Exclusive interview with Will Bashor, author of a fascinating new account of the sad end of the infamous French Queen.
“After spending several days exploring the Conciergerie, I simply couldn’t resist recounting these 76 final days of the last queen of France,” says Marie Antoinette’s Darkest Days author Will Bashor. “Since earning my masters in French literature at Ohio University, I’ve been fascinated by eighteenth century France and the royals. My biographies have focused mostly on the life of Queen Marie Antoinette.”
On August 2nd, 1793, Marie Antoinette was removed from her family at the Temple and brought to the Conciergerie, which for the uninitiated was the disgusting dungeon where aristocrats were taken first before going to the guillotine. She waited two months for her “trial”, but the verdict was already decided. Her treatment at the Conciergerie varied – sometimes she was accorded the respect due a deposed queen, other times she was treated like a base criminal. While there have been many books about Marie Antoinette, this is the first about her sad life in a dungeon cell before she was put to death.
“Readers often ask me why I write about these often tragic historical personages,” says Bashor. “But, whenever you see the Mona Lisa or Whistler’s Mother, doesn’t that image become yours forever? It’s the same for me with a good biography, where Marie Antoinette or her entourage can become living, credible human beings. And, although you put the book back on the shelf, the character remains yours forever.”
Bashor researched documents from the period at the Archives Nationales in Paris. “After being ordered online, they are delivered to you about an hour later in a box,” says Bashor. “You can photograph them too, if they are not too sensitive. Otherwise, permission is required.”
Susan McEachern, Editorial Director of History, International Studies, and Geography at Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, is Bashor’s editor. “French history has always been a favorite part of my list at Rowman & Littlefield,” says McEachern. “So, it was a happy twist of fate when we bought Lyons Press, the publisher of Marie Antoinette’s Head. My boss forwarded to me Will’s inquiry about his next book. Once I read his compelling story of Marie Antoinette’s time in prison before her execution, I knew I simply had to publish it. Our only minor battle was over how sympathetically to portray her. Of course her fate was heart-wrenching, but she wasn’t entirely a saint either.”
Marie Antoinette’s Head: The Royal Hairdresser, the Queen, and the Revolution (Lyons Press, 2013) won the Adele Mellen Prize for Distinguished Scholarship and received the Kirkus Star Award. It was also nominated for the American Library of Paris and Ohioana Library Book Awards in 2014. It was Bashor’s second book and follows the rise of Leonard Autié from humble country barber in the south of France to the inventor of the pouf and premier hairdresser to Queen Marie-Antoinette at Versailles. As the only man in a female-dominated court, Leonard’s life is filled with seduction, intrigue and espionage. The script for Marie Antoinette’s Head is being represented by an agent in Los Angeles.
Bashor’s first book was Jean-Baptiste Cléry: Eyewitness to Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette’s Nightmare (Diderot Press, 2011). Cléry served as the family’s valet in the Temple prison until the king was guillotined.
Bashor’s articles include Marie Antoinette’s Craziest, Most Epic Hairstyles for the Huffington Post and Coiffing Marie Antoinette for Lyons Press. His article Vanity Hair was featured in Carine Roitfeld’s fall issue of CR Fashion Book 9.
Bashor is currently writing Marie Antoinette’s World: A Labyrinth to the Queen’s Psyche, the third book in the trilogy, with her promiscuous acts that scandalized her world at the infamous château of Versailles.
In February 2017 there will be an evening extravaganza at the National Art Club in New York City. Hairdressers will recreate the amazing poufs worn by the queen for a video presenting Marie Antoinette’s Head. Bashor has book signings at that event and the Ohioana Book Festival in April 2017.
Bashor recently moved from Columbus, Ohio, to Albi, a small town in southern France. “I’m fascinated by the Cathars,” says Bashor. “Heretics of a Christian sect exterminated here during the Middle Ages.” Bashor was born in Oak Hill, Ohio.
Marie Antoinette’s Darkest Days: Prisoner No. 280 in the Conciergerie by Will Bashor (Author)
Hardcover: 392 pages, Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers (December 1, 2016), Language: English, ISBN: 9781442254992 $27.95
