Tea at Trianon: The Queen's Exiles

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Monday, August 11, 2014

The Queen's Exiles

An enthralling, swashbuckling adventure and romance, The Queen’s Exiles is the latest in Barbara Kyle’s Thornleigh Saga. The action begins on the first page, sweeping the reader into the intrigues of Elizabethan buccaneers as they confront the Spanish on the high seas and in the Netherlands. The heroine, Scotswoman Fenella Craig Doorn, runs her own shipping business on the island of Sark. After an encounter with the handsome and dashing Adam Thornleigh, whom she has met once before, she finds herself returning to Holland after many years. There Fenella and Adam, even as they fall in love, become entwined in the troubles of the Dutch people as they revolt against the Spanish occupation.

According to the novel, the Spanish incarnate all that is evil; children are disemboweled in the streets and the devout, elderly Duke of Alba spends his nights at a notorious brothel. In the meantime, Fenella discovers that her husband Claes Doorn is still alive and has joined the resistance, which adds to her own peril. Adam must deal with his Catholic wife, Frances, who to his horror is bringing up his children as papists, even as she plots Adam’s death. Determined to remove his children from Frances’ influence, Adam risks all, even if it means losing the hope of a life with the woman he loves.

I enjoyed the book but was disappointed by the black-and-white approach to the religious squabbles of the 16^th century. By portraying all the Protestants as good and all the Catholics as bad, the nuances of character development are lost. Nevertheless, Kyle is a skilled storyteller and leads the reader down many twists and turns so the outcome does not fail to surprise.

This review first appeared in the August 2014 edition of the Historical Novels Review.

(*NOTE: This book was sent to me by the Historical Novel Society in exchange for my honest opinion.)