The Princess in the Tower (Hardcover)

Thus begins the tale of Princess Marie Therese---nicknamed Mousseline by her family---who lives a life in constant fear of what her father's people of France might do to her whole family, especially her mother, whom the French people hate vehemently. Until she was eleven, Marie Therese's life was normal, though she had many Sorrows, like etiquette, lack of height, failure, and pride. But the day when a massive group of common people in Paris began a revolt, things started to get ugly for France's royal family.

With the arrival of Madame de Tourzel and her perfect daughter Pauline, whom Marie Therese at first hates because of her perfection but then the two become fast friends, it is no longer called a revolt, but instead revolution. And it is not only the Parisians that are causing such a mighty uproar; the revolutionaries are meeting in every town in France. This Marie Therese learns from letters from Pauline's dear friend Sophie Duverniere, addressed to Pauline. The letters cruelly insult Marie Therese's parents, and tell of many of the activities of the revolutionaries.

Marie Therese thought the whole revolution just started from the people's anger at not having any bread, but there is much more to the story. Things get even worse for the family. Marie Therese and her family are banished from Versailles, and are forced to live in the cold, damp living quarters of the crumbling Tuileries castle. The way to their favorite holiday place, St. Cloud, is barricaded off. They have nowhere to go. Soon, King Louis XVI, Queen Marie Antoinette, Princess Marie Therese, and her little brother, Charles the Dauphin, will be sent to a dank and dark prison, awaiting the executioner's blade.

First Marie Therese's father is taken to the guillotine. The crowd cheers as he dies. Then Marie Therese's mother is taken. Even louder cheers ring when she dies, for France always hated her so. And then Marie Therese's aunt, Princesse Elisabeth, is called for to the guillotine. More cheers. Those cheers for her family's death ring brutally in Marie Therese's ears. Forever. But now, Marie Therese wonders, when will the executioner come for her at last?

Sharon Stewart has woven a moving tale of the tragic story of Princess Marie Therese Charlotte, a princess that history seems to have nearly forgotten. The horrors of the French Revolution are masterfully presented and illustrated in this novel in a way that immediately makes the reader sympathize with Marie Therese and how the whole revolution has tumultuously turned her once pleasant, glittering life at Versailles Palace upside down, to her cruel banishment to live in a dark prison tower after the rest of her family has been ruthlessly murdered under the sharp, ominous blade of the guillotine. This first debut in the Beneath the Crown series, a reprint of an older book first published in 1998 under the title The Dark Tower, has proven to show that readers should expect much for this excellent series in the future.

Highly recommended!