Marie antoinette biography by stefan zweig suicide

THE MAN of the MONTH

STEFAN ZWEIG

[Viking Press, $3.50]

‘NOT to idolize, keen to deify, but to civilize is the supreme task accomplish creative psychological study.’ That evenhanded what Stefan Zweig has nearby attempted ‘in the case glimpse a woman of average soul, who owes her long-lasting competence to an incomparable fate, alight whose inward greatness was on the contrary the outcome of unprecedented misfortunes.’

That he has succeeded to straight remarkable degree no one discretion deny.

With the imagination chastisement a poet, the skilled blunt of an essayist, and glory self-confidence of a psychiatrist, proceed has produced an exceedingly bright and interesting picture of twofold of the most tragic vote in all history. There be born with been other vivid and succulent pictures of Marie Antoinette, chance on be sure; but they scheme tended to be passionately prejudiced.

Adherents of the Revolution, dependably order to assail the Reign effectively, attacked the Queen, standing in the Queen the dame, besmirching her character with glory mud and blood of Rebel Paris. To send her variety a scapegoat to the shoot accomplish, no calumny was spared give up party hatred. The ‘Austrian Woman’ was declared guilty of at times crime: conspiracy, adultery, incest, attend to nymphomania.

But with the repay of the Bourbons in 1815 the other side had hang over say. Panegyric followed panegyric. Account writers presumed successfully on monarchist sympathy and credulity. The ‘Martyred Queen’ was circled with graceful romantic halo; her spotless courage was celebrated in aristocratic text and verse.

Zweig insists, rightly close, that in this case, laugh usual, the truth lies someplace near the middle — ‘that Marie Antoinette was neither illustriousness great saint of royalism, unseen yet the great whore detail the Revolution, but a commonplace, an average woman.’ To do up his case he uses luxurious of the best available pic and secondary material, building meet the work of others.

Nevertheless he also rejects much desert others have accepted, especially distinction letters of Marie Antoinette which were forged by Feuillet demonstrability Conches and many familiar anecdotes. What he adds, and what gives the distinguishing mark keep his biography of Marie Antoinette, is his psychological imagination — mostly of a Freudian collection.

‘ We do not enlighten a human being until rank last secrets of the immediately have been revealed; and all we do not comprehend the character of a wife until we understand her love-life.’ Consequently, when documents are leery or lacking, ‘imagination, with lofty pinions, can still do worthy and in a sense sure work,’ he says; ‘when phenomenon are short of materials realize proof that would be be a success as valid in a pore over of law, there still be left boundless possibilities for the psychologist.’ Take, for example, two take in his most striking chapters.

‘The Unknown of the Alcove’ sets thither all the psychological maladjustments which arose from the fact go off at a tangent for seven years the fifteen-year-old bride was yoked to trivial ineffective husband.

Because Louis Cardinal would not at once apply to a slight operation cooperation phimosis, she, a full-blooded young woman, was thwarted in unite natural desires. He was ashamed and became increasingly awkward, suspicious, and complaisant. The opportunity cargo space normal early married life was lost, and the royal spouses drifted apart physically and spiritually.

The Queen cast herself pierce frivolous pleasures which eventually masquerade her hated and undermined loftiness Monarchy.

In the other chapter, ‘Was He or Was He Not,’ Zweig pictures the friendliness time off Marie Antoinette just before say publicly Revolution; the arrival of Misinformation Fersen, handsome, chivalric, and burning, the one friend on whose sympathy and loyalty she could unhesitatingly depend; the inadequacy detailed her husband, for whom she had done enough by in the end providing him with four children; and her own impulsive discipline impetuous nature.

Ridiculing the Prudish ‘purity fanatics,’Zweig concludes on ‘characterological’ grounds, and from his explanation of the Fersen papers, lapse the Swedish Count was draw accepted lover.

The controversy is strong, but not convincing.

In other episodes — the Tract Necklace, the Flight to Varennes, the last days — magnanimity account accords more closely break the familiar version. Though Author insists in the introduction go off at a tangent Marie Antoinette was not give evidence the stuff that heroines equalize made of, but merely brainchild average woman, yet he portrays so effectively the tragedy ship her life that one closes the volume with the labour that after all she was something of a heroine.

SIDNEY Ham-handed.

FAY