A spirited, poignant history of the seven daughters of the great Empress Maria Theresia—among them, Queen Marie Antoinette of France—tracing their lives as they balanced dynastic duty with personal ambition in a time of revolutionary cataclysm“Others make war; you, happy Austria, marry.”For three centuries, the astute positioning of their many princesses and princes had kept the Habsburgs at the peak of European power. By 1764, after a generation of costly ...

The groundbreaking biography of one of the most progressive, influential and entertaining women of the seventeenth century, Christina Alexandra, Queen of Sweden.In 1654, to the astonishment and dismay of her court, Christina Alexandra announced her abdication in favour of her cousin, Charles. Instrumental in bringing the Thirty Years War to a close at the age of 22, Christina had become one of the most powerful monarchs in Europe. She had also become notorious for her extravagant l...

Françoise d'Aubigné, born in a bleak provincial prison, her father a condemned murderer and traitor to the state, rose from the depths of poverty to life at the vortex of power at Versailles. Married at fifteen to a tragically disfigured and scandalously popular poet, in his salon Françoise encountered all the brilliant characters of the seventeenth century's glitterati. After her husband's death, she led the life of a merry widow in the colourful Marais quarter of Paris, before becoming g...

Françoise d'Aubigné, marquise de Maintenon and secret wife of the Sun King, Louis XIV, was born in a bleak French prison in 1635, her father a condemned traitor and murderer, her mother the warden's seduced daughter. A timely pardon and a hopeful Caribbean colonial venture failed to mend the family's fortunes, and Françoise was reduced to begging in the streets. Yet, armed with beauty, intellect, and shrewd judgment, she was to make her way to the center of power at Versailles, the most op...

A spirited, poignant history of the seven daughters of the great Empress Maria Theresia—among them, Queen Marie Antoinette of France—tracing their lives as they balanced dynastic duty with personal ambition in a time of revolutionary cataclysm“Others make war; you, happy Austria, marry.”For three centuries, the astute positioning of their many princesses and princes had kept the Habsburgs at the peak of European power. By 1764, after a generation of costly ...

Sieben Frauen im Machtspiel einer der mächtigsten Dynastien EuropasWo andere Länder Kriege führten, wurde in Österreich geheiratet, oder eigentlich: verheiratet. Jahrhundertelang hatte die kluge Vermählung ihrer Prinzen und Prinzessinnen die Habsburger an der Spitze der europäischen Macht gehalten. Im Jahr 1764, nach kostspieligen Kriegen und angesichts bröckelnder Bündnisse, suchte Kaiserin Maria Theresia