Rating: 
Summary: A wonderful read
Review: ...This is a wonderful, atmospheric book that in my mind really succeeded in giving a sense of the ways that the French Revolution completely took apart the aristocracy. Thomas helps the reader to understand how it must have felt to feel the very marble floors crumbling under your feet, as everything you knew is suddenly gone. It's clear, also, what a house of cards it was -- full of gold, diamonds, and mirrors, to be sure, but a house of cards nevertheless, completely dependent on the support of a vast system of nobles, retainers, servants, etc. etc. I liked the narrator very much, and felt real pity for the king and queen, even as I thought, "You brought it all on yourself." Give "Farewell, My Queen," a try.
Rating: 
Summary: Three days at Versailles
Review: Agathe-Sidonie Laborde was a reader to Queen Marie-Antoinette of France. Living in exile in Vienna at the age of 65 she recounts in flashback the last days of Versailles before it fell to the revolution in France.The story is rather like watching a ship sink. A world full of people and customs that are on the brink of extinction and right up to the last minute few of them want to believe that their world is ending. Versailles and its inhabitants and centuries of customs vanish in the space of three days. In this small novel the author brings to life for a short space the doomed world of the French aristocracy, told through the eyes of someone who lived on the fringes of their world, but still knew its inhabitants well. This is not my favourite historical novel, but it is one that is memorable for its feeling of doom and how well the author seems to have caught the lost world of France before the revolution. Would I read this book again? At this point, I couldn't give a definite yes. I would recommend you borrow this from the library to read before buying it to see if it suits your tastes in historical novels as in many ways it differs from the "standard" history story.
Rating:
Summary: Three days at Versailles
Review: Agathe-Sidonie Laborde was a reader to Queen Marie-Antoinette of France. Living in exile in Vienna at the age of 65 she recounts in flashback the last days of Versailles before it fell to the revolution in France. The story is rather like watching a ship sink. A world full of people and customs that are on the brink of extinction and right up to the last minute few of them want to believe that their world is ending. Versailles and its inhabitants and centuries of customs vanish in the space of three days. In this small novel the author brings to life for a short space the doomed world of the French aristocracy, told through the eyes of someone who lived on the fringes of their world, but still knew its inhabitants well. This is not my favourite historical novel, but it is one that is memorable for its feeling of doom and how well the author seems to have caught the lost world of France before the revolution. Would I read this book again? At this point, I couldn't give a definite yes. I would recommend you borrow this from the library to read before buying it to see if it suits your tastes in historical novels as in many ways it differs from the "standard" history story.
Rating:
Summary: Great Read!
Review: Chantal Thomas did a wonderful job on this one-it made up for that travesty of a book, 'The Wicked Queen'. I wasn't sure if I should read it at first, because of her depiction of Marie Antoinette in her last book. Presented in memoir form, this is told from the perspective of M.A.'s reader, while in exile in Vienna during the reign of Napoleon. It is fascinating to read about daily life in the chateau de Versailles and the court of France during the Revolution. I would reccomend this to anyone who likes Marie Antoinette, the French Rev., or daily life in the past.
Rating:
Summary: An ephemeral three days
Review: Chantal Thomas' 'Farewell my Queen' takes the form of a confessional memoir, spoken by an old lady in self-imposed exile in Vienna, recounting the change in French monarchy to republic. The pivotal story takes place over the course of three days, giving us a by the hour breakdown of the confusion that surrounding the tumultuous events of July 14 - 16, 1789 as the Bastille fell and Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette were forced to attempt to flee Versailles. It is an eloquently written novel that seeks to demonstrate the artificial utopia of a late eighteenth century French court life which floated along in a structured yet almost dreamy manner and was rudely intruded upon by the realities of life over a fateful three days. Whilst it is hard to find sympathy for any of the protagonists, so ably represented by the doeful Madame Laborde, second reader to the Queen, it does show an embellished view of the shocking awakening of those courtiers that drifted through court life in a naive manner where responsibility for actions and their consequences has been entirely removed.
We follow the inexorably obsequious Laborde as she scuttles from room to room not understanding what is happening to shake her gentle world, responding in a child-like fear to the anxious adults. The scene where Madame Laborde is summoned to the Queen's Gilt Chamber to assist in her packing for trip to Metz best epitomises the rapid descent into chaos as the Queen's ladies desperately seek to retain some normality in the absence of hard facts and the maelstrom that is rife rumour.
Eventually, Madame Laborde returns to the darkness of Versailles (an image frequently used to good effect by the author, especially as the Court is dressed in black to mourn the death of the Dauphin) and overhears two soldiers discussing events and beliefs, pandering to the inevitable malicious lies and slander that was felt throughout Paris about their royalty. Yet even though she is appalled by it, there is the tiniest glimmer that change, in all its brutal glory, is also somehow exciting.
The inevitable happens as the court realises that there is fundamental political change and panic sets in. Thomas chooses to personify Panic, dealing with the results of her passing as courtiers flee abandoning children, pets, and servants (Laborde overhears one particular diatribe from a chained up servant who appears to have been the reality behind the poetical pen of Rondon de la Tour). There is poignancy as Princess Gabrielle de Lamboulle ends up leaving her great friend the Queen (there is a departure from historical fact here) on her instructions and we eventually culminate in Laborde's underground departure masquerading as the formidable Diane de Polignac and arrival in Vienna where she has spent the remainder of her life in Prince de Ligne's recreation of the Versailles rituals.
Thomas has written an erudite novel, where the King is portrayed as completely out of touch with his subjects, Marie Antoinette as resolute; both of them as undesirous of their position and shocked as to their sudden fall. In some respects they come across as the King and Queen of Hearts as the more timid Alice realises her Wonderland is breaking apart. The masque fails, the quirky insanity (best portrayed by the star struck Monsieur de Castelneux) crumbles as Versailles awakes from dream to the terrible stench of its reality. You come away from this novel with the strong sense that Chantal Thomas is probably not far off the mark with regard to the humanly emotive response to those three days by the Versailles courtiers and she softly portrays the shattering of an illusion, a utopia that has decay at its very core. This novel is dreamy in its structure, flowing in its prosaic technicality, portraying an endearing fallible heroine and, whilst I confess I very nearly put it down within the first few chapters, it suddenly intruded on the senses in a manner that made it extremely gripping. Worth reading.
Rating:
Summary: A incredible historical-fiction journey
Review: Even if you aren't familiar with the French Revolution, you are immediately transported into this turbulent time period. The reader is immediately able to empathsize with the main characters. I couldn't put this book down. It is an awesome read!
PS: You will also thoroughly enjoy, "The Lost King of France A True Story of Revolution, Revenge and DNA". This is also an example of literary genius.
Rating: 
Summary: Slow going.....
Review: I'm still struggling to finish. It's good and I understand why it has the slow quality of being frozen in a dream--that must have been what it really felt like. Still, this is the third time I've fallen asleep while reading it.
Rating:
Summary: Good but not great
Review: Perhaps it's because I read this novel in translation that I did not find it as compelling as others reviewers have. I finished the novel because I wanted to find out how the protagonist made it to Vienna when the Versailles fantasy began to collapse. But it was a slow go. In places, such as where the protagonist recalls in stunning detail a lengthy conversation between two guards about Marie Antoinette, I felt my crdulity strained that, as one of the queen's courtiers, she wasn't either beaten up or raped by these two guys. In fact, maybe it was the sexlessness of this world--with only the hint of a possible lesbian relationship with Gabrielle de Polignac--that made it finally less than riveting.
High points of the novel: the meticulous description of the most minute gradations of rank and the way they constantly underwent change.
Rating: 
Summary: This book was so bad...
Review: The storyline of this book was that of one women who was Marie Antoinette's personal reader talking about 3 days back in 1789, as the French Revolution nears. It seemed rather promising. However, I had three major problems with the book. First, it had no solid plotline. Secondly, it went off on tangents that really made no sense. And last of all, it was so unengaging. I didn't care about the characters or the book at all. It took me forever to finish it, all the while HOPING it would get better. It apparently won a award in it's native country of France, perhaps something was lost in translation to English?
Rating:
Summary: Bastille Day remembered
Review: This is the way I like to read history, from the point of view of a nobody caught in the unavoidable currents of destiny. Chantal Thomas comes by her knowledge honestly having been the Director of Research at the Centre National de le Recherche Scientifique, specializing in 18th literature. Meet Agathe Laborde who is remembering from her exile in Vienna, those fateful July days of 1789 when, in her youth, she was reader to the myopic, charismatic Marie Antoinette in her fabulous Versailles court. FAREWELL, MY QUEEN is one of RebeccasReads highly recommended books, rich with earthy insights into & half-glimpsed intrigues of a long lost way of life where adoration of & loyalty to royalty could cost you your life.
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