The Exchange of Princesses: A Novel

by Chantal Thomas, John Cullen (Translator)

Overview

Two young princesses navigate the court intrigues of 18th-century France and Spain in this stunning historical fiction novel based on a true story.

“Vivid, engrossing . . . one of the most fascinating historical narratives I’ve ever read.” —Diana Gabaldon, author of Outlander

 Philippe d’Orléans, the regent of France, has a gangrenous heart—the result of a life of debauchery, alcohol, power, and flattery. One morning in 1721, he decides to marry eleven-year-old Louis XV to the daughter of Philippe V of Spain, who is only four. Orléans hopes this will tie his kingdom to Spain. But were Louis to die without begetting an heir—the likeliness of which is greatly increased by having a child bride—Orléans himself would finally be king. Orléans tosses his own daughter into the bargain, the twelve-year-old Mlle de Montpensier, who will marry the Prince of Asturias, the heir to the Spanish throne.
 
The Spanish court enthusiastically agrees and arrangements are made. The two nations trade their princesses in a grand ceremony in 1722, making bonds that should end the historical conflict. Nothing turns out as expected.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781590517031
Publisher:	Other Press, LLC
Publication date:	07/07/2015
Sold by:	Penguin Random House Publisher Services
Format:	eBook
Pages:	352
Sales rank:	15,321
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Chantal Thomas is a noted philosopher and writer. She has taught at a number of American universities and is the author of twenty-five works, including novels, histories, short stories, plays, and essays. Her internationally acclaimed novel Farewell, My Queen, a fictional account of Marie Antoinette’s final days in Versailles, won the Prix Femina in 2002 and was made into an award-winning film by Benoit Jacquot, and starred Diane Kruger. A film adaptation of The Exchange of Princesses, to be directed by Marc Dugain, is currently in the works.

 
John Cullen is the translator of many books from Spanish, French, German, and Italian, including Philippe Claudel’s Brodeck, Juli Zeh’s Decompression, Antonio Skármeta’s A Distant Father, and Yasmina Reza’s Happy Are the Happy. He lives in upstate New York.

Read an Excerpt

On the other hand, there is one person whose opinion is indispensable: Louis XV. The fact that he’s only eleven in no way authorizes his subjects to disregard his views. It should be an easy matter to coerce acquiescence from a boy of his age, but the regent’s not certain of success. And without Louis XV’s consent, the entire scheme will collapse. Broaching the subject of marriage to the young king, a nervous, melancholic, suspicious child, is not a prospect the regent relishes. The king dreads surprises, from which he expects only catastrophes. When he was still very little, he fell ill and cried out to his Maman Ventadour, “I’m dead”; later, having experienced his first ejaculation, he will be convinced he’s unwell and consult his valet de chambre. Since he has spent by far the greater part of his young life in an orphan’s solitude, his early childhood darkened by the succession of deaths in his family and by the malevolent rumors they nourished, his first reaction is mistrust. This tendency is only enhanced by the fear he constantly reads in the eyes of his entourage, prominent among them his elderly tutor, Marshal de Villeroy: the fear that he too, the Boy-King, will perish. Marshal de Villeroy never leaves his side, day or night. He sleeps beside his bed and permits nobody but himself to offer him a handkerchief. He monitors the slightest gesture made by the king or to the king at table, carries the key to the butter dish destined for the king’s use, and would in no circumstances, not even under torture, agree to resign his post. As a child of five, Louis XV was brought to his great-grandfather Louis XIV’s deathbed, kissed his august ancestor, and heard him predict, “Little one, you are going to be a great king”; now the boy uses that memory as a charm capable of making the Grim Reaper delay his scything. 

Editorial Reviews

"This is one vivid, engrossing, weird little book...[O]ne of the most fascinating historical narratives I've ever read." --Diana Gabaldon, The Washington Post

"A meticulous and vivid chronicle." --Kirkus Reviews

"This exchange of princesses is delivered with cool-eyed cinematic detail...A brightly polished portrait of royal pomp and custom for historical fiction fans with big-picture tastes." --Library Journal

"[Chantal] Thomas has crafted a pointed and witty novel that sheds light on two eighteenth-century princesses trapped by familial obligations and the capricious whims of the court." --Booklist

"Chantal Thomas evokes with passion and clarity the cruel fates of two princesses exchanged for the greatest glory of France and Spain and treated like inanimate pawns. She evokes the four-year old infanta uprooted and parachuted to Versailles only to be disdained by her royal fiancé, and gives a moving and glowing portrait of the French princess who refuses to submit to the harsh demands of the royal Spanish family. A rare and beautiful example of distant history brought back to life with verve and feeling." --Anka Muhlstein, author of Monsieur Proust's Library

"King Louis XV plays at war; the Queen Infanta of France plays at dolls. He is eleven; she is four. Chantal Thomas has written a shocking and brilliant historical account of two sets of royal alliances--or, more accurately, misalliances--written with verve, irony and whimsy--even the Infanta's dolls weigh in on this absorbing tale of unrequited conjugal love and political venality." --Lily Tuck, author of I Married You for Happiness

"Two child princesses may be pawns in a ruthless game of state, but they triumph as characters [through whom we witness the absurdities of fate] in Chantal Thomas's shrewdly observed and hugely entertaining novel of 18th century Spain and France." --Molly Haskell, author of My Brother My Sister: Story of a Transformation

"It's a grim tale of the abuse of children for royal purposes, entertainingly told. A gripping and eventful novel, sad and at times amusing." --Martha Saxton, writer and professor of History and Women's Studies at Amherst College

"[Readers will] devour this story like a fairy tale." --Elle (France)

"The exchange of these princesses is straight out of a Cold War spy novel, taking place on an island in the middle of a river that serves as the border between the two kingdoms. But none of these young protagonists will play the adults' game and the princesses will end up going home. Chantal Thomas excels at humanizing history and exposing what is at stake (or 'revealing its relevance'). How do these children, sold in such a way by their parents, feel? Will they love or hate each other? These are the universal, timeless, questions, that this 'historical' novel plays with, and which render it strikingly contemporary." -Vogue (France)

"We love [The Exchange of Princesses] because, as always with Chantal Thomas, winner of the 2002 Prix Femina for Farewell, My Queen, her stories dance on volcanoes. In her, the mighty of our world finish by bumping their noses against the whims of fate...A must-read if you still shy away from historical novels. That will change." --Le Parisien

"Delicious like childhood and cruel like life." --Télérama

"Chantal Thomas made history a pungent, political, and intimate epic, told by a narrator whose empathy does not detract from the satirical irony." --Le Magazine littéraire

"[With this] little known episode in history, Chantal Thomas writes a superb novel about violence against women and children, [showcasing] marriages as absurd as they are forced." --Phosphore

"Impressive." --La Vie

"A fascinating novel." --L'express

"Through her voice--sensitive, alive, contemporary, sometimes raw--[Thomas] manages to recreate how these sacrificed children lived, felt, feared, hoped and suffered." --Point de Vue (France)

"[Thomas] mixes fact and fiction to create her own novelistic space of a time that is at once free and cruel... What Thomas details here, in this story of lives in gilded cages, is the birth--or rejection of--desire in children who do not have the words to articulate it because they, too, are locked up in the absurdity of etiquette and formal rituals that have been imposed on them." --La Croix

"To take history seriously only to grasp its ironic tragedy, this is great art...With delicious detail Chantal Thomas explores the hidden indignities of a century that exploited childhood even as it was inventing it, a delight of the form that is now wholly her own." --Le Figaro

"Chantal Thomas, a scholar brought up on Sade and Casanova, has clearly chosen, in her past few books, to hone in on dying aristocracies--not out of snobbery, but because what she has to say about our 'beautiful present' is reflected through, in her mind, the traditions of the past." --Le Point

"With the verve and delicacy for which she is known, Chantal Thomas reaffirms in these intense, feverish, and sensual pages her eye for detail and the painting of a scene, and her ability to turn a phrase that snaps like a riding crop." --Lire

"Chantal Thomas [is a] philosopher who brings historical erudition, pediatric science, bright tales of the heart, and breathtaking stories to the art of the novel and to theater." --Le Nouvel Observateur

"To these sacrificed childhoods, these bruised fates, this history disdained by historians, Chantal Thomas's beautiful novel grants a late and dazzling revenge." --Sud Ouest

"A beautiful saga."--Madame Figaro

"Thanks to Chantal Thomas for having crafted such a joyful book out of such sad fates." -- Libération Supplément (Livres)

"As with Farewell, My Queen (winner of the 2002 Prix Femina) and Le Testament d'Olympe (2011), [Thomas] avoids the pitfalls of the historical novel by combining historical documents--letters, excerpts from Saint-Simon's Memoirs--with fiction." --Le Temps, Samedi Culturel

"With elegance and subtlety, Chantal Thomas pursues sensitive evocations of eighteenth-century France." --Le Journal du Dimanche

"While very classic, her writing still surprises, distilling irony in each sentence like a poison...
Like Saint-Simon revised and edited by Sade." --Les Inrockuptibles

From the Publisher

09/15/2015
In 1721, the debauched regent of France decides to marry 11-year-old Louis XV to the four-year-old daughter of Spain's Philip V, also marrying his own roguish 12-year-old daughter to the heir to the Spanish throne. This exchange of princesses is delivered with cool-eyed cinematic detail—not surprisingly, as Thomas's Prix Femina-winning Farewell, My Queen became a film, as this book will be. VERDICT A brightly polished portrait of royal pomp and custom for historical fiction fans with big-picture tastes.

Library Journal

2015-04-28
Thomas' latest (Farewell, My Queen, 2003, etc.) illuminates an obscure corner of Western European royal history: the bartering of child brides and grooms. In 1721, Mariana Victoria, the 3-year-old infanta of Spain, is married by proxy to King Louis XV of France, then only 11. The two are first cousins, descendants of the Spanish and French branches of the Bourbon dynasty. Mariana Victoria, with her cherished Carmen-Doll and a magnificent entourage, journeys to France, where she will live at various royal palaces (Versailles is her least favorite). The architect of this union, the Duc D'Orléans, Louis' uncle and regent until the king attains majority at 13, has sweetened the deal by adding his own daughter, Louise Élisabeth, to the mix—she is sent to Spain to marry her second cousin Don Luis the Prince of Asturia, Mariana's half brother and heir to the Spanish throne. Louise is 12, Don Luis, 14. Thomas skillfully extracts dramatic moments from the ponderous mechanics of nuptial diplomacy. On arrival in Spain, the French ambassador, Saint-Simon, gets lost in Alcázar, the mazelike royal palace of King Philip V, and detests Spain's pervasive "[stink] of olive oil." On Pheasant Island in the river Bidasoa, the princesses meet while crossing the border in opposite directions. Mariana finds an unlikely mentor in the shrewd, 70-year-old Princess Palatine, the regent's mother. Even more than most royal arranged marriages, these two unions seem doomed from the start. Not only must consummation of Louis and Mariana's marriage be put off for several years, threatening the succession (which is one reason D'Orléans, next in line for the throne, favored the match), but Louis prefers men anyway. Louise also prefers her own sex and has physical and mental health issues, including an exhibitionist streak. The infanta, though articulate beyond her years, seems to have stopped growing. Although the narrative pace is that of an intricate multipanel tapestry, the characters are brought to life in all their frailty. Cullen's translation ably mirrors Thomas' arch, scandalmongering style. A meticulous and vivid chronicle.

Kirkus Reviews