Farewell, My Queen: A Novel [Hardcover]

Chantal Thomas (Author), Moishe Black (Author, Translator)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 2003

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 1789—feverish 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.

Editorial Reviews

From Booklist

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

Review

[S]ober, captivating, moving, and, at the end, poignant... -- Téléz

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 239 pages
• Publisher: George Braziller; 2nd edition (May 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0807615145
• ISBN-13: 978-0807615140
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #546,456 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A wonderful read, July 14, 2003

By 

missgrundy (San Francisco, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Farewell, My Queen: A Novel (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.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good but not great, June 30, 2004

By 

Maribel Molyneaux "pidgely" (Drexel Hill, PA USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Farewell, My Queen: A Novel (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.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars meandering frustrating book, September 10, 2007

By 

Hannah (Pittsburgh, PA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Farewell, My Queen (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.