A woman whose function it once was to read books aloud to Marie Antoinette is haunted by the memory of her last days at the French court of Versailles, when Louis XVI's magnificent palace succumbed to the irrepressible forces of revolution. Now exiled in Vienna, Madame Agathe-Sidonie Laborde looks back twenty-one years to the legendary opulence of Versailles and, overcome with nostalgia and remorse, discovers the full measure of her fascination with the Queen she served. Madame Laborde takes the reader within the palace, meticulously reconstructing the 14th, 15th, and 16th of July 1789feverish days when the servants have disappeared and many of the courtiers are fleeing. Versailles' miniature universe, sparkling with every outward appearance of happiness and beauty, is brilliantly juxtaposed with the chaos that erupts. We witness the unraveling of the palace's dawn-to-dusk ritual and the rising panic of the court as Versailles edges closer and closer to collapse. With the revolutionaries virtually at the gates of the palace, Madame Laborde herself flees the night of the 16th, escaping with members of the once-powerful de Polignac family. Transporting us to revolutionary France with the knowledge and insight of an historian and with the skill of a consummate storyteller, Thomas evokes this historical moment more powerfully than any historical analysis can.
Farewell, My Queen
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As revolution rages outside the palace walls, inside the court of Versailles--the court of Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI--denial reigns before giving way to alarm, which in turn degenerates into panic and chaos. Thomas spins the familiar events of the 1789 French Revolution into a compelling novel, with the central character less the famously ill-fated queen than the insular and ritualized society of the palace. The story is told by a woman looking back 30 years, to when it was her job to read books aloud to Marie Antoinette. Her status as courtier makes her the best kind of narrator--at once an insider and an observer of the royals. She describes the final days before revolution engulfs the palace with insight and surprising slices of humor. Some passages read almost like satire, as the indulged inhabitants of Versailles cling to the privileges that have defined their now-threatened lives--royals are reluctant to leave the palace without proper traveling attire, courtiers try to flee while lugging heavy possessions. Thomas' formidable skills as a researcher give the book authenticity, and her keen eye for human behavior and talent for storytelling make it sing. Karen Holt
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Review
[S]ober, captivating, moving, and, at the end, poignant... -- Téléz
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
17 of 18 people found the following review helpful
By missgrundy
Format:Hardcover
...This is a wonderful, atmospheric book that in my mind really succeeded in giving a sense of the ways that the French Revolution completely took apart the aristocracy. Thomas helps the reader to understand how it must have felt to feel the very marble floors crumbling under your feet, as everything you knew is suddenly gone. It's clear, also, what a house of cards it was -- full of gold, diamonds, and mirrors, to be sure, but a house of cards nevertheless, completely dependent on the support of a vast system of nobles, retainers, servants, etc. etc. I liked the narrator very much, and felt real pity for the king and queen, even as I thought, "You brought it all on yourself." Give "Farewell, My Queen," a try.
5 of 5 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Perhaps it's because I read this novel in translation that I did not find it as compelling as others reviewers have. I finished the novel because I wanted to find out how the protagonist made it to Vienna when the Versailles fantasy began to collapse. But it was a slow go. In places, such as where the protagonist recalls in stunning detail a lengthy conversation between two guards about Marie Antoinette, I felt my crdulity strained that, as one of the queen's courtiers, she wasn't either beaten up or raped by these two guys. In fact, maybe it was the sexlessness of this world--with only the hint of a possible lesbian relationship with Gabrielle de Polignac--that made it finally less than riveting.
High points of the novel: the meticulous description of the most minute gradations of rank and the way they constantly underwent change.
High points of the novel: the meticulous description of the most minute gradations of rank and the way they constantly underwent change.
7 of 8 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
This is the way I like to read history, from the point of view of a nobody caught in the unavoidable currents of destiny. Chantal Thomas comes by her knowledge honestly having been the Director of Research at the Centre National de le Recherche Scientifique, specializing in 18th literature.
Meet Agathe Laborde who is remembering from her exile in Vienna, those fateful July days of 1789 when, in her youth, she was reader to the myopic, charismatic Marie Antoinette in her fabulous Versailles court.
FAREWELL, MY QUEEN is one of RebeccasReads highly recommended books, rich with earthy insights into & half-glimpsed intrigues of a long lost way of life where adoration of & loyalty to royalty could cost you your life.
5 of 6 people found the following review helpful
By K. Maxwell
Format:Hardcover
Agathe-Sidonie Laborde was a reader to Queen Marie-Antoinette of France. Living in exile in Vienna at the age of 65 she recounts in flashback the last days of Versailles before it fell to the revolution in France.
The story is rather like watching a ship sink. A world full of people and customs that are on the brink of extinction and right up to the last minute few of them want to believe that their world is ending. Versailles and its inhabitants and centuries of customs vanish in the space of three days.
In this small novel the author brings to life for a short space the doomed world of the French aristocracy, told through the eyes of someone who lived on the fringes of their world, but still knew its inhabitants well. This is not my favourite historical novel, but it is one that is memorable for its feeling of doom and how well the author seems to have caught the lost world of France before the revolution.
Would I read this book again? At this point, I couldn't give a definite yes. I would recommend you borrow this from the library to read before buying it to see if it suits your tastes in historical novels as in many ways it differs from the "standard" history story.
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
By Hannah
Format:Paperback
I really wanted to like this book but I couldnt get past the meandering inner dialouge of the main character, the strange sequences and the total lack of character development. It was basically one long poem about three days at Versailles at the start of the revolution. It lacks the crisp moving quality of Philippa Gregory's works and depended too much upon the reader's knowledge of French History.
Not recommended.
Not recommended.
4 of 5 people found the following review helpful
By Jerika
Format:Paperback
I'm still struggling to finish. It's good and I understand why it has the slow quality of being frozen in a dream--that must have been what it really felt like. Still, this is the third time I've fallen asleep while reading it.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
It was no surprise to find Farewell, My Queen's protagonist state "Details caught my attention." (page 207 of the paperback version). That sentence perfectly sums up this book...it's a book of details. Sights, smells, textures, and emotions are intricately described by Thomas. By imparting a historian's view on the story, Thomas provides the reader with a vivid picture of what went on at Versailles during the time period depicted in the book.
Unfortunately, so much time was spent on the details that the overarching story was lost. Compounding this problem was Thomas' odd choice for a protagonist. While it's always a challenge for an author to present a new viewpoint on a famous event, having a minor character in the Versailles court attempt to describe the events that reshaped France doesn't work. The character doesn't have the perspective nor, it seems, the intelligence to comprehend the events that are going on around her. As a result, she extrapolates what's going on by noticing and relating details about the changes in behavior among other characters. But, without the insight of a character who understands the impact of the events and can impart that understanding, the reader is left adrift in minutia.
In the end, Thomas' instincts as a historian won out over her inclinations as a novelist. Simply put, there's too much history and not enough fiction in this book. Consequently, reading Farewell, My Queen is ultimately a dry, unfulfilling exercise.
Unfortunately, so much time was spent on the details that the overarching story was lost. Compounding this problem was Thomas' odd choice for a protagonist. While it's always a challenge for an author to present a new viewpoint on a famous event, having a minor character in the Versailles court attempt to describe the events that reshaped France doesn't work. The character doesn't have the perspective nor, it seems, the intelligence to comprehend the events that are going on around her. As a result, she extrapolates what's going on by noticing and relating details about the changes in behavior among other characters. But, without the insight of a character who understands the impact of the events and can impart that understanding, the reader is left adrift in minutia.
In the end, Thomas' instincts as a historian won out over her inclinations as a novelist. Simply put, there's too much history and not enough fiction in this book. Consequently, reading Farewell, My Queen is ultimately a dry, unfulfilling exercise.
Most Recent Customer Reviews
5.0 out of 5 stars
Awesome
Riveting. This book was well worth the time. I loved the characters, the history, the drama. It was great. Read more
Published 1 month ago by MamaLorax
3.0 out of 5 stars
Farewell, My Queen
This book tells the story of the last three days at Versailles (July 14-16, 1789), from the point of view of a servant, particularly a young woman whose occupation it is to read to... Read more
Published 3 months ago by Afternoon Attic Reader
3.0 out of 5 stars
Long winded novel
Though the movie was fantastic, I am afraid that this is an instance where the novel was not as good as the movie.It seemed as though
the authors' were being paid by the word. Read more
the authors' were being paid by the word. Read more
Published 7 months ago by Terry D
4.0 out of 5 stars
Celebrity Worship in the time of Marie Antoinette
Recently the UK's Mail Online ran an article entitled, "Do you have Celebrity Worship Syndrome?" along with a quiz "to measure the reader's `CWS' symptoms". Read more
Published 8 months ago by JackAUrquhart
4.0 out of 5 stars
Let Them Eat Cake
Marie-Antoinette's infamous line is never once recorded in this book, but the book renders it fully understandable. Read more
Published 10 months ago by K. Chloe Bolan
4.0 out of 5 stars
Another view of Marie Antoinette's final days at Versailles
Chantal Thomas has written interesting spin on the events that occurred before and after Bastille Day in France, through the eyes of Marie Antoinette's reader. Read more
Published on April 8, 2009 by BC
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good read, interesting perspective
This is an interesting take on a well-known story. It is helpful to have an working knowledge of the actual events and of the main historical characters - there isn't a lot of... Read more
Published on October 23, 2007 by Reader
5.0 out of 5 stars
A incredible historical-fiction journey
Even if you aren't familiar with the French Revolution, you are immediately transported into this turbulent time period. Read more
Published on December 26, 2004 by Solange
5.0 out of 5 stars
brilliant historical fiction
Two decades have passed since the momentous events of the final days of the reign of King Louis XVI and his Queen Marie-Antoinette. Read more
Published on June 30, 2004 by Harriet Klausner
