Marie Antoinette
Book One of the Marie Antoinette Trilogy - "
Vive Madame la Dauphine" is released on 16 October, 2008, to Commemorate the Day of the Guillotine
Soon it will be exactly 215 years since Marie Antoinette was guillotined on the chilly autumn morning of 16 October, 1793. To commemorate this anniversary and challenge popular perceptions about the reign of Louis Auguste ("the Dauphin") and his child bride, Marie Antoinette, André Romijn (author of "Hidden Harmonies: The Secret Life of Antonio Vivaldi") releases his autobiographical novel, "Vive Madame la Dauphine".
In Book One of the Marie Antoinette Trilogy, Romijn brings to life Madame la Dauphine as she transforms herself from an inexperienced 14-year-old arriving in Versailles for her wedding day in 1770, to becoming the fêted then ill-fated Queen of France - a crucial yet largely neglected period of her life.
The sweet smile and the face presented to the world by the charming, young Marie Antoinette would suggest that she wants for nothing; her life seems perfect bliss. Incarcerated within the labyrinthine walls of Europe?s grandest palace, surrounded on all sides by jealousy and intrigue, Marie Antoinette grows up isolated and alone. Her task - to produce an heir and ensure survival of the French Bourbon dynasty is none too easy if Louis Auguste, Dauphin and grandson of the French King Louis XV, refuses to share their marriage bed.
With an unconsummated marriage, how might Marie Antoinette win the heart of "Papa Roi" and avoid being sent home? How will she steer a course through the pitfalls laid by her enemies? What was the real role played by Austrian ambassador, Comte de Mercy? What effect did the Swedish Count Axel von Fersen have upon her young heart and mind? Was it possible for Marie Antoinette to love her husband Louis XVI, or he to love his wife?
What was the role of Marie Antoinette in this scenario and might she have saved herself from the guillotine?
Romijn conducts the reader into the presence of a new Marie Antoinette: a woman capable of holding her own amidst the chaos and acrimony of court life at Versailles; one who rises magnificently to the challenges of sovereignty, motherhood and love, but who allows herself finally and fatally to be caught up in the maelstrom of destruction that is the French Revolution.
Readers can lose themselves in the 18th century life at the Palace of Versailles. And, as if at first hand, they can witness the social change and gathering unrest that ultimately erupted in a malignant outburst that set all of Europe simmering.?
Book One of the Marie Antoinette Trilogy - "Vive Madame la Dauphine" (ISBN 978-0955410024) 360 pages, priced £14.95, from 16 October, 2008.
Vive Madame La Dauphine
