Madame Royale by Elena Maria Vidal. An historical novel on the French Revolutionary Age. This intriging story deals in particular with the daughter of Louis XVI and Marie-Antoinette, and the search for her little, lost brother. All of the major characters were real people, and the situations are based on fact. Madame Royale was written as a response to readers of Trianon, who wanted to know “What happened to the daughter?” and more about the surviving personages of the story. The period which follows the fall of Napoleon Bonaparte, called by historians “the Bourbon restoration” (1814-1830), was outwardly one of rest and peace for France. Yet beneath the surface, the forces of revolution were engaged in a ruthless duel for power with those of the reaction. The conflict, played out in salons and boudoirs, in newspapers, novels and pamphlets, was nevertheless a fight to the death, from which one party would emerge the conqueror, while the other would sink into the oubliette of exile or imprisonment. The Left had many weapons. As for the reactionaries, they possessed mediocre, frail or aged princes, with followers whose religious convictions were sometimes prone to be superficial or bigoted. They had, however, one weapon, and that weapon was a woman, a woman who embodied in herself the tradition of legitimacy, of a heritage reaching far back into the mists of the early centuries of Christianity. Of cold demeanor with a heart of fire; of bitter aspect, with an unfailing generosity, her undying faith and zealous devotion to God, His Church, and the poor led her to be the heroine and defender of the idea of the Christian state. Daughter of a martyred king and queen, she was Marie-Thérèse-Charlotte of France, the Duchesse d’Angouleme, who from childhood had been called “Madame Royale.” Hardcover, smythe-sewn, cream paper, 350 pages. |