The Marianne series gets off to a fantastic start in this book. Our 17 year old heroine, rescued as a baby from the French Revolution which claimed thThe Marianne series gets off to a fantastic start in this book. Our 17 year old heroine, rescued as a baby from the French Revolution which claimed the lives of her aristocratic parents, marries the British Lord Cranmere only to be neglected on her wedding night while he gambles her fortune and her virginity away to Jason Beaufort, who is best described as the Regency's answer to Rhett Butler. But Cranmere chose the wrong bride to humiliate - Marianne is a crack shot and expert fencer and she puts on some breeches and strides downstairs to confront her villainous spouse. One thing leads to another and soon Marianne's on the lam, riding hell for leather to the coast where she gets a passage to France. From then on, she will only have her courage, her wits and beauty with which to survive.
The pace of the story never lets up: this part of Marianne's life is summarised as 'many adventures' in the recaps which open the rest of the series. Suffice it to say that she gets embroiled with Napoleon's secret service which somehow leads to being discovered as a singing sensation which somehow leads to...the next book. I was reading the final pages before I knew it. It's not that long, and in fact was originally the first half of the first Marianne book, so it's 1a in the series - the second half is 1b. If you've always wanted to try one of the wildly popular bodice rippers of the 1940s/50s/60s/70s but Forever Amber looks too long, try this.
Juliette Benzoni was a prolific historical novelist whose first love was the Middle Ages, setting of her best-selling Catherine series. The Marianne stories were written in the late 1960s at the request of her publishers, who wanted to commemorate the bicentenary of Napoleon's birth. However, Benzoni really commits to the period and layers in numerous literary references. Like Catherine Morland, Marianne adores reading fiction and this is very much a picaresque novel along the lines of those written by Tobias Smollett, one of her favourite authors. Elements from Clarissa andPaul et Virginie are woven into her story, yet it's anything but predictable, as Marianne often finds herself reacting very differently to her beloved characters. Fortunately she is resilient and quickly adapts to new circumstances when things don't turn out as her fiction-reading led her to expect. Ironically, one of her challenges is to stage a fainting fit. Nothing easier for an Ann Radcliffe heroine who would faint at the drop of a hat, but Marianne isn't sure she can make it convincing. She decides to 'do her best and leave the rest to heaven,' and this philosophy brings her through her many vicissitudes....more
This novel could equally well have been titled Becoming Madame Tussaud. In 1789 Marie Grosholtz is in her late twenties, an accomplished sculptress heThis novel could equally well have been titled Becoming Madame Tussaud. In 1789 Marie Grosholtz is in her late twenties, an accomplished sculptress helping to run the family business, a waxworks show on the Boulevard du Temple in Paris. It's her business to give the public what they want to see, and she's very good at it. But as the revolution sweeps through France, and events begin to move at a faster and faster pace, what the public wants to see changes almost every day. Can Marie and her family keep up with the whirlwind without getting caught up in it?
Marie is a woman who lives in two worlds. For part of the week she lives with Louis XVI's sister, Madame Elisabeth, at her chateau of Montreuil near Versailles, tutoring her in the art of sculpting wax figures. Then she returns to Paris, where the family salon is filled with the men who will bring about the Revolution: the Duc d'Orleans, Camille Desmoulins, Lafayette, Robespierre. Over the years they will all take their places in her exhibition, while the wax figures of the royal family are exiled from it. The book is written in the present tense, which helps the reader to imagine themselves in a moment when counter-revolution seemed like a real possibility, when no-one could be sure whether royalism or revolution would prevail.
Marie's personal sympathies, as the Historical Note at the end of the book explains, are unclear, and I didn't really feel that reading this book enlightened me as to whose side, if any, she was on. At times she seems sympathetic to the royal family, at other times to the revolutionary ideals of liberty, fraternity and equality (which tragically were so poorly served in the years after 1789) and on occasion she doesn't seem to care about anything except her business. The result was a central character who seemed inconsistent rather than complex. Perhaps it's appropriate to Madame Tussaud's profession that she herself remains inscrutable, at least to me.
My favourite character by far: Rose Bertin, Marie Antoinette's dressmaker and stylist. Every scene with her sparkles.Rose has the intelligence to realise that "fashion is power" - even when "fashion" is a colour-coded cockade - and her dialogue perfectly blends loyalty and affection to her patron, relish in her own success and hard-headed survival instinct: "You run a show," she tells Marie. "How do you sell a foreign queen to a people determined to believe the worst? I have tried myself. And failed."
By contrast, Madame Elisabeth seems softened - she was as devout and charitable as described, but also more right-wing than Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette, so much so they came to avoid discussing politics with her. Of the revolutionary leaders, Robespierre in particular comes to chilling life, his penny-pinching in the midst of plenty a parallel to his closed but brilliant mind.
Eighteenth-century France is my favourite period and one I have had the opportunity to explore over twenty years as a student, researcher, curator and teacher. The disadvantage of reading a novel with a setting you know well is that you always find a lot to query, and Madame Tussaud was no exception. While it was clear that a lot of research had gone into the book, some things left me puzzled. Madame Elisabeth's carriage seems to drive into the Marble Courtyard at Versailles, although it couldn't - there were steps up to the courtyard, with no ramp for carriages. The statue of Amalthea which decorated Marie Antoinette's dairy at the Chateau de Rambouillet appears here in her dairy at the Petit Trianon. And some basic genealogical errors have slipped through. In chapter 3, Rose Bertin, who would know better, refers to Louis XV as Marie Antoinette's father-in-law. He was actually the grandfather of her husband, Louis XVI - as Marie seems to know in chapter 34, when she refers to "the money he [Louis XVI] inherited from his grandfather, who inherited it from his father, Louis XIV." However, she's still mixed up about the royal family tree: Louis XV was the great-grandson of Louis XIV.
On the plus side, I came across numerous fascinating tidbits to follow up on. For example, the model of Marie Antoinette in the Salon de Cire wears a modest shift for the Queen's visit - which is changed for a see-through nightie for the benefit of the general public. If true, that is a very interesting example of how Marie Antoinette's image was sold and sexualised in the crucial years before the Revolution. This book really made me think about waxworks, about how important they were in an era before photography, and about how remarkable it is that Madame Tussaud's exhibition has survived and flourished to the present day. Images of royalty, politicians and celebrities are everywhere, but her wax figures continue to be a huge tourist draw, holding up a double-sided mirror to contemporary society and to history.
I would particularly recommend Madame Tussaud to readers new to the French Revolution - it's an accessible, easy read backed up with a lot of supporting material. In addition to a comprehensive Historical Note, there's a timeline, a map of Paris in 1789, a list of characters, an account of what happened to the major characters after the Revolution, a glossary and even an historic 1838 daguerrotype of the Boulevard du Temple, Marie's home for many years. All these extras make Madame Tussaud a package as luxurious as anything Rose Bertin ever wrapped up for her customers.
I borrowed my copy of Madame Tussaud from the library....more
I loved Catherine Delors's debut novel, Mistress of the Revolution, so my expectations for For the King were high, and I’m delighted to say that the bI loved Catherine Delors's debut novel, Mistress of the Revolution, so my expectations for For the King were high, and I’m delighted to say that the book did not disappoint. An historical thriller, it deals with the failed assassination attempt on Napoleon in Paris on Christmas Eve 1800 � or, in French Revolutionary parlance, the 3rd of the month of Nivose (translation: Frosty) of Year Nine of the Republic.
And the lady on the cover? Roch is involved with Blanche Coudert, the beautiful young wife of a newly-rich banker. But his relationship to her comes under strain in the course of the investigation. You may notice that the cover image is from later in the 19th century, so the dress has been digitally altered to conform to the high waistline fashionable in 1800!
Although the cover highlights the romantic subplot, the main drive of the book is the chase after the assassins. This is a fast-paced read which never sacrifices atmosphere and is rich with details gleaned from archival research.
A very accomplished second novel and a wonderful read.
I received an ARC of For the King from the author. Read my full review and Q&A with Catherine Delors here:
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