Told from the point of view of a lady-in-waiting to Marie Antoinette, this story captures the mindset of the French gentry, insulated at the palace of Versailles, on the eve of the revolution.
The lady writes bitterly decades later from her home in Vienna, of the times and events. She made it out by purest luck, and it's clear she still reviles the revolutionaries.
I don't recall the exact prize this novel won in its native France. I presume it won for some social or political reason, or it reinforced some popular idea of the nobility at the time. The translation is workmanlike for, in the way of translations, its language seldom adds adornment to the narrative it serves.
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