“I am glad to be Clochette,” I said. “You know that. But I am not one person here and another at home, I am one person only.”
“You are two people, “Thérèse said. “But when I grow you will be one.”
When eleven-year old Isabelle meets Thérèse, the princess and daughter of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette the king and queen of France, she is thrust into a world that will test both her sense of self and sense of righteousness. At home she must work for a living. She is a lacemaker like her mother and grandmother before her, struggling to pay bills and buy bread, afraid of nothing but being able to make enough lace to keep her family from starving. The year is 1788, and while the king and queen and royalty live in luxury and decadence they ignore the rest of the people in the country, like Isabelle’s family, who are starving. When the queen chooses Isabelle to be companion to the queen’s daughter Thérèse, her convictions are put to the test. In the Palace of Versailles Isabelle is never hungry, the dresses made for her are of the finest cloths and she has a new fashionable name. Quickly she begins to fall prey to the self-indulgent life of royalty and starts to distance herself from her family. Clochette, as Isabelle is known in the palace, soon becomes dangerously close to forgetting who she really is.
Inspired by a true friendship, Isabelle and Thérèse are both well-developed believable characters. The way Bradley gives you glimpses of both their lives you can’t help feel for both characters and see their points of view. With the historical picture Bradley paints of the lives of the royal family and the regular citizens of the period you also receive a little bit of an education on the class system and need for equality that sparks the French Revolution. Bradley’s Notes at the end of the book are of special interest and will help clarify some of the events taking place during the time period.
If you would like to read more about the author and her books visit her site at http://www.kimberlybrubakerbradley.com/