Marie-Antoinette: a passion that goes way back...

I have often been asked what triggered my passion for Marie-Antoinette. It actually began the day my dad took me to my very first musical: "La Revolution Francaise". I must have been no older than 9 years old. At the end of the performance, he bought the vinyl record. For the next few days, I listened to the songs over and over again while staring at Elisabeth Vigee-Lebrun's famous portrait of Marie-Antoinette holding a rose (it was featured on the record's back cover). The tragedy of her life, which ended on the scaffold on a grey October day in 1793 haunted me. Surely, I thought, there is more to it than her tragic end. So, I decided to learn more about the last Queen of France.

That thirst for knowledge quickly became a passion... It never left me!