, Guy.
In 1651, when Louis XIV was only thirteen, he visited Versailles for the first time. Numerous visits followed, such that by 1661, he had fallen in love with the place. In 1669, the king decided to enlarge the castle, and Louis Le Vau began the monumental task of transforming a hunting lodge into Europe's premiere palace. Learn more about the sumptuous location where Marie Antoinette was filmed.
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Louis XIV. Erlanger, Philipe.
Acclaimed author Philippe Erlanger, winner of the Grand Prix d'Histoire de l'Academie Française, presents an intimately detailed portrait of France's most powerful and flamboyant ruler. With a novelist's elegant language and psychological insight, Erlanger portrays the Sun King through the decades, showing the crucial effect of a childhood filled with neglect and humiliation, and vividly depicting the King's spectacular style of leadership. |
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