Eva Stachniak turns her impeccable eye for historical detail to the Palace of Versailles in THE SCHOOL OF MIRRORS, a riveting story of two incredible women living in a tumultuous, dynamic era of revolution.

For the entirety of the reign of King Louis XV, Dominique-Guillaume Lebel, premier valet de chambre du roi, has been charged with securing mistresses and trafficking them to his royal bedroom. With plenty of women eager to spend a night with the King, this should be an easy task. But only Lebel knows what the public must never know: locked in an endless pattern of identical days and strict etiquette, he craves variety. His latest taste is for innocence, girls who are not rouged, saucy or experienced, but still beautiful and willing to please. As such, he employs scouts to keep an eye out for suitable candidates.

When a new “little bird” is needed, Lebel offers to pay her family’s debts, makes an investment in the their business, and promises the girl a good marriage with a decent dowry. It is through one of these scouts that Lebel learns of Veronique Roux, who is 13 years old and “impossibly gauche, lacking in style but with a fetching look of languor and still utterly unspoiled.” And it is through Lebel that Veronique learns the fate of too many women with beautiful faces: to be coveted, used and tossed aside by men.

"THE SCHOOL OF MIRRORS is a scintillating and vibrant addition to literature on the French Revolution, and a reminder that women --- even when silenced and hidden --- have always been brave, powerful and important parts of history."

Veronique already has seen a father and a sister die, watched her mother turn cruel and miserly, and tended to her younger brothers, already granted a freedom she can only dream of. With the arrival of Lebel into her small, tragic life, Veronique enters Deer Park, a house situated in the city of Versailles just close enough to the palace to allow for the quick procurement of “little birds,” but far enough to avoid gossip and unwanted attention. There the girls are overseen by the King’s favorite mistress, Madame de Pompadour; his housekeeper, Madame Bertrand; and an assortment of chambermaids and watchmen who keep the girls safe from prying eyes and men desperate to “poach the King’s game.”

When Veronique arrives at Deer Park, she expects to be kept as a servant, but soon finds herself among the eleves, girls dressed in expensive silks, treated to decadent meals and trained in the arts of womanhood --- namely the art of the courtesan. What follows is every bit as despicable and triggering as you can imagine, but Stachniak focuses not on the depraved actions and tastes of the King, but rather on the small moments of agency the women in his orbit manage to carve out for themselves.

THE SCHOOL OF MIRRORS is divided into two parts. The first follows Veronique’s arrival at Deer Park, her subsequent deflowering by the King (believed by her to be a mere Polish count, despite their clandestine meetings at the palace’s Hall of Mirrors), and the inevitable pregnancy that cuts her childhood short at 14. Cursed by both her beauty and her ambition, Veronique learns too late that rising in the King’s esteem can only lead to an explosive, earth-shattering return to the ground. Rather than being celebrated for bearing the King’s child, Veronique is cast out of Versailles and forced to give up her baby, a daughter named Marie-Louise.

In the book’s second half, we meet a young Marie-Louise, raised comfortably yet never knowing who her parents are. Like her mother, she is ambitious and bright, and soon discovers a predilection for the healing sciences. In a world where women are disregarded as wives and mothers, Marie-Louise forges a path as a midwife, even as the French Revolution takes hold of the country. All the while, her career and life trajectory draw her ever closer to her mother, now married to a wealthy merchant. As tensions brew all over France and a new King, Louis XVI, takes the throne, Stachniak pushes mother and daughter closer and closer until the truth about Marie-Louise’s father is revealed…at the worst possible time to be related to a royal, legitimate or not.

It is no secret that the French Revolution --- and the Palace of Versailles in particular --- was a tumultuous, volatile setting, but never before have I seen the plight of the middle and lower classes so clearly and cleanly described as in THE SCHOOL OF MIRRORS. Too often works of historical fiction set during this time period focus on life in the palace, and while there’s plenty of that here, Stachniak has researched every aspect of Parisian life in the 18th century. She weaves every detail --- from clothing, food and even attitudes of the time --- into gorgeous, shimmering prose with ease, and then elevates these details into stunning, lyrical history by placing women at its forefront.

Though Stachniak never shies away from the darkest details of Veronique’s or Marie-Louise’s lives --- after all, Marie-Louise is the result of human trafficking and child rape --- she is never gratuitous or voyeuristic in her telling, while still unpacking the emotional weight of every traumatic scene. As she makes clear, women have always been at the heart of every political era, movement and uprising. Through the lives of Veronique and Marie-Louise, she reminds us how much women like them had at stake, not to mention how much they had to sacrifice.

The setting and historical context are so beautifully rendered that the characters themselves tend to fall flat. Veronique’s storyline in particular was a bit predictable, and although Marie-Louise’s was much more exciting, I would have loved to see more of her midwifery and life as a young woman. That said, THE SCHOOL OF MIRRORS is a scintillating and vibrant addition to literature on the French Revolution, and a reminder that women --- even when silenced and hidden --- have always been brave, powerful and important parts of history.