by Will Bashor
Release Date: August 1st, 2016
2016 Rowman & Littlefield Publishers
Hardcover Edition; 398 Pages
ISBN: 978-1442254992
ASIN: B01JNA753C
Audiobook: B0741PKD4H
Genre: Non-Fiction / Historical / French Revolution
Source: Copy from publisher
4 / 5 Stars
Summary
This compelling book begins on the 2nd of August
1793, the day Marie Antoinette was torn from her family s arms and
escorted from the Temple to the Conciergerie, a thick-walled fortress
turned prison. It was also known as the waiting room for the guillotine
because prisoners only spent a day or two here before their conviction
and subsequent execution. The ex-queen surely knew her days were
numbered, but she could never have known that two and a half months
would pass before she would finally stand trial and be convicted of the
most ungodly charges. Will Bashor traces the final days of the prisoner
registered only as Widow Capet, No. 280, a time that was a cruel mixture
of grandeur, humiliation, and terror. Marie Antoinette's reign amidst
the splendors of the court of Versailles is a familiar story, but her
final imprisonment in a fetid, dank dungeon is a little-known coda to a
once-charmed life.
My Thoughts
Marie Antoinette's Darkest Days is a very moving, emotional, and perturbing account of the final days of Marie Antoinette's life and the 'trial' she endured before being sent to the guillotine. I have read countless biographies of this time period as well as studied it in university, including having to write a huge research paper on the causes of the French Revolution, so I am very familiar with this time period and the players involved. Despite knowing the end for this woman, it still gives me shivers knowing how people were treated during this time period and how no one, and I mean no one, was safe.
This account focuses on her last seventy-six days and doesn't discuss the frivolity of her life while she was Queen, nor does it discuss the downfall of the royal family except to how it pertains to what happened during this time period, something that I appreciated as it would have gotten bogged down in too many details. It also doesn't really talk too much about what happened to the rest of her family except as to how it affected Marie Antoinette and what she was suffering while waiting for trial, and honestly, knowing what happened to the prince, I was glad to have those details not explained in detail in this book. The author did a great job at focusing on Marie Antoinette, her suffering, the attempts at rescue, the consequences of those attempts, and how she kept her dignity throughout the ordeal.
Even knowing the conditions to which she was kept, I think this was the first time I actually read the full details and it is definitely a distressing account. The cell in which she was kept was below the level of the Seine and it was cold and damp, an environment that further exacerbated the illness from which she was suffering. She was denied a lot of comforts and suffered quite a bit, but considering her previous lavish lifestyle, she bore it with grace and dignity, being kind to everyone around her. The trial was very well explained and I read the accounts from people knowing the end result would be the same despite there being really nothing against her. Those in charge did their best to humiliate her, but she kept her dignity throughout the trial and I can't even imagine what this cost her, both physically and emotionally.
The author has presented a very well-researched account of the last days of this reviled queen and I appreciated the way he tried to show both sides to what happened, never denying Marie Antoinette's guilt in certain matters, only showing how things developed or how they happened. Considering the end in store for her, I can definitely understand the desperate attempts at escape she would have tried or those around her would have tried considering her connections, but she was too well guarded for anything to be successful. I thought the author was quite subtle in showing how a person can become a figurehead for hatred without really having done anything other than be careless, and it can be argued that propaganda and the press were definitely a powerful tool to malign someone and create chaos. I don't think anyone expected the French Revolution and what happened afterwards though, but when you play with fire... And a lot of the heavy hitters who led the French Revolution fell themselves to the guillotine later on.
Verdict
Marie Antoinette's Darkest Days was a very well-researched book and is a great one to add to the canon of literature that already exists about Marie Antoinette. The book focuses on her in her last days and on the people who interacted with her during this time period. If you are looking for a description of her life, this is not it, and I would recommend that you have a knowledge of her life before reading this as the people and events that are mentioned will make more sense as they are not really described as it is expected that you know what is being talked about. It is also a good account as to what happens when decisions are made through fear and hatred as nothing good comes from a society that is led in this manner and France definitely suffered for quite a while after this time period. And honestly, her grief as a mother is the one thing that remains with me after reading this book, the fear for her children once they were taken from her, and I also am truly glad she never knew what happened to her son.
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