Flaunting, Extravagant Queen by Jean Plaidy

Henrietta is passionate about her faith, however, and soon politically powerful people, namely Oliver Cromwell and his Puritans, turn her loyalty to her religion into a focal point for civil war. Yet her new husband is a man of principle and integrity, and Henrietta and Charles fall deeply in love. Sent abroad, she finds herself living in a Protestant country that views her own faith-Catholicism-with deep suspicion.

(Fersen's persistance is obnoxious.)Įvery detail is here, but more time is spent on Antoinette's Versailles heyday - the Revolution is summarised, from the flight to Varennes to the Queen's sordid trial and her execution, but it is merely the epilogue of her story.The daughter of Henry IV of France, Princess Henrietta Maria, becomes a pawn in a political strategy to stabilize relations between two countries when her father marries her to Charles I of England. Her only failing was her weakness over the eager, besotted and pretty Count Fersen Plaidy believes that they did have an affair, but Louis is much the nobler and more admirable man in Antoinette's life. She is a character to love and hate, pity and sympathise with - the innocence of her years as Dauphine, before coming to the throne at nineteen ('We are too young to rule', as goes the famous quote here attributed to her), her love and devotion to her children, and her dignity at the end. Marie Antoinette, whose story this is, adapted to the boredom and frustration of her younger years by seeking to enjoy privilege to the full, although she only ever wanted to please and make people love her by the time she understood her position and responsibility, it was too late. Louis was well-meaning and gentle, unsuited to his role as king yet interested in the welfare of his people perhaps the one argument for a republic he would have understood is that those in power should be chosen for their strengths and abilities, and not have authority forced upon them.

Plaidy brings a familiar sequence of events to life - an awkward marriage, the strict etiquette and spoiled extravagance of Versailles, a frivolous and naive young woman seeking escape in pleasure, the building wrath of a nation - and makes history accessible, as well as debunking legends. Show More historically accurate (based upon existing research) portrayal of Marie Antoinette, and also the subject, who was far from either a cruel and grasping queen or a martyred saint.

Flaunting, Extravagant Queen by Jean Plaidy