Farewell, My Queen: A Novel

by Chantal Thomas (Author)

• New

  Paperback
  2004

  $18.97

• Used

  Paperback
  2004

  $3.45

  On 14 July 1789, Queen Marie Antoinette and her court spend a pleasant evening in the Great Hall of Versailles, completely unaware that the events of the next few hours will change their lives and their country for ever. Agathe-Sidonie Laborde is the Queen's reader, and twenty-one years later, an exile in Vienna, she remains haunted by the chaos and fear of those final days at court. Hour by hour, Agathe watchs the tragedy unfold as everything she holds dear is overturned. In the midst of this chaos, the Queen remains an enigma, adored and reviled in equal measure by those to whom she must now turn for help.

• Used

  Hardcover
  2004

  $12.80

  Detailed and dramatic novel narrated by Agathe-Sidonie Laborde, companion and lectrice to Marie-Antoinette. On the day of her sixty-fifth birthday in Vienna 1810, Agathe looks back on the most tumultuous days of her life. The action begins on 14 July 1789 and details the last hours during which Louis XVI, the close associates of the royal family and most of the Court flee from Versailles. Told in a simple but pacy and engaging manner, the narrator recounts, in intimate detail, the last days of the queen and the various intrigues which are thrown up as the Court disintegrates. This is a fantastically commercial book which transports the reader back to 1789 and is written with great drive and narrative tension. Chantal Thomas is a specialist of the period so the novel is also based on years of historical research.