On 14 July 1789, Queen Marie Antoinette and her court spend a pleasant evening in the Great Hall of Versailles, completely unaware that the events of the next few hours will change their lives and their country for ever. Agathe-Sidonie Laborde is the Queen's reader, and twenty-one years later, an exile in Vienna, she remains haunted by the chaos and fear of those final days at court. Hour by hour, Agathe watchs the tragedy unfold as everything she holds dear is overturned. In the midst of this chaos, the Queen remains an enigma, adored and reviled in equal measure by those to whom she must now turn for help.