A Day with Marie Antoinette

Description

Marie Antoinette was a mirror of her time. Never has a queen been so passionately admired and adulated, then hunted, vilified, and defamed. Spanning her tragically brief yet passionate life- from the young queen playing a shepherdess on stage, unaware of the turmoil in the capital, to France's guillotined "martyr queen"- the author demystifies the legend, unveiling the woman behind the queen, and the wife and mother behind the sovereign. Readers will experience the palatial luxury of the queen's Versailles by tracing Marie Antoinette's footsteps through the royal residence, as well as discovering her voice through rare letters and encountering little-known works in her private art collection.

Helene Delalex is Heritage Conservation Manager at the Chateau de Versailles. She has curated exhibitions, contributed to numerous books, and appears regularly on television history programs in France. Francis Hammond's photographs have been published in Martha Stewart Living, Elle Decoration, and Historic Houses of Paris (2010), Versailles: A Private Invitation (2011), Entertaining in Grand Style (2013), and A Day at Versailles (2013).

"A Day With Marie Antoinette by Helene Delalex is a beautifully crafted, intimate look at the life and legend of Marie Antoinette as told through the objects, places and people that defined her story: the furniture, paintings, etchings, lavish rooms and gardens of Versailles where she spent most of her ultimately tragic life are highlighted in this concise, charming overview of Marie Antoinette." -VIVE LA QUEEN BLOG "Helene Delalex follows the breathless and unsettling pace of change set by Marie Antoinette at Versailles, visiting the sumptuous palace interiors that are imbued with her memory, such as the Gilded Cabinet or the Cabinet de la Meridienne, and the Queen's Hamlet, still so strongly marked by her presence and determination to break with the conventions of court life. Until that fateful day in October 1789, when she was forced to flee the palace of Versailles, which will always embody the ambivalences of her spirit." -WOMEN'S WEAR DAILY