Beginning ~ on an island

Abundance : A Novel of Marie Antoinette ~ by Sena Jeter Naslund, 2006

Like everyone, I am born naked.

I do not refer to my actual birth, mercifully hidden in the silk folds of memory, but to my birth as a citizen of France — citoyenne, they would say.  Having shed all my clothing, I stand in a room on an island in the middle of the Rhine River — naked.  My bare feet occupy for this moment a spot considered to be neutral between beloved Austria and France.  The sky blue silk of my discarded skirt wreathes my ankles, and I fancy I am standing barefooted in a puddle of pretty water.

As I've already told you, I'm interested in Marie Antoinette.  I think this is a fascinating beginning, that she must be "born again" as a French woman to be acceptable.  I already know she had to change her name from the Austrian Maria Antonia Josepha Johanna to the French Marie Antoinette.  What must it feel like to start all over at age 14?  Hmm, probably pretty much like getting married felt to me when I was 18, though mine was not a political match.  Back in 1959, I didn't know anyone who kept her "maiden" name, so I also went through a name change, when my last name became Jacobs.

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