A scholar on Marie Antoinette delivers his most detailed vision of the doomed queen yet.

In previous works, such as Marie Antoinette’s Darkest Days(2016), historian Bashor examined how others viewed Marie Antoinette, the queen of France who was executed in 1793, during the French Revolution. Here, he turns his attention to the tragic figure herself. To set the scene, he delves into the history of Versailles between the reigns of Louis XIII and Louis XVI. Bashor immerses readers in a contradictory world of rigid social norms, vicious politics, and opulent debauchery. By the time the naïve and sarcastic Marie Antoinette arrives on the scene, many readers won’t be able to help but feel sorry for what awaits her. Bashor recounts the different stages of Marie Antoinette’s life with great detail, painting her as a privileged teenager who was deeply unprepared for her role. Through stories of her supposed lovers and unhappy marriage, Bashor makes her sympathetic, although tales of excessive gambling and her preference for the very young and beautiful confirm well-known stereotypes. Fleshing out this well-rounded portrait are some unexpected features: the texts of pamphlets bashing the monarchy, short chapters that evaluate Marie Antoinette’s handwriting for insight into her state of mind, and a lengthy exploration of her astrological chart. It’s debatable how much insight these latter elements add, although they are entertaining. However, Bashor is reluctant to take a stance on his subject’s infidelities despite the ample evidence he provides. But even if mysteries about Marie Antoinette remain, the author’s lush details make it easy to imagine nearly every bit of her daily life. He turns on a dime from elegant, haughty court behaviors to the era’s ugly realities; when discussing subtler points of fan waving, for instance, he reveals: “They often used the fan to hide their rotting teeth or divert bad breath.” Overall, it’s a glorious and realistic representation of Versailles that history buffs will enjoy.

A full, realistic, and completely engrossing view of Marie Antoinette’s life and times.

This scholarly work thoroughly documents Marie Antoinette’s imprisonment, trial, and execution. Bashor (Marie Antoinette’s Head, 2013, etc.), a professor of global issues at Franklin University, tells the story of Marie Antoinette’s last 10 weeks by drawing on contemporary sources as well as modern scholarship. The king was executed in January 1793; on Aug. 2, 1793, when this book begins, Marie Antoinette was taken to the Conciergerie prison in Paris. Her trial began on Oct. 14, and two days later she was found guilty and sent to the guillotine. Bashor describes the damp, filthy prison’s privations; attempts to help or rescue the queen; the revolutionary tribunal and the monarch’s trial with its prosecutor, indictment, jury, witnesses, testimony, and sentencing; and Marie Antoinette’s final moments. In all this, the author provides novelistic and empathetic attention to detail and personalities, as when he notes that Marie Antoinette recorded the heights of her children on the prison wall or how she kept busy by converting toothpicks into tapestry needles. He marshals a wide array of evidence, carefully distinguishing likely and trustworthy accounts from less believable ones and sorting out confusing episodes such as the Carnation Plot. In his readable book, Bashor shows that the Vienna-born Marie Antoinette, as a foreigner (and, probably, as a woman), became a scapegoat for the mob’s rage and that her trial was a sham. But while conceding that Marie Antoinette was “well known for her lavish expenditures and frivolous lifestyle,” he seems as puzzlingly reluctant as the queen to connect all the dots between that frivolity and the scapegoating. And while Marie Antoinette suffered in the Conciergerie, so did all his majesty’s prisoners before her, some no less innocent than herself. That the queen loved her children and went to her death with noble poise has captured much admiration—certainly Bashor’s—but this ought surely to be seen in the context of aristocratic France’s overwhelming human tragedies, which can never be told in so much detail. Extensive notes, a selected bibliography, and index are included. Impressive, well-researched, useful, and accessible, though some readers may feel that the book’s sympathies for the doomed queen remain misplaced.

A scholarly debut biography that looks at the French Revolution through the eyes of the queen’s hairdresser and confidant.

When Léonard Autié first arrived as a young man in Paris in 1769, he was so short on money that he walked the last 120 miles on foot. His possessions consisted of little more than a few coins, a tortoiseshell comb and “an ample supply of confidence.” Ten years later, after he created the famous “pouf” hairstyle, he was the hairdresser to the queen of France. A decade after that, during the revolution, Autié “took on the dangerous role of messenger and secret liaison between the royal family and their supporters.” Later, forced into exile and financially ruined, he spent a lengthy sojourn in Russia, where he worked as hairdresser to the nobility (and even arranged the hair of Czar Paul I’s corpse). He was eventually allowed to return to Paris in 1814, and he died there six years later. Bashor draws on contemporary accounts and letters and particularly Autié’s ghostwritten memoir, purportedly based on his journals and published 18 years after his death. The author notes that the latter source’s dialogue is unverifiable (although he cross-checks it with contemporary sources whenever possible) and that Autié was given to boasting and exaggeration. Fortunately, however, Bashor liberally quotes from the Souvenirs de Léonard, giving his own account a gossipy, entertaining directness, similar to a historical novel. (He also includes a bibliography, endnotes and an index.) Autié’s perspective highlights just how out of touch and frivolous the aristocrats were; for example, when he brings news to Versailles of the fall of the Bastille, he finds the court ladies “oblivious” and “clamoring for his services.” Bashor doesn’t clearly explain the specifics of hair powdering and wig making or how Autié arranged his fantastic poufs (although he does include illustrations), but his depiction of Autié’s fascinating fly-on-the-wall role as confidant to doomed royalty makes up for it. Overall, he delivers an informative examination of a little-known player on a great stage.

An entertaining, well-researched work that will particularly interest students of cultural history and the French Revolution.