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Madame Royale

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A review of Madame Royale by Elena Maria Vidal

So much of what is going on in politics and the world today I understood better after reading E.M. Vidal's Madame Royal. This is a romantic and intriguing novel, much better written than Trianon, which I also loved. And yet there is so much more to it than just a story of the tragic daughter of Marie Antoinette. So much of the injustices of the modern era and culture of death are foreshadowed in this book. All the characters are so real and I felt like I knew them. My favorite part was when Therese slaps Caroline to keep her from going into Paris with the pistols in her belt. Very exciting - but more than just exciting!! It is an incredibly meaningful novel and journey into the past in order to clearly see the present.

Marie Therese Charlotte is the subject of this sequel to <em>Trianon</em> which takes up the story of the French Revolution in the wake of the unjust beheading of her father and mother, the King and Queen of France, Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette.

What struck me about Marie Therese's story (or "Madame Royale" as she was called by her parents and those of the court in happier days), as presented in this wonderful novel by Elena Maria Vidal, was the incredible strength of character she possessed! After a series of heart-rending traumas that would have reduced most people to a puddle of despair, she ended up with the court of the exiled king of France, Louis XVIII, successor and brother of Madame Royale's own father, Louis XVI. This new king, her uncle, had been part of the conspiracy to bring his own brother to the guillotine so that he himself could be king. All during her stay amongst his exiled court, Marie Therese was obsessed with the burning question of what became of her brother, who would have been King Louis XVII. She was in a very difficult position, living with this one who deposed her father, while trying to find out news of her brother's whereabouts or even if he was alive or dead, because any hint to her uncle of her inquiring into it would imply treason against him. She literally walked on eggshells, yet, with the nimbleness of a champion fencer and the strategizing ability of the most deft chess player, she pursued the answer to her question.

This is a moving and beautiful story of a great woman's strength, nobility and indeed, holiness.

I was so excited to see a sequel to Trianon. The author presents the amazing story of Marie Antoinette's and King Louis' daughter - Madame Royale. Just as in Trianon, you feel that you are in the story - it is so vivid. Even though this is a novel, what impressed me is the historical accuracy. I can't wait for Ms. Vidal's next book!

Vidal's 'Madame Royale' is a masterpiece of history and story-telling, far surpassing 'Trianon,' her earlier novel. With lively and richly developed characters, the epic of the restoration and fall of the Bourbon dynasty from the point of view of the daughter of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette is told as never before, complete with the conspiracies of the Illuminati and the scheming of princes. My favorite chapter is at the opera, where devious Talleyrand is seen trying to seduce his nephew's wife, all the while trying to remember at what point in his life he fell from grace. Totally unforgettable are the two heroines, the tragic, noble Marie-Therese and vivacious, irrrepressible Caroline, who clash over just about everything. One denies herself true love while the other will make any sacrifice in order to obtain it. At the center of the spiralling passions is the blood-spattered crown of France, as well as the phantom of a little boy, ripped from his mother's arms, whose fate will haunt your dreams. A novel of grandeur and profundity, totally romantic and heartwrenching, I recommend it for all.

The French Restoration (1814-1830) is an era woefully neglected by historical novelists. Fortunately, Elena Maria Vidal helps fill this void with her Madame Royale.

Marie-Thérèse-Charlotte de France, Duchesse d'Angoulême, was the eldest child of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette, and later the last Queen of France, albeit for a few minutes, until her husband's abdication on a fateful day of July 1830. For most of her life, she was known simply as Madame Royale.

Vidal gives us a gripping portrait of a woman whose personal destiny is enmeshed with the convulsions of the French Revolution and European history. In the novel, we first meet Thérèse, as we will simply call her, in her English exile, presiding over the shabby court of her uncle, King Louis XVIII. There I must admit to being prejudiced: the setting of the beginning of Vidal's novel is exactly the same as that of the conclusion of my own Mistress of the Revolution: Hartwell House, an estate in the English countryside. I had not read Madame Royale when I wrote my own novel, and was startled by the coincidence.

The point of view of the novel is that of Thérèse, which is to say informed by her royalist conviction and deeply held Catholic faith. A lesser novelist might have been carried away by her identification with her heroine, and tempted to give us a hagiographic description of the royal family and its supporters. But here we get to see historical characters, flaws and all. We meet King Louis XVIII, who "did not like to discuss conspiracies, since he himself had been involved in so many." True enough, Louis XVI had no more determined and dangerous enemy than this all too clever brother.

We also meet his Queen, Marie-Josephine de Savoie, no less an enemy to Marie-Antoinette in the glory of her past Versailles days, now a pathetic alcoholic, blurting out inconvenient truths in front of her husband and courtiers, and yet touched by the grace of contrition at the very end of her life. And Vidal's description of the Comte d'Artois, later King Charles X, is equally accurate: an aging dandy of great intellectual mediocrity, whom even the ordeals of the Revolution could not turn into a statesman.


Thérèse alone lends dignity, and legitimacy, to these surviving Bourbons. Her allegiance to her uncle Louis XVIII silences those who raise questions about the fate of her brother, who may, or may not, have died in the grim embrace of the Temple prison. But this does not quell the demands of her conscience nor her the longings of her heart. She is racked by doubt and never abandons her quest for her lost brother.

We see Thérèse from the inside, and also as her contemporaries perceived her: a handsome, majestic woman, but also one whose demeanor is outwardly aloof, whose voice is hoarse and croaky, maybe from her long silence during her years at the Temple.

Some passages in the novel make an unforgettable impression, in particular Thérèse's meeting with Jeanne Simon, the widow of the cobbler Simon, who had been appointed "tutor" to Louis XVII at the Temple. One could have expected a hateful description of the old lady, but Vidal, in addition to doing impeccable research, never lets us forget that revolutionaries too are human. In Mère Simon, she shows us an outwardly harsh, but uncannily perceptive woman. She and Thérèse, across the chasm that sets them apart, are united by their love of the lost child.

There are other highlights, in particular Thérèse's almost nightmarish return to Versailles after the Restoration, when she finds the ghosts of her loved ones haunting the gilded palace of her childhood.

The novel is a work of utmost subtlety, a quality that is nowhere more apparent than in the evocation of Thérèse's union to her cousin, the Duc d'Angoulême, heir to the throne. Like every marriage, this one is a mystery to outsiders, but we feel Thérèse's ongoing struggle to breathe life and love into it. Readers looking for romance or lurid bedroom scenes will be disappointed, but I found the complexity of the couple's relationship entrancing.

"The heart of the novel is the mystery of suffering; not the dramatic agony of martyrdom and death, but the long travail of years amid duties and disappointments, the suffering of living," writes Elena Maria Vidal. There is no better description of the book.

Trianon and Madame Royale certainly deserve to be read consecutively but the reader must adjust her expectations. After the poetic and multifaceted episodes of Trianon, offering different people's views of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, Madame Royale is a thorough-composed historical novel telling the story of their one surviving child, Marie-Therese, spanning time and place, with an omniscient narrator unbound by geography or character. The prologue, however, offers a transition in style of sorts, as it depicts a scene that presages the horror to befall the title character's family--a scene of conspiracy and cruelty taking place while she is an innocent and unaware child.

While Elena-Maria Vidal artfully composes the episodes of Trianon to redress the calumnies against the king and queen consort and tell a sympathetic version of Revolutionary history, she addresses a more complex narrative in Madame Royale. This is a broader canvas--a more expansive scene: Marie-Therese travels the world widely, while her mother's world was geographically restricted and Marie-Therese crosses the sea and the English Channel, while her mother never even saw the ocean. Such a story requires a more direct narrative approach.

Mother and daughter endure many of the same struggles, however: the family divisions, unhappy (at first) arranged marriages, misunderstanding, revolutions, violence, and flight. Marie-Therese must live with uncles who betrayed her father and slandered her mother while encountering a cousin whose father cast the deciding vote that condemned her father to death. She also accepts poverty, difficult travel, and most of all, takes on the frustrating and emotional effort to find out what happened to her little brother, abused and imprisoned in the Temple.

That narrative thread competes with the patterns of exile and restoration, triumph and defeat, charity and conflict that emerge from the story of the Bourbon court, first in England, then in France, then returning to France after Waterloo, then in Scotland, briefly in Italy and finally in Austria. Throughout these peregrinations, Madame Royale bears the burden of the Bourbon dynasty, encountering both betrayal and loyalty. Some of the best passages in the novel depict the conflict in Marie-Therese's soul, as when she returns to the scenes of so much tragedy in the French Revolution during the festivities celebrating the restoration of the monarchy after Napoleon's abdication and first exile. She recalls the suffering of her parents even as she experiences the triumph of her new family.

She is steadfast in her Catholic faith and devoted to the remembrance of her parents and the restoration of the Catholic Church in France, welcoming the Marian apparitions experienced by Catherine Laboure on Rue de Bac in Paris and the children at La Sallette.

Marie-Therese finally accepts a conclusion of uncertainty as to the fate of her brother. Although she never bears a child, she becomes the de facto mother of the heir to the Bourbon throne, Henri, the Comte de Chambord and his sister, Louise. She raises them while their mother, the widow of Marie-Therese's brother-in-law, the Duc de Berry remarries and briefly fights for her son's rights.

The drive and devotion of the title character infuse the narrative of Madame Royale, indefatigably following the heroic and amazing journey of Marie-Therese.

I have not read this book yet but it came promptly as promised and was in brand new condition. I would highly recommend purchasing from this source again.

The novel Madame Royale is one of the best books about the French Royal family that I have ever read. The author's depiction of the daughter of Marie Antoinette was full of passion and vigor and obviously based on thorough historical research. When's the next book????

I loved the 1st novel, Trianon. I was happy to see there was a sequel. If you've seen the Hollywood movie about Marie Antoinette, this novel continues the story that is unknown to popular culture. It explores a mystery that has fallen into the depth of history. I thoroughly enjoyed finding out what happened to the surviving members of the royal family after the French revolution....which is never discussed. This novel puts history into the framework of the political and cultural scenario. I highly recommend this to anyone who enjoys historical fiction.

To say that Elena Maria Vidal can write is to say that Placido Domingo can sing...All you have to do is listen. The dialogue is exquisitely timed with a poet's talent for creating seamless, balanced sentences. A real page turner, as well. I could not put this book down. E.M. Vidal is a fine writer as yet largely undiscovered by the mainstream literary world. I was transported to another time and place. The daughter of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette comes to life in this stirring work of historical fiction.