"A woman whose function it once was to read books aloud to Marie-Antoinette is haunted by the memory of her last days at the French court of Versailles, when Louis XVI's magnificent chateau succumbed to the irrepressible forces of revolution. Now exiled in Vienna, Madame Agathe-Sidonie Laborde looks back twenty-one years to the legendary opulence of Versailles and, overcome with nostalgia and remorse, discovers the full measure of her fascination with the Queen she served." "Madame Laborde takes us within the chateau, meticulously reconstructing the 14th, 15th, and 16th of July 1789 - terrifying days when the servants disappear and many of the courtiers flee. Versaille's miniature universe, sparkling with every outward appearance of happiness and beauty, is brilliantly juxtaposed with the chaos that erupts. We witness the unraveling of the chateau's dawn-to-dusk ritual and the rising panic of the Court as Versailles edges closer and closer to collapse. Madame Laborde herself flees the night of the sixteenth, escaping with the Queen's favorite, Gabrielle de Polignac, and her once-powerful family." "Transporting us to eighteenth-century France with the skill of a consummate storyteller. Thomas evokes the splendor of Versailles on the eve of its downfall. Her portrait of Marie-Antoinette and of Versailles - brought vividly to life by a wealth of detail - is an incomparable account of a lost world."--BOOK JACKET.