Sena Jeter Naslund reinterprets the life of Marie Antoinette, Queen of France, from her childhood in Vienna through the French Revolution until her final hours in prison.

The Teen Queen

Abundanceis told in the first person by Marie Antoinette and reads like a journal interspersed with personal letters. We witness a young, inexperienced woman becoming aware of herself, her feelings and her environment. The reader feels sympathetic towards Maria Antonia who is handed over at age 14 to the Bourbon court to become the bride of the dauphin, Louis Auguste, the future King Louis XVI of France. She is the 15th child of Maria Theresa, Empress of Austria, who brought unity to the Habsburg Monarchy and is considered one of its most capable rulers.

The Habsburgs were one of the most powerful dynasties in Europe and their success was supported by dynastically smart marriage arrangements. “Let others wage war, you, happy Austria marry!”

(Du glückliches Österreich heirate!)

Maria Antonia's rebirth as Marie Antoinette

The novel's opening sentence "Like everyone, I was born naked", refers to Maria Antonia's rebirth as Marie Antoinette, a citizen of France, on an island in the Rhine near Strasbourg. The island was considered neutral territory. Here the young girl is stripped naked and asked to give up everything Austrian including her name, her clothes and her pet dog.

The story unfolds like a classic tragedy in five acts. The outcome is known, the telling is gripping. After an awkward wedding night, the conflict is established. In failing to consummate their marriage Louis Auguste fails to give Marie Antoinette what she - and the French people - want most: a child and an heir to the throne.

The Queen remains childless for eight years, and she is despised and ridiculed for it. She shows her husband patience and kindness, but isolated and imprisoned at the court, she also remains ignorant of the country's growing economic and political crises. Naslund reinterprets famous incidents as the affair of the diamond necklace and the flight of the royal family to Varennes helped by Count Axel von Fersen.

The Queen's Favorite: Axel von Fersen

Marie Antoinette's relationship with Fersen is a chaste one in this novel. As the Queen and the young Swedish officer become soulmates, she is growing more aware of herself , her duties as an adult, a wife, a mother and her role at the court.

“Ah, I think, if I cannot falling love with the Dauphin, I can at least love myself. Then I ask myself, how can this be so?...The answer comes in an echo of the roar of love and admiration I heard when I entered Paris. I can love myself, I have confidence in myself (as the young Fersen, just my age, has confidence in himself)... The idea is intoxicating!"

"Am I the hated Queen or do they still love me?"

At the end of Act 4 the Queen realizes that those who stormed the Bastille find her a ready target for all that is wrong with France: "I know they may wish to imprison us or worse, their addiction is to intensity, be it love or hate." And yet she still does not want to believe that the people will revolt against their "good" king, who showed them an abundance of affection.

Fearing for her family's life, Marie Antoinette finds solace in prayer. The 50 pages of the 5th Act race to its inevitable end; Marie mounting the scaffold and facing the guilliotine. Robbed of her children, thrust into jail and faced with execution she does not break down, but maintains her dignity and offers forgiveness to all her enemies in a farewell letter.

Sena Jeter Naslund: Abundance. A Novel of Marie Antoinette, HarperCollins, New York, 2006.

PBS Film: Marie Antoinette(2006): This website has a timeline, facts about the royal life in Versailles, and details about the making of the film.

Under Resources it also has an excellent bibliography.

Review of a biography Evelyne Lever: Marie Antoinette: Last Queen of Franceon Suite 101

“I have ever believed that had there been no queen, there would have been no revolution.”

Thomas Jefferson