The Queen's Lover: A Novel [Hardcover]

Francine du Plessix Gray (Author)

Book Description

Release date: June 14, 2012

A “deeply intelligent” and “spellbinding” historical novel of Marie Antoinette on the eve of the French Revolution (The Washington Post)

Francine du Plessix Gray’s beautifully realized historical novel reveals the untold love story between Swedish aristocrat Count Axel von Fersen and Marie Antoinette. The romance begins at a masquerade ball in Paris in 1774, when the dashing nobleman first meets the mesmerizing nineteen-year-old dauphine, wife of the reclusive prince who will soon become Louis XVI. This electric encounter launches a love affair that will span the course of the French Revolution.

As their relationship deepens, Fersen becomes a devoted companion to the entire royal family. Roaming the halls of Versailles and visiting the private haven of Le Petit Trianon, he discovers the deepest secrets of the court, even learning the startling erotic details of Marie Antoinette’s marriage to Louis XVI. But his new intimacy with Marie Antoinette and her family is disrupted when the events of the American Revolution tear Fersen away. Moved by the cause, he joins French troops in the fight for American independence.

He returns to find France on the brink of disintegration. After the Revolution of 1789 the royal family is moved from Versailles to the Tuileries. Fersen devises an escape for the family and their young children (Marie-Thérèse and the dauphin—whom many suspect is in fact Fersen’s son). The failed attempt leads to a more grueling imprisonment, and the family spends its excruciating final days captive before the king and queen face the guillotine.

Grieving his lost love in his native Sweden, Fersen begins to sense the effects of the French Revolution in his homeland. Royalists are now targets, and the sensuous aristocratic world of his youth is fast vanishing. Fersen is incapable of realizing that centuries of tradition have disappeared, and he pays dearly for his naïveté, losing his life at the hands of a savage mob that views him as a pivotal member of the ruling class.

Scion of Sweden’s most esteemed nobility, Fersen came to be seen as an enemy of the country he loved. His fate is symbolic of the violent speed with which the events of the eighteenth century transformed European culture. Expertly researched and deeply imagined, The Queen’s Lover is a fresh vision of the French Revolution and the French royal family as told through the love story that was at its center.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

How History Savvy Are You?
Brush up on your knowledge of Marie Antoinette’s royal court and the history that inspired The Queen’s Lover in this Amazon exclusive quiz.

Where was Marie Antoinette born?

1. Austria
2. Russia
3. France
4. Hungary

What was Axel von Fersen’s nickname?

1. Axel
2. Fersen
3. Le Comte Suedois
4. Le beau Fersen

What is the name of Fersen’s sister, and co-narrator of The Queen’s Lover?

1. Sophie
2. Eleanor
3. Marguerite
4. Sophia Magdalena

What was Marie Antoinette’s full name?

1. Marie-Therese Antoinette
2. Maria Antonia Josepha Johanna
3. Archduchess Marie Antoinette of Austria
4. Maria Antonia Teresa

Where did Marie Antoinette and Axel von Fersen meet?

1. Versailles
2. The Paris opera
3. The Swedish court
4. The court of Joseph II, Marie Antoinette’s brother

At what age did Marie Antoinette meet Axel von Fersen?

1. 15
2. 25
3. 31
4. 19

In which 18th century war did Fersen fight in?

1. Russo-Turkish War
2. American Revolution
3. Anglo-Spanish War
4. Russo-Persian War

Where did Marie Antoinette spend her last few weeks?

1. La Conciergerie
2. The Bastille
3. The Louvre
4. La Force Prison

Which of Marie Antoinette’s children was reputed to be fathered by Fersen?

1. Marie Therese
2. Louis Joseph
3. Louis-Charles
4. Princess Sophie

What did Marie Antoinette stipulate be included in the plans of the ill-fated flight to Varennes?

1. Her children’s favorite snacks
2. Her husband’s favorite book of poems
3. Her hairdresser
4. The family’s heirloom jewelry

Once the French Revolution started and royal mail was being intercepted, how did Marie Antoinette and Fersen communicate with each other?

1. Secret code embedded in the text of well-known books
2. Spoken messages delivered through special couriers
3. Letters in invisible ink
4. They couldn’t communicate once the revolution started

Who said “let them eat cake?”

1. Marie Antoinette
2. Marie-Therese
3. Maria Theresa
4. Joséphine de Beauharnais

How long did Marie Antoinette’s love affair with von Fersen last?

1. Five years
2. Ten years
3. Fifteen years
4. Nineteen years

Answers: 1-a; 2-d; 3-a; 4-b; 5-b; 6-d; 7-b; 8-a; 9-c; 10-c; 11-c; 12-b; 13-d

Review

A Washington Post 2012 Notable Work of Fiction

“Deeply intelligent…spellbinding… If you liked Antonia Fraser’s Marie Antoinette or Hilary Mantel’s Wolf Hall — if you admired Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s close lens in The General in His Labyrinth — you will be richly rewarded by du Plessix Gray’s amalgam of history and drama. Read it for its insights on Versailles; read it for its eye-opening glimpses into an equally venal Stockholm. But read it, when all is said and done, for its heartbreakingly wistful romance."—Marie Arana, The Washington Post

“The voice of history rises up out of the pages of [this] persuasive new novel. [A] lively, incredibly readable, definitely R-rated version of the life and death of Marie Antoinette.” – Alan Cheuse, NPR

“Ms. Gray has created fully developed, flawed and complex characters in a way that would probably not have been possible within the confines of biography.  [She] conjures up a world she knows well, in riveting detail. [The Queen’s Lover is] a feat of research and imagination.”—Moira Hodgson, The Wall Street Journal

“Don’t remember anything about the French Revolution from high school? This is one of those books where you’ll learn – or relearn – history effortlessly, as du Plessix Gray spins the affair of Marie Antoinette and a Swedish count into riveting drama.” – Entertainment Weekly

“[A] triumph of scholarship and storytelling... a remarkable book.”—Daily Beast
 

“Set against the backdrop of royal opulence and revolution, du Plessix Gray’s richly detailed chronicle of love and loss provides startling insight into the complex and tragic inner life of the iconic and controversial French queen Marie Antoinette.”   
—Amanda Foreman, author of A World on Fire: Britain’s Crucial Role in the American Civil War

“The story of the strange, then sad, then finally tragic life of Marie Antoinette has been told many times, but never with more humane feeling and historical point than Francine du Plessix Gray does in her new novel. Seen from the startling point of view of the Queen’s Swedish lover, Count Axel von Fersen, The Queen’s Lover makes a familiar story newly poignant, and, without ever being pedantic, places that story in a broader context of European politics, too often missed.”      
—Adam Gopnik, author of Paris to the Moon

“The Queen’s Lover is a thrilling book. It has everything—suspense, intrigue, love, luxury, tragedy, and romantic and familial love. It tells a familiar story from a new point of view.”
—Edmund White, author of Jack Holmes and His Friend

“In The Queen’s Lover, Francine du Plessix Gray brings her peerless narrative gifts to bear on one of history’s all-time greatest love stories: the secret romance between Marie Antoinette and Count Axel von Fersen. Set against the backdrop of the French monarchy’s cataclysmic fall, the affair between the doomed queen and the dashing Swede is at once an achingly tender tale of two lovers and a tragic story of unspeakably brutal, broad-based societal change. With a historian’s eye for evocative contextual detail and a novelist’s ear for the lyricism of ‘le grand amour,’ Gray weaves an unforgettable portrait of a couple whose lives were transfigured by love . . . and shattered by revolution.”
—Caroline Weber, author of Queen of Fashion: What Marie Antoinette Wore to the Revolution 

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The; First Edition edition (June 14, 2012)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1594203377
• ISBN-13: 978-1594203374
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.3 x 1.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (52 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #497,650 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

35 of 36 people found the following review helpful

2.0 out of 5 stars Flat Like the Blade of A Guillotine May 27, 2012

By Bitsy Bling Books VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

Gems: What's not to love about the French court? You know you're in for a treat whenever this part of history is the subject. The historical research and detailing is phenomenal and demonstrates the authors knowledge and care of the era. It's very well documented, precise and sticks to the basics we all know and love. Now, certain readers will appreciate this, or they may find it a bit dry. It really depends on your particular taste. Although it's listed as historical fiction, it reads more like a non-fiction or memoir style book. I tend to enjoy history that takes more liberties, but do appreciate the painstaking detailing.

Flaws: Flat. The telling is one-dimensional even though it alternates between Sophia and Fersen's perspective. I could not tell the difference in points of view or voice, which greatly frustrated me. Without the clear personality of each character coming through in the words, I simply couldn't trust or wholly invest in the report. That is what the novel felt like, a report of historical events compiled through journals and documented information. It stayed on one plane and surfed right along. All I can say is, flat. For me this topic and these characters offer way too much to allow them to become, for lack of a better word, boring. It's a shame, because I wanted to enjoy it and was sadly very disappointed.

25 of 26 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Marie Antoinette is still elusive! April 27, 2012

By P. B. Sharp TOP 500 REVIEWERVINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

Marie Antoinette is in need of a champion, and author Gray has come to her rescue with Axel Von Fersen a handsome Swedish nobleman who first met Marie at a masquerade ball when she was still the dauphine. Von Axel fought with the French in the American Revolution and returned to France a colonel to renew his relationship with Marie, now Queen, and her whole family.

"The Queen's Lover" is INTERESTING! I know that word sounds like a book report but the novel contains a lot of fascinating background material, such as the lack of hygiene among the French nobility (they stank) and Louis XVI's sexual performance problem which was finally rectified after 7 years of marriage, enabling the young Marie Antoinette to get pregnant.

People, any people, were allowed to wander in and out of Versailles, except in the royal apartments. They often carried their lunch, discarding scraps as they went, providing both a perpetual stink as well as free food for countless rats.(If you've visited the gorgeous Hall of Mirrors, this scenario really boggles the mind, the rats and garbage being reflected, I suppose).

There are interesting vignettes of George Washington, garnered from gossipy letters Axel sent home to his relatives in Sweden. And Martha is described as "a nice fat lady with no pretenses." The letters Axel wrote to his sister and others, and letters from his family to him are translations from French to English of the actual letters and appear throughout the novel.

When Von Fersen returns to France after fighting for the American colonists against the British, France is on the brink of upheaval. One of the major reasons for the unrest lies in the character Marie Antoinette herself or what was perceived as her character. The catastrophic events in the twilight just before the holocaust become very real in this novel, but Marie Antoinette remains elusive. Is she a frivolous empty-headed flirt or a more deep thinking victim of slander? Does she have any substance inside her rather sugary exterior? Does she really say "Let them eat cake?"

The king, Louis XVI, though rather a personal slob with food scraps on his coat and his wigs awry, is a scholar who speaks both Latin and English fluently, who is a superb horseman. He came to love his young wife madly, according to this novel. They appear to be polar opposites, she with her attention to the rich trappings of royalty, he who liked to throw off his coat and join the builders on a rooftop, helping them ply their trade.

The famous episode of the diamond necklace sparks resentment and hatred of Marie Antoinette and soon Paris is in charge of a vengeful mob. The Bastille is stormed and the terrifying revolution of 1789 is under way.

When he returns from America Von Fersen finds France on the brink of disintegration. After the Revolution of 1789 the royal family is moved from Versailles to the Tuileries. Von Fersen masterminds an escape for the royal family, but the scheme fails mainly because the family all travel together in a conspicuous coach pulled by six horses. The interior of the coach is very luxurious and even Marie's hyairdresser goes along. The family is captured leading eventually to imprisonment under atrocious conditions.

Von Fersen is instrumental in drafting the Brunswick Manifesto from Belgium where he has gone to try and help the royal family with the aid of Marie Antoinette's brother's Emperor Joseph II. A coalition of European powers would attack France if the royal family is harmed. The manifesto backfires as it makes Louis XVI and Marie enemies of the new French republic and therefore traitors.The king and Queen bravely go to the guillotine but the hatred of the aristocracy spreads like a virus through Europe, and when Von Fersen finally returns to his native Sweden after the death of his great love, Marie Antoinette, mobs turn against him as an aristocrat.

Well researched and well written, the reader is still left with the puzzling question. What was Marie Antoinette really like? She still remains an enigma.The difficulty with this novel is that after she is gone the events surrounding Von Fersen become much less vital and therefore less interesting. When the queen has left the hive the drones must seek another queen or lose their purpose in life. Nevertheless, this is a fine love story even though Von Fersen has other paramours which somewhat dilute his passion for Marie Antoinette.

15 of 16 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Great book May 23, 2012

By Marilyn C. Martin VINE™ VOICE

Format:Hardcover|Amazon Vine™ Review (What's this?)

Very well written! It's not a historical romance type novel or a text book. It's a very entertaining, well written historical account of the affair, between Swedish aristocrat Count Axel Von Fersen and Marie Antoinette. It gives an excellent account of how they met and what life was like for them and the world they lived in. We all know that Marie Antoinette was beheaded, but what led up to it and the aftermath for those she left behind isn't so well know. I now have more of a grasp of how awful it was for them and how long they lived as captives. An authentic look at the lives of the aristocrats and their demise. By the time you are through with the book, you'll have a much better understanding of the French Revolution and how the rest of the world was effected.
Without totally spoiling the ending, I'll just say that there's some similarities to how Axel meets his demise and the French revolution.

If you are interested in learning more about Marie Antoinette and that time period, its a great read, if you want a book in the format of a fictitious historical Romance, it's not the book for you.