Farewell, My Queen

The Washington Post

A French historian and author of an exculpatory biography of Marie Antoinette, Thomas gets the tone and feel of 18th-century court life uncannily right, even though her language, in Moishe Black's splendid translation, is unaffectedly modern and straightforward. She is a master at recognizing and providing the telling detail. … Farewell, My Queen is no ordinary historical novel. It's a bravura glimpse into a time past and a dreamlike life that seemed to have nowhere to go but into oblivion. — Zofia Smardz

The New York Times

Farewell, My Queen is more rich tableau vivant than thriller (after all, we do know what happened to the queen), but it would be a pity to reveal the end. Suffice it to say that, on July 16, 1789, no less than in her memoirs, Laborde remained faithful to Marie Antoinette. And, in a sense, so does Chantal Thomas. After enduring two centuries of caricature, in these pages the ill-fated queen is allowed to be human. — Alan Riding

Publishers Weekly

The final days of the French Revolution are viewed from a curious perspective in this graceful, exquisitely detailed novel, narrated by Marie-Antoinette's reader ("deputy reader, I should say"), Madam Agathe-Sidonie Laborde. Ensconced in her Vienna apartment 20 years after the downfall of Louis XVI and his queen, the 65-year-old Laborde recalls her life with Marie-Antoinette during the pivotal power shift in July of 1789. An introductory chapter sets the scene, portraying the opulence of court life in Versailles, but also its epidemics and miasmas. Built on a swamp, it is plagued by invasions of insects and rats, and their swarming foreshadows the looming collapse of the monarchy. Events come to a head over the course of three days-July 14-16, 1789-and Thomas concentrates her account on their span. Court life is so insular that the nobles react with disbelief as rumors spread about the storming of the Bastille. When the news becomes impossible to ignore, Marie-Antoinette finally makes her aborted attempt to leave Versailles, even as Louis XVI pulls his troops from the city in an effort to defuse the rebellion. As the end nears for the regime, Laborde makes a desperate effort to escape Versailles. The story of Marie-Antoinette's final days is well known, so the delights of this rendition lie in the details. Laborde is a keen observer of the queen's moods and appearance, and her attempts to cheer her mistress with well-chosen passages gives her story extra depth. Like the tiny enamel painting of Marie-Antoinette's bright blue eye that inspires Laborde's reminiscences, this is a cunning, gemlike miniature. (June) Forecast: Booksellers might do well to group this with Kathryn Davis's novel Versailles (to which it compares favorably) and two recent biographies of Marie Antoinette, Antonia Fraser's Marie Antoinette: The Journey and Evelyne Lever's Marie Antoinette: A Biography. Thomas's novel won the Prix Femina in France, where it was a bestseller. Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Library Journal

Agathe-Sidonie Laborde's was a minor function at the grand and isolated palace of Versailles. She was one of Queen Marie-Antoinette's readers, her voice possessing a much-prized, opiate-like quality that put one to sleep. But during the stress-filled three days after the fall of the Bastille on July 14, 1789, sleep is an enviable commodity. Agathe-Sidonie keeps the shining image of her sovereign uppermost as fickle courtiers, overtaken by panic and chaos, flee the palace in a "wild migration," abandoning servants, pets, and even their children; she is determined not to abandon her adored queen. Narrated in 1810-11, when the elderly, ill Agathe-Sidonie is living in Vienna under the protection of the tattered remains of the French aristocratic community, this first novel by Thomas (The Wicked Queen), director of the National Scientific Research Center in France, is a masterly, haunting account of the downfall of the ancien r gime. Timid Agathe-Sidonie is the perfect witness, hidden in corners but capable of musing intelligently on monumental historical change and the particular tragedy of Marie-Antoinette. This Prix Femina winner is recommended for most libraries.-Jo Manning, Miami Beach, FL Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

A former reader to Marie-Antoinette recalls July 1789, in an edifying and masterly first novel, winner of the Prix Femina. Living in Vienna in 1810, elderly Agathe-Sidonie Laborde recounts her gossamer memories in Versailles as Marie-Antoinette's deputy reader. Specifically, she recounts the haunting hours of July 14, when news reached Versailles that the Parisian mobs had stormed the Bastille, to her flight with the Queen's favorite, Gabrielle de Polignac, to the Swiss border two days later. Laborde is a fly-on-the-wall observer of the grand, nearly surreal spectacle of Louis XVI's court, where time is calibrated obsessively by the King's Levee, reading of the daily temperature, hunts, meals, and Couchee. Occasionally, Laborde is called to the Queen's bedchamber, where the devoted servant reads Marivaux or extracts from the Magazine of New French and English Fashions while feeding on the entrancing sight of her royal mistress. The days of July spread panic: the King has dismissed his Minister of Finance, sent away his army of foreign soldiers, and capitulated to the National Assembly. The "list of 286 heads that have to fall" is read by the terrified courtiers; Laborde is summoned to the Queen's chambers to extract her jewels from their settings in order to flee with them to Metz-an escape that never occurs. French scholar and biographer Thomas (The Wicked Queen: The Origins of the Myth of Marie-Antoinette, 1999) fashions terrific suspense while providing delicious characterizations-like the cynical, mockingly powerful Diane de Polignac-and sinister touches like the slattern Panic serving the gluttonous King a dead rat. Though stung by the desertion of the royalty and horrified at thesavagery of the mob, Laborde doesn't lose her literary composure: "I have witnessed the erecting of something like an immense and perfect monument to the glory of the King, and now I was conscious only of the cracks already splitting it . . . ." Scholarly precision in an artful, fluid, compelling narrative: Vive la reine!