Marie Antoinette

Belloc's erudite, opinionated and symphonically dramatic biography of the ancien regime's last, maligned queen feels like the work of a lifetime, yet it is only one of many dozens of books the author wrote during his very long and productive career. A social critic and Catholic apologist attuned to the notion of civilization in decline, Belloc is a wonderful temperamental fit with his heroine and her milieu. As you would expect, Belloc is at drawn sabers with the frivolous sophistication of the Enlightenment philosophes, and finds in the royal couple unlikely, indeed rather unintentional martyrs for what he usually calls "the Faith". His sense of the pair's underlying humanity only helps him, however, to place their acts of indecisiveness and overreach in a more alarmingly dramatic light. With every chapter one feels the underlying beat of Destiny's drum, marching us inexorably forward in the Queen's footsteps to the guillotine. Each apparent reprieve of fate, each seeming change of fortune only serves to tighten the coils even more. Belloc also has a great appreciation for the splendors of the time-- exonerating the Queen of most of the foolish exaggerations of her expenses that found such perilous belief in the minds of her subjects, he can still evoke the splendors of a ball, the rituals of the Court, the relief of an extravagance indulged, with terrific and memorable economy. That does not contradict, however, the luxurious Late Romantic template of his prose. Though Belloc, like his great friend Chesterton, is the sort of single-minded religionist who many persons, even of faith, might regard suspiciously as a "crank", his "Marie Antoinette" is, as historical writing, scrupulously scientific in its approach to evidence, though it is overlaid with a prominent, indeed firmly explicit, metaphysical agenda. For me, Belloc's assertiveness is one of his charms, and while I must firmly decline to believe some of his broad contentions, I am very happy that he has woven them into his work. There is hardly a page of "Marie Antoinette" without a substantive claim about broader humanity-- about education, economics, military affairs and their impact on events, public opinion, the theatre, the arts, the art of living, and of course on religion and philosophy-- and these are extraordinarily ponderable and noteworthy. Belloc finds in Marie Antoinette a tragic heroine for the 18th Century-- an era which, as he notes at the very beginning, was quite at odds with the very notion of tragedy-- and thus implies that Fate can choose to write us out a tragedy whether we will have it or no. In limning the life and downfall of this glittering princess, Belloc finds an Everywoman who yet remains, surprisingly, a Queen to the end.

Hilaire Belloc tells the tragic tale of the storied Queen of France with style and a proper sense of wonder. Most particularly fascinating about Belloc's narrative is his detailed and clear description of the famous, or rather famous, affair of the diamond necklace. Here we see the true villians of the plot as the scheming La Motte and the nefarious Cagliostro, the dupe as the foolish Cardinal Rohan, and the quite uninvolved, but nonetheless tarnished target of the fraud, Queen Marie Antoinette. Belloc illustrates here quite clearly that the propaganda surrouning this rather absurd, and yet critical episode, emanated from Masonic London, the great enemy of thrones and order. In his preface, Belloc records his philosphy of writing history, which explains volumes about his unique style and his peerless position as a popular historian. Here, he writes thusly, "But undigested detail is of the very essence of academic or university history, as it is still conceived, because such an accumulation give the uninstructed reader an impression of prodigous learning in the writer. Now, in my conception of the way history should be written, not the writer but the reader comes first; it is the instruction, and even the pleasure, of the reader which should be the aim of historical writing, not the reputation of the writer for prodigious reading." How remarkable! Writing in the early twentieth century, Belloc then correctly discerned a trend which has become ever so much more profound over the years. As a history undergraduate at a great American university in the third quarter of the last century, I could certainly attest that university historical writing was then so encumbered with meaningless detail and devoid of literary value as to drive the most motivated of students to other disciplines. We needed then, and still need more so now, historians in the great tradition of Hilaire Belloc. Read this excellent book. And be both enriched, hugely entertained, and well informed by the experience.

I read this book and Antonia Fraser's biography back to back, and was struck by the eerie similarities between the two--both had great affection for their subject, while recognizing her obvious flaws and foibles. Apparently, Antonia did not read Belloc's earlier work, she simply has a similar sensibility (no surprise, both being Catholic). Antonia is a great writer, and her treatment, being the more up-to-date (such as deciphering exactly why Louis XVI could not "do the deed") deserves the nod. But Belloc is always entertaining and worth reading. Here, his judgments do stand up to the test of time; and he clearly had fun writing this rollicking biography. An overlooked gem.