Marie Antoinette

Lorraine Blundell

Description

Deadly secrets and fatal decisions, Marie Antoinette thought she took her secrets to the grave. She was wrong.

Was Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, executed during the French Revolution for her worst crime or was there another that would have shaken the very foundations of the monarchy if it had become known? What was it?

Colourful characters that filled Marie’s life spill from the novel’s pages. The royal perfumer, candle-maker, hairdresser, fashion stylist, painter, jeweller and even her pastry maker were all part of an extravagant, indulgent lifestyle.

Go with her from Austria to the stunning royal estate of Versailles with the fairy-tale Trianon. Continue on to the filthy degradation of the prisons of revolutionary Paris and the faded glory of the Tuileries Palace, and share the lives, hopes and fears of real prisoners awaiting death in the feared Conciergerie.

In the shadow of the guillotine stand other actors in this drama, Madame Tussaud maker of death masks, Charlotte Corday the Angel of Death, Marat, Robespierre and more. The gruesome tricoteuses knit as the heads drop and Sanson operates his Lady Guillotine. Discover the disgust of the stinking, overflowing graveyards and burial quarry which have now become part of the catacombs of Paris.

Sujets

• María Antonieta de Austria
• Marie Antoinette
• French Revolution
• Marie-Antoinette d'Autriche
• Romance
• Novel
• Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: AuthorHouse UK
• Date de parution: 07 septembre 2022
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9781728375137
• Langue: English

Extrait

OTHER NOVELS BY THE SAME AU THOR
Empress of Pom peii
Pompeii: Death Comes Cal ling
Pompeii: The Peacock Mur ders
Pompeii: My Love Must Wait
Whispers from Pom peii
Herculaneum: Paradise Lost
Cleopatra: Arsinoe’s C urse
Cleopatra: Whispers from the Nile
Medici: The Queen’s Per fume
Rome: The Titus Conspi racy
Marie Antoinette
Secrets from the Grave
 
 
 
 
Lorraine Blundell
 
 
 

 
 
AuthorHouse™ UK
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Bloomington, IN 47403 USA
www.authorhouse.co.uk
Phone: UK TFN: 0800 0148641 (Toll Free inside the UK)              UK Local: (02) 0369 56322 ([phone] from outside the UK)
 
 
 
 
 
© 2022 Lorraine Blundell. All rights reserved.
 
No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.
 
Published by AuthorHouse 09/06/2022
 
ISBN: 978-1-7283-7514-4 (sc)
ISBN: 978-1-7283-7513-7 (e)
 
 
 
 
 
Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.
CONTENTS
With Thanks
Dedication
Front Cover Design
Characters
Timeline
Part I
1 France
2 Austria
3 France
4
5
6
7 England
8 France
9
10
Part II
11
12
13
14
Part III
15
16
17
18 England
19
20 France
21
22
23
24
25
26 Austria
Part IV
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35 Austria
36 France
37 England
38
Part V A Glimpse into the Future
39 England
The Author
Historical Notes
Glossary
Reference Material
La Marseillaise
Book Club Discussion
WITH THANKS

Thank you to my niece Michelle for your friendship, support and valuable editing assistance. As always, my gratitude goes to family members and my friend, Kate.
Professor Miles Prince
Doctor Harold Cashmore
DEDICATION

With love to the two sweetest little girls in the world
Olive & Olivia
FRONT COVER DESIGN

London Montgomery
CHARACTERS

Marie Antoinette: Queen of France
Louis XV1: King of France
Louis Charles: Dauphin of France
Empress Maria-Theresa of Austria
William Pitt: British Prime Minister
Patrice: British spy *
Count Axel von Fersen: Swedish ambassador to the French court
Princess Elisabeth: Sister of Louis XV1
Princess Marie-Therese: Daughter of Marie & Louis
Marie Grosholtz (Tussaud): Curtius’ niece & wax modeler
Philippe Curtius: Wax modeler and showman
Marquis de Lafayette: French aristocrat
Jacques-Louis David: Painter
Monsieur Jean Fargeon: Perfumer to French Court
Monsieur Autier: Marie Antoinette’s hairdresser
Isabelle Cranmore: British friend to Marguerite
James Cranmore: Her brother *
Michel: Owner of Paris Stohrer Patisserie *
Marguerite: Michel’s daughter *
Marcel: Conciergerie supervisor *
Charles Sanson: Guillotine Operator
Maximilien Robespierre
Jean-Paul Marat: Swedish lawyer & journalist
Charlotte Corday: Marat’s assassin, the Angel of Death
The Tricoteuses: Knitting women
TIMELINE

DATE
E VENT
May 1770
Marie Antoinette arrives at Versai lles
June 1789
The Third Estate declares itself the National Asse mbly
July 1789
The Fall of the Bast ille
August 1789
Declaration of the Rights of Man ado pted
October 1789
The march on Versailles and move to P aris
October 1791
The meeting of the Legislative Asse mbly
September 1792
The massacre at the Tuileries Pa lace
September 1792
Abolition of the mona rchy
January 1793
Louis XV1 is exec uted
February 1793
France declares war on Great Bri tain
October 1793
Queen Marie Antoinette is exec uted
May 1794
Robespierre declares the Cult of the Supreme B eing
PART I

There is nothing new except what has been forgo tten
Marie Antoinette
1

FRANCE
I was a queen, and you took away my crown, a wife and you deprived me of my children. My blood alone rem ains…
Marie Antoinette
2 nd August 1793
P aris
The Conciergerie Prison
The Banks of the Seine
T he huge, forbidding prison known as the Conciergerie on the Ile de la Cite appeared in front of them suddenly from the blackness of night as the widow Capet, the name by which Marie Antoinette was now known, approached her new place of internment. Its massive bulk stood on the banks of the river its gruesome reputation preceding all who entered.
Marie had been woken during the night and ordered to dress immediately as she was to leave the Temple prison, formerly a Templar fortress, where she was presently imprisoned with many others. There was rarely any companionship even occasionally amongst those suffering the probability of transfer on to a place awaiting execution.
‘Hurry up! We’re waiting, we have other prisoners to deal with,’ the gendarme snapped irritably.
‘I’m coming,’ Marie replied as she quickly gathered up her paltry possessions. She was wearing a ragged cotton and linen chemise once of good quality but now ragged and worn.
‘You must leave now.’
‘Please, surely this can be reconsidered,’ Marie pleaded, ‘my daughter will be grief stricken if I go.’
‘No! You must be transferred.’ The gendarme was adamant.
She looked up at him, shocked. ‘Is there no hope? My daughter is to remain at the Temple without me?’
‘Those are my orders.’
It was at that precise moment that Marie realised she was probably being taken to the Conciergerie. It would become her final place of imprisonment before she met her death. She was hurried down the stairs surrounded by gendarmes, almost falling as they shoved her along.
There was no help to be found anywhere although she was the Queen of France. Her shoes squelched water and were soon sodden.
‘Please, can we walk less quickly,’ she pleaded, ‘my shoes have filled with water.’
‘In a hurry to get there are you!’ one of the gendarmes sneered. ’We’ll be there soon enough you have my word, and the only way you’ll get out again is if you’re to die,’ he laughed as the others joined in.
Marie’s steps faltered as before long, she heard and smelled the stench of the river ahead. Crossing the bridge, she saw the hazy shape of the huge, infamous grey prison as they came closer through the rain and it loomed up before them.
Marie looked upwards fearfully at the Conciergerie.
She was led into a small office where her few possessions were checked in.
‘Jacques, the prisoner Capet is to be registered,’ the senior gendarme informed the decrepit old man who was sitting behind a desk covered with scattered papers. They waited until he’d written the name into a large book.
‘This one’s important isn’t she!’ he squinted up at Marie knowingly. ‘I’ve heard about her.’
‘Take care, old man,’ the gendarme warned. ‘Otherwise, you’ll find yourself visiting Madame Guillotine yourself if you allow unofficial visitors or enable her to escape,’ he warned, raising his weapon and pointing it at the old man who shrank back at the threat.
It was not unknown for Jacques to line his pocket with a bribe if a visitor wished to enter for only a short time without permission. Turning his back, he’d look away upon the payment of coins. He did, however, watch later to ensure that the visitor returned and left the prison alone.
Considering his lowly position, Jacques was able to live quite comfortably in a room nearby. It was shabby but clean and kept him off the city streets.
A bribe would not be possible, however, with an important prisoner such as the widow Capet.
Marie saw little more within the Conciergerie while walking along the prisoners’ passageway before reaching the cell she was ordered to enter. By the standards of other cells, this was larger and less dismal, more like a room, but a temporary dividing wall ran down the centre of it.
Marie would have little privacy.
‘This is your bed,’ one of the guards pointed to it. ‘The rest of the room has been divided to provide for use by two guards and a maid,’ she was told brusquely, ‘just in case you decide you’d like to leave us.’
‘I am to be allowed to have a maid, then?’
‘Yes, one, she’ll be sent to you.’
With no further explanation the guard departed and she was left alone. Tiredly, Marie sat down on the small bed and looked around her then, she tried to sleep through the remainder of the night. She cried as she thought of her daughter, Maria Theresa, left behind without her.
Marie finally slept and dreamed that she was back in the vast gardens of her home in Vienna.