A Day with Marie Antoinette
By (Author) Hlne Delalex
Editions Flammarion
Flammarion
1st October 2015
France
General
Non Fiction
European history
Architecture: palaces, stately homes and mansions
944.035092
Hardback
224
Width 140mm, Height 225mm
940g
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.
"A Day With Marie Antoinetteby Hlne 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
"Hlne 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 Mridienne, and the Queens 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
Hlne Delalex is Heritage Conservation Manager at the Chteau de Versailles. She has curated exhibitions, contributed to numerous books, and appears regularly on television history programs in France. Francis Hammonds photographs have been published in Martha Stewart Living, Elle Dcoration, and Historic Houses of Paris (2010), Versailles: A Private Invitation (2011), Entertaining in Grand Style (2013), and A Day at Versailles (2013).