Marie Antoinette: The Journey | 
 enlarge | Author: Antonia Fraser
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
Category: Book
List Price: $35.00
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Avg. Customer Rating:  103 reviews
Sales Rank: 149483
Media: Hardcover
Edition: First American Edition
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 544
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.3
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 5.9 x 1.8
ISBN: 038548948X
Dewey Decimal Number: 944.035092
EAN: 9780385489485
ASIN: 038548948X
Publication Date: September 18, 2001
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com Review
In the past, Antonia Fraser's bestselling histories and biographies have focused on people and events in her native England, from Mary Queen of Scots to Faith and Treason: The Story of the Gunpowder Plot. Now she crosses the Channel to limn the life of France's unhappiest queen, bringing along her gift for fluent storytelling, vivid characterization, and evocative historical background. Marie Antoinette (1755-93) emerges in Fraser's sympathetic portrait as a goodhearted girl woefully undereducated and poorly prepared for the dynastic political intrigues into which she was thrust at age 14, when her mother, Empress Maria Theresa, married her off to the future Louis XVI to further Austria's interests in France. Far from being the licentious monster later depicted by the radicals who sent her to the guillotine at the height of the French Revolution, young Marie Antoinette was quite prudish, as well as thoroughly humiliated by her husband's widely known failure to have complete intercourse with her for seven long years (the gory details were reported to any number of concerned royal parties, including her mother and brother). She compensated by spending lavishly on clothes and palaces, but Fraser points out that this hardly made her unique among 18th-century royalty, and in any case the causes of the Revolution went far beyond one woman's frivolities. The moving final chapters show Marie Antoinette gaining in dignity and courage as the Revolution stripped her of everything, subjected her to horrific brutalities (a mob paraded the head of her closest female friend on a pike below her window), and eventually took her life. Fraser makes no attempt to hide the queen's shortcomings, in particular her poor political skills, but focuses on her personal warmth and noble bearing during her final ordeal. It's another fine piece of popular historical biography to add to Fraser's already impressive bibliography. --Wendy Smith
Product Description
Never before has the life of Marie Antoinette been told so intimately and with such authority as in Antonia Fraser’s newest work, Marie Antoinette: The Journey. Famously known as the eighteenth-century French queen whose excesses have become legend, Marie Antoinette was blamed for instigating the French Revolution. But the story of her journey begun as a fourteen-year-old sent from Vienna to marry the future Louis XVI to her courageous defense before she was sent to the guillotine reveals a woman of greater complexity and character than we have previously understood. We stand beside Marie Antoinette and witness the drama of her life as she becomes a scapegoat of the Ancien Regime when her faults were minor in comparison to the punishments inflicted on her.
The youngest daughter, fifteenth out of sixteen children, of Austrian empress Maria Teresa and Francis I, Marie Antoinette was sent on a literal journey by her mother from Vienna to Versailles with the expectation that she would further Austrian interests at all times. Yet, Marie Antoinette was by nature far from interested in state affairs and much more inclined to exert a gracious, philanthropic role, patronizing the arts especially music, as royalty would come to behave in the nineteenth century. Despite this the French accused her of political interference and wrote scandalous tracts against her, mocking her lack of sophistication. Meanwhile, longing for a family and the birth of an heir who would have cemented the Franco-Austro alliance, the French queen had to endure more than eight years of public humiliation for her barren marriage before the delivery of her first of four children.
As these problems unfold, Antonia Fraser also weaves a richly detailed account of Marie Antoinette’s other, more poignant journey: from the ill-educated and unprepared girl who sought refuge in pleasure as a consolation into a magnificent, courageous woman who defied her enemies at her trial with consummate intelligence, arousing the admiration of even the most hostile revolutionaries.
Brilliantly written, Marie Antoinette is a work of impeccable scholarship. Drawing on a wealth of family letters and other archival materials, Antonia Fraser successfully avoids the hagiography of some the French queen’s admirers and the misogyny of many of her critics. The result is an utterly riveting and intensely moving book by one of our finest biographers.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 98 more reviews...
 Marie Antoinette the journey August 13, 2008
Wonderful book about the Queen of France. From her early days as the Arch Duchess of Austria, to Dauphine of France to finally the Queen of France. It follows her life (journey)to her death. It also gives insight into the last surviving member of King Louis Auguste and Queen Marie Antoinette, Marie Therese.
Marie Antoinette in depth June 25, 2008
I have read many books on the Dauphine over the years and this is one of the best.
It covers in detail all of the daily life of a queen and the sacrifice she made by becoming a queen.
It seems that the paparazzi today are angels compared to what the people of France and all of Europe did to their monarchs.
The book is well researched, and well done and like all good books on her, this one doesnt speculate but clarifies the life of this often misunderstood young woman.
I recommend it highly.
But be warned - it is very detailed and there are tons of people to keep track of,
Even so, it reads well and you never get bored with it.
 Not a very Fluently written book February 13, 2008
0 out of 4 found this review helpful
Hard to get into. The movie is better except the movie leaves out one of the children and I am sure alot more. Maybe onday I will be able to get into it.
 Fascinating look at the quintessential French queen December 18, 2007
0 out of 1 found this review helpful
I really liked this book and finished it in record time--even though I knew how MA's story would end, it was fascinating to see that she was not entirely the arrogant and unapproachable Queen of lore. Yes, she made some mistakes and was extravagant at times, but certainly no more extravagant than previous Queens of France. Minimally any reader will say after reading this book that it is sad she was a Queen who did not pay more attention outside the walls of Versailles so that she might be less oblivious--but even then, I'm not sure she could have escaped her doomed fate.
The treatment of the family during their captivity and particularly the treatment of their children is startling (not to mention the legendary treatment of the Princesse de Lamballe). In the end, I'm not sure what was worse--the royal family or the revolutionaries.
I love this book! December 5, 2007
1 out of 2 found this review helpful
Over halfway through in a just a few days. I love this book! I'm definitely looking into purchasing others by the author.
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