69 Quotes by Antonia Fraser

She saw that supreme dignity - and love - lay in tolerance.

Kings who become prisoners are not far from death.

As the Dauphine stepped out of her carriage on to the ceremonial carpet that had been laid down, it was the Duc de Choiseul who was given the privilege of the first salute. Presented with the Duc by Prince Starhemberg, Marie Antoinette exclaimed: 'I shall never forget that you are responsible for my happiness!

Looking without passion is always a good plan where history is concerned. But is it really possible with regard to the career and character of Marie Antoinette?

What was happening was a maniacal assault on the inhabitants of the Paris prisons, with some of the royal family’s most beloved attendants still incarcerated in the La Force. These included the Marquise de Tourzel and Pauline-and that hate figure so often in obscene popular publications, the lesbian paramour of the “Infamous Antoinette”, the Princesse de Lamballe.

Lives in previous centuries for women are largely a matter of class. It would have been fun to have been a rich, privileged woman in the 18th century, but no fun at all to be her maid.

My advantage as a woman and a human being has been in having a mother who believed strongly in women's education. She was an early undergraduate at Oxford, and her own mother was a doctor.

I think mine is the fullest and most plausible account of what went on in Marie Antoinette's life.

After Mary Queen of Scots, I turned to the farthest subject possible: Cromwell.