There are works that have a lasting impact upon their publication. That of Charles-Éloi Vial is one of them, for its exemplarity, but above all for the phenomenal research work that the historian accomplished in order to extract for posterity new and unpublished aspects concerning the most iconic sovereign of France. Marie-Antoinette, who died under the guillotine on October 16, 1793, has fascinated the world since her tragic disappearance. We can no longer count the number of books, films and biographies devoted to him, notably the biography of Stefan Zweig, which has since become a reference. The author and curator in the manuscripts department of the National Library of France has therefore accomplished a real challenge by returning in an admirable manner to the unfortunate destiny of the wife of Louis XVI, torn from her native Austria at a very young age and catapulted without political experience in a moribund monarchy at the end of its career.
To reveal the true face of Marie-Antoinette, beyond the masks of the imagination, Charles-Éloi Vial returns to the primary sources by brushing aside the apocryphal filters, stereotypes and half-truths maintained during more than two centuries through historiographies and myth. The 36-year-old author, to whom we owe a portrait of Empress Marie-Louise, wipes the slate clean and starts from scratch by delving into the raw documents. Its goal: to restore a faithful portrait of the queen. He is interested, among other things, in manuscripts that have gone almost unnoticed or neglected by historians, such as the diary of his confessor, Abbot Maudoux, or the papers of Marshal de Castries, a close friend of the sovereign. Their contemporary testimonies prove to be a mine of information which he corroborates with other sources: letters, accounting documents and period press articles.
Upon her arrival at Versailles, the descendant of the Habsburgs suffered from great inner loneliness, torn between the hostility of a court which considered the Austrian as a foreigner and a husband who infantilized and neglected her. The reader discovers a young queen completely out of step with her environment, to which she had difficulty acclimatizing. She finds a way out of the boredom that devours her in the gambling and entertainment organized inside her famous Petit Trianon, escapes that permanently tarnish her image among the population. The historian, who confirms her romantic affair with Fersen, notes a change of attitude in the behavior of Marie-Antoinette at the birth of the dauphin, in 1778, but her political actions come up against inexperience. The last queen of the Ancien Régime has often been portrayed as selfish, spendthrift, carefree or frivolous. Under the luminous pen of Charles-Éloi Vial, she becomes a woman with a strong character, inhabited by a deep sadness which will transform into courage in the last moments of her life.