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Article: Chantal Thomas, The Wicked Queen: The Origins of the Myth of Marie-Antoinette.(Book review)
- Article from:
- Aurora, The Journal of the History of Art
- Article date:
- January 1, 2001
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2001 WAPACC Organization. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Chantal Thomas, The Wicked Queen: The Origins of the Myth of Marie-Antoinette, Julie Rose, trans. (New York: Zone Books, 1999).
Elise Goodman, The Portraits of Madame de Pompadour: Celebrating the Femme Savante (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2000) Reviewed by T. Lawrence Larkin
In 1933 the Austrian writer, Stefan Zweig, put forward a new proposition: "Marie-Antoinette was neither the great saint of ... [the Bourbon Restoration] nor yet the great whore of the Revolution, but a mediocre, an average woman; not exceptionally able nor yet exceptionally foolish ... devoid of any vigorous wish to do good and of the remotest ...