Germaine de Staël’s Réflexions sur le procès de la reine : An act of compassion?
In the foreword to the Mercure de France edition of Réflexions sur le procès de la reine, (1996 [1820, 1793]), Chantal Thomas, French historian and writer, writes that this apology in favour of Marie-Antoinette did not help the queen nor the author herself; on the contrary it only made the latter more unpopular. So why did Germaine de Staël write it? Mme de Staël and Marie-Antoinette did not share
