The novel is written in the form of a confessional diary of the French queen Marie Antoinette, who spent a year in the Bastille awaiting execution. The queen recalls her childhood and youth in Vienna, meetings with the young Mozart, struck by her beauty, she tells the story of her marriage to the heir to the French throne, the future King Louis XVI, describes palace intrigues, lavish balls and tangled love stories. And all this with the sincerity of a man caught in the inexorable shadow of the guillotine.