This is a new book on the old subject. The difference between this one and the others is the brutal directness with which the tragic queen is treated. Marie-Antoinette for Idiots gives us a woman of her times completely de-mystified. I suppose it couldn’t have been written otherwise — the genre, and we should approach the Idiot books as a genre, has little patience for subtleties: the problems are hammered like nails; the opinions are stacked in a dry, methodical manner; for example, on the issue of Count Fersen it quotes the anecdote told by Stefan Zweig where Napoleon refuses to negotiate with the Swedes as long as Fersen heads their delegation; the reason the Emperor gives is Fersen’s lack of decorum vis-a-vis the royal bed. Fersen silently retreats.