Marie Antoinette Trilogy - Juliet Grey

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Has anyone read the three book series on Marie Antoinette by Juliet Grey? I remember being very anxious to read these upon first hearing about them!

I enjoyed the first book "Becoming Marie Antoinette" very much. The author clearly did her research and presented 18th century Versailles very well.

Young Louis and Antoinette were portrayed charmingly and very sympathetically. I enjoyed seeing how their relationship progressed. I was also glad to see an accurate portrayal of du Barry. She was considered a refined, polite woman (despite her checkered past and loose morals) and not the nasty, vulgar representation found in Coppola's film.

Speaking of which, the author claims to despise the Coppola film, yet I couldn't help but draw some similar comparisons. Her Louis appears wholly disinterested in his wife and refuses to consummate the marriage while Antoinette tries in vain to seduce him. Very reminiscent of Coppola's film. She also included the phimosis theory which is outdated, as we have discussed elsewhere on this forum.

Furthermore, she bought into the old Freudian theory of the correlations between MA's unhappiness and spending. And there were certain parts where Antoinette appeared quite shallow and immature and self absorbed as well, even as a grown woman. She also focused far too much on MA's "relationship" with Lauzun and had her with a serious crush on the man!

And Louis, while endearing, was portrayed too weakly and there appeared no attraction between the couple at all. Louis was slender, tall, and handsome during his youth and should have been depicted thus. I dislike how MA seemed to disdain her husband at first and find him almost annoying. Yes, they had different interests and it took time to know each other and grow close to one another but I don't believe it was as bad as that. She did have a gambling problem and went out late as a teenager which was fairly represented.

Overall, the first book was a promising start.

My biggest contention with the second book was the inclusion of MA's "affair" with Fersen. What was particularly off-putting is how the author had Antoinette comparing the men. She said her husband was clumsy in the boudoir and that she never felt pleasure and also apparently that he did not know how to kiss and she was still "unschooled in the ways of love." I was disgusted. This made MA sound rather cheap, even more so than in a usual extramarital affair.

Grey had her feeling guilty which was better than others might do. Yet, she is unable to stop sleeping with him and even believes Louis is to blame for not being a better lover! Antoinette also constantly complains how infrequent her husband's conjugal visits are. Well, he wasn't a sex maniac true, but they conceived a fairly good number of children in relatively quick succession so I don't think that's quite accurate. Good Lord, woman. Where do you think they came from?!

As I said, after her first encounter with her lover, it didn't end there. Fersen becomes almost an obsession for her and she cannot give him up. If she were really regretful she would have had nothing more to do with him for fear of more temptation. She also pines for him while he's away and I just can't envision that. He had mistresses and she was too independent and devoted to her family and religion to invest so heavily in an illicit relationship. It only gave credence to the belief that she went to Trianon to have sex.

I also felt that her motherhood was not as central a part as it could have been. There were some rather touching scenes involving her and Louis however after her miscarriage in 1783 and later, during the revolution, when Louis had breakdowns and their children were dying.

Overall, I was disappointed with how their relationship was portrayed. Maybe it wasn't passionate but it was devoted which I felt was lost due to the insertion of Fersen. There was not nearly enough mention of MA's turning to the ways of devotion. In fact, religion is not mentioned much at all which explains why Grey had the relationship between Axel and Antoinette consummated. The initial guilt was there but then quickly dissipated and she seemed to no longer care. She was just driven by this new experience with this handsome, more experienced man. In real life, if she did "give into passion", in a moment's weakness, I believe she would have had no more contact with him, for fear of trespassing again, as I said earlier. In this novel, she wasn't very concerned and the affair continued for gears.

I will say that the final novel was not too bad. Especially, at the end, where Louis is to be executed. He and Antoinette exchange tender words and she appears to regret not loving and appreciating him earlier until it was too late. I also did not like how the Queen was triumphant at her trial that the revolutionaries did not mention Fersen as her lover, even though, in this book, he had been.

Overall, I found the books to be interesting reads and the portrayals sympathetic, but not the best. It's hard to find good non fiction that is not too harsh on either Louis or Antoinette and even harder to find decent fiction that portrays them as a loving, devoted, and devout couple. Too many of the old stereotypes and insinuations were included in these novels as well as other books. But it was a work of historical fiction and people are allowed interpretations and an artistic license.

Wow. I didn't mean for this post to get so long! Please share what you thought about this series if you've read them.

Oh good Lord, THAT was a disaster!

Very reminiscent of the Other Boleyn Girl! Riddled with inaccuracies, both of these books!

Ahhhh, the third book is very high on my reading list. I read the first two as they were released, purchased the third and --- just left it to rot in my Kindle because my novel-reading has gone downhill recently.

As I've said, I've one read the first two and they didn't make me gag. To be fair, when it comes to Pre-Revolutionary things, it's kinda hard to make me violently ill. I'll roll my eyes at Fersen romances and bite my lip if Antoinette constructs a throne out of starving peasants but I'm not going to do anything radical. [See, it's a ha-ha funny joke because I'm a --- oh, never mind.] But even with my bar being so low, every once in awhile *cough* Erickson *cough* a novel can't clammer over it and...Grey clammered over my bar. I liked the first two books. I got a little skeevy when the Estates-General approached but nothing really happened to make me grab a pitchfork.

And in those books I liked: I absolutely agree with the above re: du Barry. I was just telling a riend the other day, du Barry's in a tough position historically insofar as while there is nobody who consciously wants to defame her, no one wants to defend her either. And so, the woman who was teenage Antoinette's enemy and a convicted counterrevolutionary just tends to be condemned by virtue of how historians have collectively shrugged their shoulders at whatever sludge was poured on her contemporaneously.

Furthermore, she bought into the old Freudian theory of the correlations between MA's unhappiness and spending. And there were certain parts where Antoinette appeared quite shallow and immature and self absorbed as well, even as a grown woman. She also focused far too much on MA's "relationship" with Lauzun and had her with a serious crush on the man!

I had forgotten this tidbit. But yeah, in general, using Freud as any measure of characterization is flawed on two fronts. 1.) You can't diagnose someone long-dead. 2.) Freud has been discredited by all reputable psychological authorities. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar because it's a cigar and sometimes Antoinette's spending money because --- she's queen of France? And she's not spending that much, compared to her contemporaries? Why is this even an issue worth discussing?

Edit: For some reason, I didn't see that this was Page 2 when I replied and I missed the totality of the initial discussion. I'm sorry about that - I'll be more careful next time! D:

Bunnies wrote:

Furthermore, she bought into the old Freudian theory of the correlations between MA's unhappiness and spending. And there were certain parts where Antoinette appeared quite shallow and immature and self absorbed as well, even as a grown woman. She also focused far too much on MA's "relationship" with Lauzun and had her with a serious crush on the man!

I had forgotten this tidbit. But yeah, in general, using Freud as any measure of characterization is flawed on two fronts. 1.) You can't diagnose someone long-dead. 2.) Freud has been discredited by all reputable psychological authorities. Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar because it's a cigar and sometimes Antoinette's spending money because --- she's queen of France? And she's not spending that much, compared to her contemporaries? Why is this even an issue worth discussing?

I agree.

I don't want to disrespect the sanctity of the marriage bed, but, as I said, I am always disappointed when I read "love scenes" between Antoinette and Louis. I don't want anything graphic of course and it's quite disrespectful but I was hoping for something a little...more?

Why are paragraphs and pages dedicated to Antoinette and Fersen having sex and barely a mention with her husband?! Their relationship could have had some passionate and spontaneous moments. He finally consummated their marriage as she was getting out of her tub, sounds romantic to me!

I don't understand it. So they were both inexperienced, there was pain, it was awkward, and neither one of them were probably great lovers but the author acted as if they were completely chaste. They can't even bother to look at each other and all love making was done with nightgowns on and under the sheets, sheesh!   

All of her "experience" comes from the hot, Swedish playboy and her husband is dull and doesn't give her any pleasure and doesn't "explore." This got a little weird but you see my point...   

I don't want vivid sex scenes between the royal couple, of course not! But something a little more romantic than "oh yeah, we finally consummated our marriage." And then for Fersen, it's all passion and "finally! Someone who knows how to please me and kiss and make love the right way!" It was horrible....  

Finally caught up with the page 1 discussion and re: the popularity of the "Fersen" subplot...

If I recall, I much preferred the Grey novel to the second because there's a strong, relateable conflict --- Antoinette struggles to introduce herself to court and overcome an entrenched Anti-Austrian bias among her new peers. This scenario is intrinsically interesting; it was the best part of the Coppola film too. But then the second novel was primarily an elongated elongated portending of the Diamond Necklace Affair, which was in turn an elongated portending of the Revolution. And to keep our attention in between the foreboding dropped hints she throws in adultery because nothing else is going on. And no, historical figures or no historical figures, nobody will ever buy a book just about two people who are in love with no conflict. It's lovely, it's romantic, but novels aren't about Everything Being Okay All the Time. That's...boring.

In a sense, a "trilogy" of Antoinette's life is too ambitious. Enduring the violent rage of a populace is far more impressive to read about than enduring some snide remarks by a few spinster princesses. But that's the primary conflict Antoinette encounters before the Revolution, factually and historically speaking. Likewise, a woman who is in an arranged marriage, falls in love with her husband, and remains in love with her husband is on a very straight course and from a sheer literary perspective this is boring. There's no conflict. Conflict is what drives a story, conflicts and -- well, events.

An adultery is an event. What else are you going to fill the 15-some pre-revolutionary years otherwise? A visit to Sweden to help the King decorate? Sorry I'm making fun of Erickson again but she's so bad.

Fersen is primarily a narrative device to maintain the reader's attention until the dive into the Revolution. How can it be avoided? ...Well, don't have a trilogy. Don't have a second book to serve solely as an ominous foreshadowing of the third. Just start with the third. Start on the Eve of the Revolution. Start at the point of action, the point of change - then there is no need to sluggishly fill in the peaceful years with invented conflict that inevitably boils down to Adultery With Fersen. Vidal's Trianon begins shortly before the concoction of the Estates-General, if I recall correctly. And aside from Elena's astute scholarship, this is a reason her novel has no Fersen romance: there's no need for it. The Revolution draws enough attention and provides enough conflict. Because, I don't care what your opinion on the Revolution is: it's more interesting to read about 1789 than 1779. Trying to make 1779 compete with '89 in terms of conflict leads to Fersen.

Just...start...later.

Regarding the lack of sex scenes between Louis XVI and Antoinette --- I'd forgotten, were there sex scenes with Fersen? My rule-of-thumb has always been that if there's sex in the novel it should be metaphorically substituting for something else; if it's sex just for sex, that's porn. On the flip side, there can be metaphors that are standing for sex, the novelist's answer to the "fade to black" in movies. ...Did the Fersen sex mean anything? Not going to lie, Juliet Grey's first two novels seemed too busy snapping bubblegum to employ subtle narrative devices like metaphors but I can be blunt sometimes.

Otherwise eww.

I agree!!

A novel depicting her whole life is ambitious and tricky to write and it does inevitably lead to Fersen. He is supposed to represent romance but I think it comes across more as conflict and breaking down of moral barriers which I don't believe she did.   

I know I sound harsh when reviewing these books when really I liked them alright. But I just found too many of the old stereotypes being rehashed. Ya know? Some things just weren't necessary. I didn't see any real growth or change besides her becoming an unfaithful wife. And then having the gall to blame her husband for it...basically. Ok, wow.   

Yes there was one sex scene with Fersen. It took up a few pages. It doesn't make sense to include something like this after she realizes she loves her husband and children. Ugh. So annoying. It just takes up space and is pointless "romance." Realistically, there's no way she could've snuck off with him at Trianon even during the summer and in "secret" rooms.   

I prefer little to no sex in my novels as well but if there needs to be I agree, nothing graphic. And it should be wholesome. Not torrid, adulterous romances but between a loving, married couple. Maybe they didn't have the hots for each other at first but why couldn't it have developed a little?   

Anyway, needless to say, I am a romantic when it comes to Antoinette and would like to see them portrayed as a loving and devoted couple! There is a serious lack in decent historical fiction, even in biographies.

They both had strict upbringings and could be quite prudish but I don't think it was quite as severe as some make it out to be. No kissing on the lips? Mustn't see each other undressed? Please.  Ok, so they were innocent and didn't know what to do and they certainly weren't expected to enjoy relations and I imagine neither one of them was very sexual, but I still don't buy the aforementioned picture.

But  it doesn't make sense for Antoinette to have all this pent up desire and passion and a "good teacher" in Fersen! I just don't like that at all...I don't think it was all Louis. It has to also do with temperament. I don't think she needed another man to come along and show her anything.

Humans are sexual beings, yes, but don't think she really was. But I don't think that Louis was without a sex drive and that either of them hated this "duty." He was a man after all! Even if he wasn't licentious, why couldn't he break down some barriers and appreciate the beautiful woman that was his wife??

We must remember that authors, no matter how good their intentions, tend to project their own world view upon the characters of a historical novel. It takes a very disciplined historian not to do so. It is easy for an author to get carried away with a romance, I'm sure. All I know, is that from all we know about Marie-Antoinette, she was known for her austere temper (as her own brother described her) and therefore the idea that she would allow herself to be shared by two men, Louis and Fersen, is absurd. 

Precisely!

And when she ceased to have conjugal relations with Louis I doubt she replaced him wit Fersen! She couldn't have

Bunnies wrote:An adultery is an event.

OK, it's true. But there are thousands of other events to write about. As I've mentioned here, if I wrote something about the pre-revolution time with the royals in the spotlight, I would concentrate on their political roles. I'm not against love stories, even if they are not historically accurate, but I definitely don't like them in this context. I would be interested in the love life of a French peasant girl, or even a noblewoman, but not the Queen. This is where my tastes differ from other people's: for me, the royals and their acquintances are "tools" to understand the situation that leads to wars, political events or, speaking of Louis and Antoinette, the French Revolution. Reading that "Antoinette wasn't interested in politics, but fell in love in someone and had sex with him"-stories make me sick. It's a missed chance, and steals the show from historically proven events. Instead of having sex with Fersen in Trianon, Antoinette was aware to win Louis' attention and support in some (mostly Austrian) cases, and she *was* keen on politics. It's another question how far she understood state issues and how far Louis permitted her to involve in them, but she wasn't an ordinary woman whose love life is the most interesting to talk about.

A good example for a beautiful forbidden love story is in Maurice Druon's The Accursed Kings-series. Guccio the Italian banker boy fells in love with a French noble girl. I don't know if this subplot was true or only came from Druon's fantasies, but I don't really care - it's so beautifully written and sad, I cried for them while reading the books... And there are kings and queens in the series, too, but Druon, as far as I know, only used histrorically accurate events in their cases. They had many real love affairs and other dirty open secrets to write about. And most of them were politically relevant, indeed!

Sophie wrote:This is where my tastes differ from other people's: for me, the royals and their acquintances are "tools" to understand the situation that leads to wars, political events or, speaking of Louis and Antoinette, the French Revolution. Reading that "Antoinette wasn't interested in politics, but fell in love in someone and had sex with him"-stories make me sick. It's a missed chance, and steals the show from historically proven events. Instead of having sex with Fersen in Trianon, Antoinette was aware to win Louis' attention and support in some (mostly Austrian) cases, and she *was* keen on politics. It's another question how far she understood state issues and how far Louis permitted her to involve in them, but she wasn't an ordinary woman whose love life is the most interesting to talk about.

I would read the bejeezus out of that book. Antoinette aside, this is arguably a defect in a lot of historical fiction centering on royals. The politics are phased out - or if they are included, inevitably get boiled down to "the king is favoring Family A but Family B is jealous." But then we run into a plethora of new problems. In the first place: how much of our audience is really interested in politics? I'm fascinated by the practical application of Turgot's economic policy but who else shares my predilection? In the second place: The book is now political. This is not to say that Juliet Grey's trilogy isn't political by default - even if it's not written with a specific political agenda in mind, the books by implication and insinuation take a firm political stance. This goes unnoticed by many readers, and I'd wager an American Libertarian and American Democrat could both read the books without any onslaught against their ideologies blipping on their radar. "Oh, yeah, angry mobs are bad, who could even argue?" But once you abandon your focus on personalities you also abandon the safety of insinuation: the political ink will bleed through the very page.

You'll be walking a fine light between boring and infuriating your reader.

Bunnies wrote:You'll be walking a fine light between boring and infuriating your reader.

Of course, a balanced usage of personal and political matters would be required. I don't imagine a dry history book that is pretending to be a novel, because it also wouldn't interest anyone, including myself. I just expect a little bit of complexity, that's all. Authors like the above mentioned Druon or Graves could do it - their books are entertaining and one can also learn from them! OK, they contain fantasy, I don't say that reading historical fiction is the same as reading serious historical works, but it awakened my interest to read more about the respective historical events and people. This is one important aim of historical fiction, isn't it? From Grey's trilogy, according to the reviews, the only thing one can "learn" (or recognize) is the zweigian point of view. Not only outdated and disproved, but also totally irrelevant.

As you also stated, everything is political, but an author also can keep balance by showing the opposite parties as no good and evil, but in an equally ambivalent way. The Revolution is a perfect example: there were alleged "heroes" and "villains" on all sides (I mean, from a novelist point of view), and it's a personal choice whom/what to emphasize from them. Everything is better than missing a portrayal of something just because it's "boring". Even the most boring events can be written excitingly with a little bit of talent and a lot of hard work... 

I agree with you both entirely!

Instead of focusing on her mythical romance with Fersen it would have done better to talk about more of the political situation. Grey spent way too much time on the superficial. There were many shallow aspects of these books and I was disappointed that more myths were not dispelled and there wasn't more substance.

There are such things as wholesome romances and I wish if she chose to depict a romance then why not focus on the devotion between Antoinette and her husband.

Sophie wrote:

Bunnies wrote:You'll be walking a fine light between boring and infuriating your reader.

Of course, a balanced usage of personal and political matters would be required. I don't imagine a dry history book that is pretending to be a novel, because it also wouldn't interest anyone, including myself. I just expect a little bit of complexity, that's all. Authors like the above mentioned Druon or Graves could do it - their books are entertaining and one can also learn from them! OK, they contain fantasy, I don't say that reading historical fiction is the same as reading serious historical works, but it awakened my interest to read more about the respective historical events and people. This is one important aim of historical fiction, isn't it? From Grey's trilogy, according to the reviews, the only thing one can "learn" (or recognize) is the zweigian point of view. Not only outdated and disproved, but also totally irrelevant.

As you also stated, everything is political, but an author also can keep balance by showing the opposite parties as no good and evil, but in an equally ambivalent way. The Revolution is a perfect example: there were alleged "heroes" and "villains" on all sides (I mean, from a novelist point of view), and it's a personal choice whom/what to emphasize from them. Everything is better than missing a portrayal of something just because it's "boring". Even the most boring events can be written excitingly with a little bit of talent and a lot of hard work... 

Oh, I'm sure it could be done. I'm just saying: it would be hard.

But I’d argue against the idea that the inordinate focus on Antoinette’s personal virtues in contrast with her political acumen is solely because the latter is perceived to be “boring.” Effectively, the current trope is this: Define the Royal Family by their relationship with one another and their personal virtues and talents. Define the revolutionaries by their politics, which will be watered down to ill-defined "moderate" [Less Satanic] and "radical" [Most Satanic]. This way, even a reader who disagrees with the concept of Absolute Monarchy will still sympathize with the royals, because they like their personalities, and any reader who might have subscribed to republicanism will recoil from the revolutionaries, because they have no personality beyond decapitating. It’s a skewered perspective and I’d argue that, at least subconsciously, it’s a political Trojan horse, insidiously condemning a movement without really letting it speak for itself.

Rather than a snapshot of a complicated political overhaul this desanitizes the Revolution to a quarrel between Nice People Who Are Trying Their Best and People Who Are Beheading People For No Reason. And so the French Revolution is effectively contorted into an historical fairy tale, with good and noble princes harassed by hideous savages. The revolutionaries are caricatures, cardboard cutouts, and we’re not really supposed to ask for their motivation. You don’t ask the ogre’s motivation in a fairy tale: he’s just an ogre.

Tropes are recycled because we like them, and we like them because they are familiar. But…well, I think sanitizing your antagonists into cardboard cutouts is boring. If you want Marat to be an antagonist – fine, more power to you, he can make a good one! But then give him a dang motive. Darth Vader and Hannibal Lecter haven’t burrowed into the public consciousness because they were flat Bad Guys who were Bad for the sake of Being Bad. The best villains are the heroes of their own story. …But then, to do this, to give Marat motivations beyond vague “I demand 500 thousand heads because somethingsomething RADICALISM” you have to explore, at least briefly, the political landscape of the Revolution, which is what the aforementioned Fairy Tale aggressively avoids doing, for reasons that might range from “I have a genuine political agenda to discourage people from questioning their governments” to “I have no idea what the political landscape was.”

Which is to say, that the formula works as a political proponent and as a simple beach-read and this is probably why it has been rehashed over and over. It's simple, it's appealing, it doesn't raise any questions, and - let's face it - it's much easier to write, insofar as crafting blunted characters is simpler than crafting nuanced ones. But I would hardly say that the alternative, a complicated tour de force of politics, would necessarily have to be boring.