I have to admit that my knowledge of the French Revolution is fairly limited to what I was taught at school and that was more or less biased towards the revolutionaries. The picture I had of Marie Antoinette was a selfish, frivolous woman who was summed up by the famous phrase she is reported to have uttered: “Let them eat cake!” I was about to be proven wrong!

While on a visit to Scone Palace in Perth, I spotted Marie Antoinette: A Journey by Antonia Fraser and I was intrigued. I already own a copy of Fraser’s biography about Mary Stuart which I thoroughly enjoyed, so my fingers were itching to open this book. Fraser’s books are impeccably researched and she paints a very vivid picture of life in the royal courts of Europe. Marie Antoinette is no exception - from practically the first page, Fraser debunks the myths that surrounded the much hated queen and portrays her as a real person. The first myth to be shattered was the discovery that she never once uttered the famous phrase: “Let them eat cake!” that has been so long and unjustly attributed to her. The young Marie Antoine was the fifteenth child of the formidable Maria Theresa, Empress of Austria. She was ill-educated and often starved of parental love until the day she suddenly came to her mother’s attention as potential marriage material. Antoine’s star rose after the death of one of her older sisters and the ravishment of another due to smallpox. Maria Theresa’s careful plans to marry her daughters into the Spanish and French courts were suddenly in jeopardy and she was forced to consider her youngest daughter as a future bride. After years of careful negotiation, the fourteen year old Antoine finally became the bride of Louis XVI and was destined to become the ill-fated last queen of France.

This book is a stunning account of a woman who has been much maligned by history and offers the reader a better understanding of not only her character but of the political climate of Europe at that time.