Three days before the ancien
regime’s fall, Sidonie Laborde (Léa Seydoux) acts as the personal reader of
Marie-Antoinette (Diane Kruger). Although a servant, her life at Versailles is
comfortable, and offers her intimacy with her beloved Queen. In the following
days she witnesses Versailles’ foundations devoured by the Revolution.
This is a story of the French Revolution, but it does not
focus on violence. It foreshadows death and destruction, of course. The
aristocrats know the populace want their heads, and they fear the Third Estate
may well get their desire. But this death and destruction lays in the future,
beyond the three day scope of this film. At most, violence erupts off-screen.
