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Article: Queen-size drama; Fraser biography paints Marie Antoinette as victim, not villain.(Arts and Lifestyle)
- Article from:
- The Boston Herald
- Article date:
- September 28, 2001
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2001 Boston Herald. 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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Big hair. Fancy gowns. The guillotine.
If these images and the cold comment "Let them eat cake!" come to mind when you hear the name Marie Antoinette, you're not alone.
But biographer Lady Antonia Fraser says the woman who married France's King Louis XVI and was beheaded by French revolutionaries in 1793 was a scapegoat of history, rather than an unfeeling villain.
Fraser should know. To gather research for her new biography, "Marie Antoinette: The Journey" (Doubleday, $35), she spent five years getting as close to her subject as the passage of three centuries could allow.
"Writing a biography is always a mission," Fraser said in a ...